Keeping Birds on the Map: Bird Conservation in North America

Birds have been declining since the 1970s. Now scientists, non-governmental organizations and everyday birders are doing everything they can to stabilize and rebound populations across the globe. 

In this episode of “Our Wild Lives,” Katie and Ed are joined by Tammy VerCauteren, Executive Director at Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, and Steve Riley, Chief Conservation Officer at American Bird Conservancy, to catch up on the state of bird conservation today. 

From multi-state collaborations to track birds across the annual migration cycle to backyard birders supporting populations, our guests dive into the opportunities to get involved in bird conservation.

“Our Wild Lives” is The Wildlife Society’s weekly podcast, sharing compelling stories from wildlife professionals doing critical work around the world. Your hosts, Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett, of The Wildlife Society, bring you thought-provoking conversations with leading experts and emerging voices. New episodes are released weekly wherever you get your podcasts.

Further reading:

Bird Conservancy of the Rockies: https://www.birdconservancy.org/

American Bird Conservancy: https://abcbirds.org/

Motus Wildlife Tracking: http://motus.org/

Bird City USA: https://birdcity.org/

Keep Cats Indoors: https://abcbirds.org/solutions/keep-cats-indoors/

Become a member of The Wildlife Society: https://wildlife.org/membership/

Support Wildlife, Invest in Wildlife Professionals: https://wildlife.org/donate/

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Transcript

[00:00:01] Katie Perkins: Nearly one third of North America's birds have vanished since 1970. That's almost 3 billion birds gone. So what happened? And more importantly, what's being done about it today? On this episode, we're joined by two TWS members who've built their careers around those exact questions. Tammy VerCauteren with Bird Conservancy of the Rockies and Steve Riley with American Bird Conservancy.

[00:00:26] Katie Perkins: These two organizations are at the forefront of bird research, monitoring and habitat conservation across North America.

[00:00:34] Katie Perkins: Together, they'll walk us through the science being done in the field, the partnerships being built across public and private lands, and the tools from tiny tags tracking their movements to community science apps that are changing what we know about birds and how we protect them.

[00:00:49] Katie Perkins: Hosted by Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett. This is the Our Wild Lives Podcast, brought to you by The Wildlife Society.

[00:01:07] Ed Arnett: [00:01:00] Katie, we're entering into spring. The days are getting longer, buds are popping on the trees and shrubs and the birds are migrating.

[00:01:14] Ed Arnett: Good sign that spring's coming close. I actually saw my first Robin not quite long ago. And today we're gonna be discussing birds and bird conservation. And uh, Tammy VerCauteren who's the Executive Director of the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies is with us today.

[00:01:29] Ed Arnett: Tammy, welcome. Good to see you and Steve Riley. Steve's a long time friend. He's the Chief Conservation Officer with the American Bird Conservency. So let's just kind of kick it off with collective journeys into the bird world. Um, I know my career early on, I started working on birds when I joined Weyerhaeuser company as a research biologist.

[00:01:50] Ed Arnett: And there really wasn't that much known at that time about, there was in certain places, but in the northwest and managed forest, there wasn't a lot known on [00:02:00] birds. So I started a whole monitoring and research program. That's kind of how I got into it. It fell into my lap. But Tammy, maybe you could start and tell us about your journey and what working with birds and how, what's been like and how you got hooked.

[00:02:13] Tammy VerCauteren: Well, first thanks Ed and Katie for the opportunity to be here. I actually got hooked on birds as a kid. I mean, I grew up in Michigan and I was fortunate to live on some land and be surrounded by state land. So birds piqued my curiosity long, long time, and they kind of followed me and my career. Going to Michigan State and then on to Nebraska for grad school.

[00:02:34] Tammy VerCauteren: And in coming to Nebraska, it was just this opportunity to study a bird. I actually didn't know much about, sandhill cranes and work in a landscape that was predominantly privately owned. So really opened my eyes to the importance of private lands and the need to conserve birds and their habitats. And honestly, conservation organizations to work in partnership with those land stewards so that we could ultimately meet the mutual [00:03:00] goals that benefit people, land and wildlife.

[00:03:03] Ed Arnett: Cranes are one of my favorite species. I was a refuge biologist and literally when they showed up on the refuge, I woke up every morning at crack of dawn to the sound of cranes calling. And yeah, so they're, they hold a special place with me. What, um, what was that like that your study and what was kind of a, maybe a major lesson learned or just something you took away from that experience with cranes?

[00:03:26] Tammy VerCauteren: first of course, recognizing that we're not gonna conserve that species focusing on one place or one life stage of the bird. So we really gotta think about the full annual cycle, where they winter, where they migrate through, and then ultimately where they breed.

[00:03:40] Tammy VerCauteren: And again, that idea that, you know, they're funneling into Nebraska predominantly privately owned landscape, and the need to work with people to conserve these amazing species that grace our skies, that bring economics and opportunity to our communities and our states, and then ultimately an important role in our environment as [00:04:00] well. 

[00:04:00] Katie Perkins: Yeah. Steve, what about you? What was your journey into birds? Where did you really start to see, you know, that you had a real love for birds and conserving birds?

[00:04:09] Steve Riley: Yeah, I grew up in a, a family of hunters and, my father was really interested in duck hunting and was really good at identifying ducks, and I was always impressed with him growing up that he could identify things that, you know, you still couldn't really quite see yet. And not just to species, but you know, which sex they were from very far away. I think one day we were on our way actually dove hunting. And he pointed out a scissortail flycatcher on the wire. And this would've been south of Topeka, Kansas. And just his love for birds not just hunting them, but seeing wildlife kind of infected me. And obviously infected my older brother as well who became a wildlife biologist and is also a member of The Wildlife Society. But that, [00:05:00] that, led me into birds and I ended up going to college at South Dakota State and got my bachelor's and master's degrees there. Ended up working as the state upland game biologist in South Dakota. And that led me into you know, lots of different birds particularly the resident game birds in, in that particular pursuit.

[00:05:22] Steve Riley: So I got very involved with greater prairie chicken, lesser and sharptailed grouse in my work. But think that one of the things that happened in that flip was that I started because of the importance of grassland policy to these birds. I ended up getting involved with the Farm bill. And so my work with policy kind of delves back to those times in the, in the late eighties when the, the current kind of version of the farm bill. That started with the '85 Farm Bill kinda came into existence at that time. [00:06:00] So I got involved with policy and those things kinda became inextricably linked in that if you are working with birds in America, you really need to be focused somewhat on policy because that's where the rules come from and that's where a lot of the money comes from. 

[00:06:18] Katie Perkins: For people who don't know, could you explain a little bit about what the Farm Bill is and how it relates to conservation? Because I think when people hear the term Farm Bill, they don't immediately jump to wildlife.

[00:06:28] Steve Riley: Exactly. The Farm Bill is a big monster and has a bunch of different titles in it, including things like SNAP, which is the food stamps. So people think of the Farm Bill as subsidies for farming, loans for farming, things like that. But Title Two of the Farm Bill uh, is the conservation title, and that title really focuses a lot of attention on how we do conservation with farmers and ranchers. Really that component dates back to the Dust Bowl and people know [00:07:00] about that. And then the creation of the soil conservation service to try to attack the, the problem of soil erosion and a lot of the things go along with that. Well, that created this system that we have now that's very complex that allows us to work with producers to try to solve various conservation issues. From a wildlife standpoint, we right now are investing about $8 billion a year in conservation through the Farm Bill. And a lot of that is valuable to birds, other wildlife. But a lot more of it could be. And so, you know, Tammy and I spend a fair amount of time trying to get changes made to the Farm Bill so that it does better things for birds and we know that if it does better things for birds, it's probably helping the environment more as a whole than targeting this bit or that bit. 

[00:07:56] Ed Arnett: Yeah, there's a strong body of research that demonstrates how [00:08:00] critically important some of those titles are, and programs like the Conservation Reserve Program, vital for lesser prairie chickens, isn't it, Steve? Probably the only reason they're still here. 

[00:08:09] Steve Riley: That it showed us that if you put a lot of grassland back into the landscape, you can have a, notable impact on a species that requires vast acreages of grasslands. And no doubt a lot of the other species that share those grasslands benefited some of which we've documented others, it's only loosely connected, and I know Tammy and the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies has done a fair amount of work on kind of trying to link CRP to its value to other bird species. And some pretty strong evidence that uh, should be fairly intuitive. But if you have grassland birds and you add a lot more grassland, that's gonna help 'em out. But we know it to be true. 

[00:08:53] Tammy VerCauteren: I think it's also important to recognize that the demand for these conservation programs from producers [00:09:00] outpaces the actual funding and ability to get it out on the ground. Basically, for every three requests, only one is funded.

[00:09:07] Tammy VerCauteren: So it's also important to realize how much actually landowners are putting into conservation, but also the absolute demand out there and the opportunities. And then to build on what Steve said around grasslands. Yeah, Bird Conservancy of the Rockies does have a whole science monitoring and evaluation arm that's really trying to look at our conservation investments and what's the best bang for the buck, and how can we ultimately help recover bird populations while also making those grasslands more sustainable and healthy for the people that depend on them for their survival. 

[00:09:40] Steve Riley: That's the key because what we're really trying to do is to protect ranching in many cases, ranching is not the most profitable thing you can do on the land, but it is the most beneficial to keeping that land as we say, grass green side up, and then all of those other [00:10:00] ecosystem services viable.

[00:10:01] Steve Riley: Once you flip it over and plant crops you've changed it forever. And so we're trying to protect those grasslands and do everything we can to improve those grasslands so that the producers can remain viable and hold onto those lands and keep that whole cycle working.

[00:10:18] Ed Arnett: Most ranchers I know will tell you that they grow grass, not livestock. Can't have one without the other. So, Tammy dig in a little deeper into your monitoring programs. 'cause you've got one of the largest ones among the, the bird monitoring programs that are out there. Tell us a little more about your monitoring and research programs.

[00:10:37] Tammy VerCauteren: Thanks, Ed. In 2008, we actually partnered with the US Forest Service and Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and we developed a collaborative bird monitoring effort that would really help with the needs of federal and state agencies and setting their priorities and forming their species of greatest conservation need and their other management indicator species.

[00:10:59] Tammy VerCauteren: And we created [00:11:00] the Integrated Monitoring and Bird Conservation Region program. And now that program conducts about 25,000 surveys annually. It covers the better part of 16 states in the Western US and ultimately it creates seamless monitoring across private and public lands. We have a huge concerted effort to make sure that we are out there and getting access and data from private lands as well. So to date, we've actually conducted over 340,000 point counts and we have over 4 million records of birds representing 444 species. So to give you context, there's about 700 species in North America. So over half of those species are being monitored through this program. 

[00:11:44] Katie Perkins: Wow

[00:11:45] Tammy VerCauteren: Yeah, it's, it's impressive and it's certainly collaborative.

[00:11:48] Tammy VerCauteren: And so that includes 11 state wildlife agencies as partners, 6 federal agencies, 15 other non-governmental organizations and 5 industry [00:12:00] partners. And ultimately the data is helping on status and trends of birds across the Intermountain West and also helping inform conservation decision making. Federal partners are looking at efficient outcome-based monitoring, and this program can really help with that, and it also ensures compliance with environmental regulations. So, like I mentioned before, this is informing species of greatest conservation need. We actually worked quite closely with several partners, including Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and because of this data, they changed their species of greatest conservation need. Also recognizing species that we need more information on. So definitely applied. 

[00:12:39] Ed Arnett: Yeah, that was a really important point that you made on the crane research about understanding the holistic nature of all of their needs across their different ranges, winter range, migration and summer range. But it's really important on all of those different landscapes, whether it's federal, state, or private lands, to get that information. 

[00:12:58] Tammy VerCauteren: Yeah. And um, [00:13:00] another thing just to mention Ed, is so we actually partner with joint ventures with different states and feds, because they want us to not only have that baseline information on how those birds are doing, but then they have specific questions. Steve mentioned, CRP, we've evaluated CRP to show the benefits of grassland birds out there and actually to help inform where future investments could happen. We also are looking at the removal of woody species like trees and shrubs that are changing the dynamics of our grasslands and helping show how that can improve forage health for cattle as well as grassland bird populations, or working on forest management practices to reduce fuel loads and fire threats while also making sure that we are still sustaining those populations of forest birds. So, again, making sure that we're cognizant of what we're doing, we're evaluating how it's working, and we're adapting and adjusting as we needed moving forward. 

[00:13:56] Ed Arnett: You mentioned joint ventures. Maybe let's back up a little bit and one or both of [00:14:00] you explain what the Joint Venture program is 'cause it's really vital, isn't it?

[00:14:04] Steve Riley: The joint ventures really were born out of the North American Water Management Plan and were an attempt early on to create partnerships that really focused resources where they were most needed. And as an example, one of those early joint ventures was the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture. It was really geared towards protecting and restoring wetlands in the Northern Great Plains. It was so successful that a few years after its formation and the, the first few joint ventures, it was adopted to kind of expand beyond waterfowl into all birds. And at that point in time, the effort started expanding, filling in, as we like to say, all the white spaces on the map in North America. At that time we, we began to grow to where we are now, where we have, I believe, 23 joint ventures and they cover the entire continent. So we're looking at birds [00:15:00] and bird conservation, habitat research, the whole integrated approach to creating science, adapting our practices to science and putting actual habitat changes on the ground, other, other kinds of conservation measures to work. American Bird Conservancy during that expansion offered to help expand that. The early joint ventures were all led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and brought in lots of different partners, both from state and federal government, as well as industry and NGOs and landowners.

[00:15:34] Steve Riley: In, in part of the effort of growing that picked up four of the joint ventures as that we administer. So we're deeply involved with the joint ventures. The joint ventures, one other point that's important are funded through the Department of Interior budget. We call it the 1234 fund code. And that allows for for a very, very cheap price we're less than [00:16:00] $20 million a year for those joint ventures to function at a very high level. And each joint venture right now gets at least $500,000 as base funding from that. They magnify the value of that over 30 times. So it, it is very efficient and kind of the granddaddy of all wildlife conservation partnerships. 

[00:16:23] Tammy VerCauteren: Yeah, Ed, it's actually quite timely you just asked that because Steve, were just out in DC talking about and coming as joint venture partners because those 1234 funds obviously need to be appropriated and renewed. And we really wanted to emphasize to our representatives that the reason you have NGOs, federal and state partners and tribal partners in the room is because of this network of joint ventures. The reality is for every dollar that is invested, there's $41 achieved in conservation through the partnership. So it's just a great way to [00:17:00] show how together we do it better. 

[00:17:01] Ed Arnett: Those are really critical statistics to share with representatives that speaks to their language, right? And especially the appropriators. It's that leveraging capability. A couple other points you made earlier, Tammy, is just how this monitoring is actually informing policy. I think that's really an important angle as well. 

[00:17:21] Tammy VerCauteren: One thing I was gonna mention, Ed, is that we also had private landowners there because those private landowners are benefitting from those conservation practices

[00:17:27] Ed Arnett: Yep.

[00:17:29] Tammy VerCauteren: and it's also helping sustain their communities, and those are intricately linked

[00:17:34] Steve Riley: And those private landowners are jewels to us because they are people who in a lot of ways think like us. They care about the land, they care about the wildlife. They have a lifestyle that involves nature. They're not something you can take apart easily. And they tend to be the kind of troubadours in the world of conservation that other landowners will listen to. Professional wildlife [00:18:00] biologists you know, people might suspect that we have a, a vested interest in things. They might not listen to us as well as they would their neighbors. And so it's really vital for us to have those folks come in and talk. They really you know, particularly if we can bring somebody in with a big cowboy hat and a buckle and some boots, they they attract a lot of attention and, and can make points, maybe quicker, um, and sometimes better than we can. 

[00:18:24] Katie Perkins: Yeah, so we talked a lot about Tammy's amazing monitoring program that the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies helps run. Steve, you guys also have a, a different approach to monitoring and tracking birds. Could you tell us a little bit about the Motus Wildlife Tracking System and what American Bird Conservancy is doing in that program area?

[00:18:42] Steve Riley: Yeah, I think first I should say that Motus is far bigger than ABC, and ABC is trying to play a leadership role particularly in the United States. Motus began and its kind of housed out of Canada, but it's been expanding pretty rapidly [00:19:00] across the continent and even into South America. And so it's really important to understand there are lots of partners and they're all playing various roles in that partnership.

[00:19:09] Steve Riley: One of the challenges is that because of the way Motus works, and I'll explain it in a second it requires a lot of towers and a lot of maintenance, and so organizing maintenance and organizing where towers go is important and I know that we're playing a role in that. So Motus I'll just give a little background. Motus is, first of all, it means we're used to a lot of acronyms in, in wildlife management, but Motus is an exception. It actually is a Latin word. It just means movement. One of our biggest issues with with wildlife, particularly migratory birds and other migratory wildlife, is that it's hard to know where they go and especially small ones.

[00:19:51] Steve Riley: And for decades when we've been able to put radios on larger animals. And we've been able to follow them in very [00:20:00] intricate ways and learn about all of the ways they use habitat and how they eat various things that you know, we've just come to know about bigger animals. But we've always been kind of racing with the weight of the transmitter and the, the quicker we're able to get transmitters to be smaller and lighter, the more critters can, you know, can carry them and not be harmed by them 'cause obviously you can only carry so much weight, especially if you're migrating. Well now, we have transmitters that are very small.

[00:20:34] Steve Riley: They're I think as small as 0.14 grams, which I looked it up. And that's about like three drops of water.

[00:20:42] Katie Perkins: Wow.

[00:20:43] Steve Riley: If you think about organisms that might be able to continue to fly with three drops of water on 'em, that gets down to the level where we can put transmitters on very small organisms. And so, 

[00:20:55] Ed Arnett: How long do they last? Because I've got experience tagging bats and it's the same [00:21:00] issue and that was always our limitation, was that weight ratio. So there's been some advancements, but how the, the battery life is the key, right? 

[00:21:08] Steve Riley: Yeah, it's, and I can't really answer that question. Tammy might know, but it, it's.

[00:21:13] Tammy VerCauteren: about a year, Ed. 

[00:21:15] Ed Arnett: Oh really? Wow. That's amazing. Because it was like seven days or so for the smallest bat we were able to tag, it was literally like seven to 10 days. 

[00:21:24] Steve Riley: I think 

[00:21:25] Ed Arnett: major advance. 

[00:21:26] Steve Riley: the trick is that they don't transmit very often and it's a really weak transmission. Some of them are, uh V-H-F and some are U-H-F signals. And of course they're dependent on line of sight. And the way these work is that they send out a ping very infrequently, but while they're migrating, if they pass a tower in line of sight, which is you know, up to like 13 miles is line of sight. Um, and it will pick 'em up and, and just record that [00:22:00] little signal that it, it came by here. And so it requires for us to put towers throughout latitudes and longitudes in a way that organisms are gonna more likely pass those towers. And need to be fairly close together. So we have, in order to be efficient, you know, we put these in places where organisms are gonna be more likely to migrate. There are places where they're gonna be less likely to migrate that maybe we don't need to fill in as quickly, but it requires thousands of towers and that, that's the challenge. But you know, from working with radio telemetry, that beats having to be the tower and carry your receiver around out in the field 

[00:22:40] Ed Arnett: Right. 

[00:22:40] Steve Riley: And try to get close to organism so that you can get a, a mark of where they are. So this has really been a, a, a game changer for us. I think we're learning things that we couldn't otherwise learn about migratory critters. And it's really important for us to be able to find out where they go. You know, we we're [00:23:00] learning a lot about birds that are using that we didn't know they were using before. So it's important. Mm-hmm.

[00:23:06] Tammy VerCauteren: So Bird Conservancy has also been working and coordinating in the central grasslands region in particular. Obviously communicating and partnering with American Bird Conservancy and Smithsonian. But we've put out over a hundred towers now 'cause this was a huge knowledge gap and there weren't many towers here. And what we've seen is. We've put out about 500 tags, so we've got some in partnership with more local studies, but also 450 are grassland birds, as you know from the State of the Birds report that grassland birds are experiencing our steepest declines, and we're really trying to understand what's happening in between the wintering grounds and the breeding grounds. How are they using these landscapes so we can better inform conservation and address some of those limiting factors? I also wanna acknowledge that this is also a huge human opportunity in collaboration with [00:24:00] Smithsonian. There's the infamous Springs Pick BIP that was captured up on a rancher stewardship alliance property in Montana, and then it was pinged on one of our board members who's a rancher in Mexico, Alejandro Carrero, and then pinged back up across the landscape. And at the Grasslands Conference 

[00:24:18] Ed Arnett: Wow.

[00:24:18] Tammy VerCauteren: Last year, we had landowners communicating with each other between Mexico, Nebraska, and Montana about the shared responsibility and stewardship need of this grassland bird. So It also brings in that idea that these birds wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that collaborative network of people stewarding the land and ensuring that those birds can return every year.

[00:24:41] Katie Perkins: Yeah, I think that knowledge that this is able to give us, just that knowledge is power and understanding and connect us. And I love that story that you just told of, you know, these landowners from very different walks of life are now concerned about, Hey, this one bird went through your property and he came through my property too, and, and how can we work together to [00:25:00] ensure that this bird and all the other ones like it have a place throughout their full annual cycle like you were talking about. And I think, this knowledge is just really awesome that we're able to start filling these gaps in what we understand. 

[00:25:11] Ed Arnett: Well, speaking of knowledge, um, maybe both of you could explain your relationship with kind of the birding world. There's the trained scientist, wildlife biologist, and then they're just the average member of the public that are birders. They just love birding for a hobby. How important are those participants in, in birding from a monitoring perspective, things like breeding bird survey, and other, other endeavors, and can they really make a difference, those backyard birders and, and hobbyists?

[00:25:42] Steve Riley: Well, I I think that, you know, Bird Conservancy of the Rockies and American Bird Conservancy were born out of the world of birders. People who their favorite thing to do is to go out and watch birds, count birds, uh, make lists of birds. You know, I think they're a little [00:26:00] bit like baseball card collectors, you know, except for they're just keeping their lists and they have, you know, they're pretty infectious and there are, are, you know, depending on how you define a birder? They're one of the largest kind of groupings of people you can find out there. Um, most people like birds and I always try to tell people who say they're not birders, that if they can identify 10 birds, then they're a birder by default so that they can't wiggle out of it.

[00:26:27] Ed Arnett: It's a good metric. I like that. 

[00:26:28] Steve Riley: Most people can identify 10 birds, even if they don't they can

[00:26:31] Ed Arnett: Yeah. 

[00:26:32] Steve Riley: It is pretty easy to ask them a few questions and get 'em to 10. There are great opportunities to expand this kind of, pastime, if you will. Right now we have some incredible tools like eBird which is a great way for people to interact with the rest of the world. When we're out birding, we can do an eBird list.

[00:26:54] Steve Riley: EBird is basically an app on your phone that allows you to [00:27:00] collect a list of the birds that you see in a given outing. But what it does is it populates a huge database of, of those bird sightings that everyone completes. And the database then allows us to learn a lot about what birds are out there, where they are, when they move? We learn a lot about, you know, when birds first migrate into an area because of when people first start seeing them. This time of the year, you know, we're, we look forward to new birds showing up when we're out birding. But that all populates this enormous database that then gets fed into a whole bunch of different scientific applications where we're trying to just learn about the birds and the habitats they're using. There are other tools out there. I'm pretty hard of hearing. Uh, another app that you can get on your, put on your phone that was developed by Cornell is called Merlin. And Merlin allows you to [00:28:00] just open your phone up, turn it on, and your phone's microphone will pick up bird sounds and then run it through an algorithm.

[00:28:08] Steve Riley: And it does a pretty good job of telling you what birds are out there. It's kind of fun to just go sit on your deck and have a cup of coffee and set the phone out and watch the list populate, and then you can look around for the birds, even if you don't hear well like me. But those kind of things are really vital.

[00:28:25] Steve Riley: I think just being involved in birding and using an app like eBird can really help us. And you can dial things up a bit if you go to doing actual bird surveys. And I think I'll turn it over to Tammy for that. There are some great avenues for folks to get involved there.

[00:28:44] Tammy VerCauteren: Certainly the community science, the efforts of eBird, that knowledge being rolled up into bigger data sets, I think is outstanding. And then adding to that is the idea that everybody can contribute to bird conservation. And many of us have community science [00:29:00] programs that are more local in nature, from bald eagle watch here in Colorado to eastern screech owls, to even having people put out nest boxes to invite an eastern screech owl to their backyard. And that data that we collect, we have hundreds of volunteers collecting information on bald eagles. We then feed that to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, so it helps them understand. How the birds are doing in the state, where the active nests are, which help them with their permitting process. The owl monitoring that we've been doing along the Poudre river is informing the city of Fort Collins natural areas and how they steward and manage the river and the open spaces nearby. And then we also really wanna get people out there, get your hands dirty. Dig in. Let's help restore some of that habitat.

[00:29:45] Tammy VerCauteren: Plant some native shrubs and trees along the river for screech owls and other migratory birds. And what's also fun is, um, just thinking outside the box and thinking about ways to work with different partners. We're working with Wild Birds Unlimited in Fort Collins and [00:30:00] Longmont, and we said, Hey, we're in a grassland environment.

[00:30:03] Tammy VerCauteren: Let's get people more engaged and aware of grasslands. And now let's make these little native seed packets available so people can plant a native grassland. Just a few plants in your own backyard invites a migratory bird to stop by, to get a little fuel and rest, and to maybe stay and nest or to move on.

[00:30:19] Tammy VerCauteren: So those simple actions, those local actions can add up and make a big difference. 

[00:30:25] Steve Riley: Think it's really important when you get people involved with wildlife, um, you know, they, they say you know, you're probably not gonna take care of anything that you don't love. And if you don't know about it, you're not gonna love it. And and then it's gonna go away. So the more we can get people to really fall in love with the outdoors through birds, the better off our ecosystem is gonna be because people are out there caring for it.

[00:30:50] Steve Riley: And of course when people try to figure out what they can do, 'cause I think a lot of times people maybe feel helpless to do something good. There are lots of ways to get [00:31:00] involved and some of that might involve rolling up your sleeves like, Tammy mentioned. Maybe through using eBird, doing other kinds of bird survey work. There's also the opportunity to donate resources to organizations like Bird Conservancy of the Rockies or American Bird Conservancy to help us. And, you know, we get involved in the policy arena and getting people to join us in that work. Where maybe we have a call for people to take action and they can, with American Bird Conservancy, they can become a part of a community of people who take action. And so we may request for folks to join us in contacting members of Congress or their state legislature to voice their opinion about needed changes. So, there's lots of ways to get involved and, you know, I, almost want to dare people to do a little bit of birding and [00:32:00] not get hooked on it.

[00:32:00] Ed Arnett: I think most people would lose. 

[00:32:04] Tammy VerCauteren: I was just. I'm gonna add to that Ed and Katie, that, um, Bird Conservancy does have a network of educators in Colorado and Nebraska, and the idea is to create that spark early and get people of all ages, but particularly our youth outside. If you think about birds, you can find them from downtown Denver to the rural parts of our country. So let's use them as an engagement and an opportunity to really get people curious, inspired, connecting with their place, and then learning about how they can contribute, how they can be good stewards and be future scientists, conservationists. We reach about 40,000 people a year. We have bird banding stations, which help fill knowledge gaps on birds and longevity records, and another way to look at connectivity, but it's also a once in a lifetime opportunity for people to see a wild bird in the hand and learn about its adaptations and where it's coming from, where it's going [00:33:00] to, and the importance of those local habitats.

[00:33:02] Tammy VerCauteren: We do field trips and we also have seen many of our really enthusiastic youth that have come out and literally banded for years, go on to Cornell, to go on to be future scientists, or we've seen people come out in our rural communities, meet with our wildlife habitat biologists become future technicians and future biologists in their community.

[00:33:25] Tammy VerCauteren: So it's really great to make that investment early and to inspire those people on their careers. 

[00:33:31] Ed Arnett: That's an amazing program because I, I don't have the source statistics right in front of me, but getting people young, young, young, early into the game. Live birds key. I mean, I remember when I used to take live bats to talk to kids in schools and stuff. They were, they were not very excited until I pulled that bat out right. That really gets 'em lit up. But you've set the stage now for the future, whether they're just [00:34:00] citizen conservationists or become professionals. I know I got the early hook to be a biologist early on, so that's a fantastic program. Steve, what's ABC doing with the younger generations? 

[00:34:12] Steve Riley: One of the things that I wanted to throw out is, and, and again, ABC does things through partnerships, and there's a lot of people working on this, but been kind of an emerging effort that I think most people are probably familiar with Tree City, USA and cities can join up as a a Tree City. Well, there's now a kind of a of organization of organizations that's forming that's called Bird City. And it ABC's taken a, a leadership role in that to try to help foster it. And so the way it works is states or provinces throughout North and South America can adopt the kind of the process that is being used so that they all are using the same website system portal as [00:35:00] well as the same framework for engaging people in in bird conservation and bird activities. And once a state is in Colorado, for instance, has created a bird city network. Now in Colorado, cities can choose to join that, and as a part of that, they get their own web portal that has a bunch of different things that they can kind of select from, like a menu to work on and keep track of their work.

[00:35:29] Steve Riley: So if they want to really focus on bringing youth into birding and maybe having bird viewing sites, there's a way to do that and they can collaborate with the rest of the network on how to best do that. If they want to get involved with local policy to maybe change ordinances there will be model language for ordinances that maybe work to keep, you know, cats indoors, for instance, like we keep dogs indoors because cats that are [00:36:00] outdoors tend to kill a lot of birds.

[00:36:01] Steve Riley: And so if they want to grab that, there will be kind of a framework for them to do that. But the, the more it grows, the more of a framework they'll be and the more help there will be out there. So ABC is really kind of taken the role of now managing that website for the, the rest of the folks and creating a system through which you can kind of join at the state level or provincial level. And then the states kind of take over at that point and build their own network within the state. So I think it offers a lot of promise for kind of bringing people together, coalescing people, and getting people to focus on maybe the most important things by providing examples of that. 

[00:36:48] Ed Arnett: Incredible programs, both of you. That's, that's amazing.

[00:36:51] Katie Perkins: Yeah, so I know lots of people have special connections to very specific birds. I was wondering if maybe you two could both share a bird species that really [00:37:00] touches on your heart, really changed your life. Maybe it's ones that you've worked with or ones that you know was like a lifetimer for you. Are there any specific species that really hold your heart?

[00:37:08] Tammy VerCauteren: Honestly, it changed throughout my life. So as a kid growing up in northern Michigan, it was the ovenbird with the teacher, teacher, teacher echoing across the forest and then the cardinal in the backyard. And then, you know, I went from a small town in Michigan to Michigan State University from my undergraduate, so.

[00:37:25] Tammy VerCauteren: The university was bigger than the town I grew up with, but the woodlots had cardinals, so I still had a sense of home and place when I was there. And then honestly, it was the sandhill cranes. As I came to Nebraska, it really allowed me to focus on birds and open the door to my future at Bird Conservancy of the Rockies.

[00:37:44] Tammy VerCauteren: And then it was the lark bunting that just opened my eyes and my heart to the grassland. So those were mine. 

[00:37:51] Steve Riley: I mentioned earlier that you know, I kind of, uh, got amazed with waterfowl and then I, my story about the scissortail [00:38:00] flycatcher, but there were. But there were of course, yard birds are very important and things like the cardinal were out there and obvious and uh, colorful and bright, and they draw your attention. Through time, you know, I, I as a hunter got really intrigued with ring neck pheasants which some people might say, you know, well, that's an exotic bird. Yes it is. But I, they're still very gaudy and beautiful and, 

[00:38:25] Ed Arnett: Hmm.

[00:38:26] Steve Riley: And kind of insane when you see them up close. And I've had a great opportunity to be around those. They drew me into, as I mentioned before, the prairie grouse, like the greater prairie chicken, sharp tail grouse, lesser prairie chicken. and I have a deep love and appreciation for those species and, and their place in the environment. But as I kind of opened up my world into the broader world of birding, it's kind of gone crazy.

[00:38:53] Steve Riley: And now I'm kind of intrigued by the three species of [00:39:00] kingfishers that we have in North America. And I just they are a very intriguing bird, uh, watching them, hearing them and just kind of contemplating the way they live within holes in the banks of rivers or whatever. And, and being a fish predator if they, it's, it's fun watching them.

[00:39:21] Steve Riley: Um, I just enjoy it. 

[00:39:23] Katie Perkins: Yeah.

[00:39:24] Ed Arnett: I really like the cardinal theme here for all of you, and if you'd asked me that question, Katie, I'd say. Cardinal a kid growing up in South Central Illinois, but it's also the mascot of my favorite baseball team, St. Louis Cardinal. So I appreciate that theme. So what's your favorite bird? Katie, do you have one?

[00:39:40] Katie Perkins: I have such a special place in my heart for road runners as a, you know, native Texan. I just, I, I love 'em. So every time I see a road runner, I just get so excited. so if someone listening to this podcast today wants to do three things to help birds in their everyday lives, what tips would you give them?

[00:39:58] Tammy VerCauteren: I would always [00:40:00] encourage plant, at least one native species in your yard, your community garden, or at your school. During migration, which we're starting, and think about spring and fall. Turn off extra lights. Don't disorient the birds or distract them. Be mindful of your homes and the reflections of your windows and minimize collisions by breaking up that reflection through tape or other tools. And If you have a cat, keep it safe, keep it healthy, keep it indoors. 

[00:40:27] Steve Riley: They're all great. I think on my side of things, the first thing is to, you you know, get a pair of binoculars and get out there. Learn about birds, care about birds, and then start taking people with you so that you can bring people into it. We just need more people to care and take action. Like Tammy said, I think we all have yards and we tend to do awful things with our yards that are bad for the environment and not good for birds. And exotic plants tend to be [00:41:00] problematic. Focus on natives uh, focus on diversity and you know, look at the habitats that are still native and functioning near where you live. And think about that as being what should be a part of your yard so that the birds will use it. Not necessarily what your neighbor has planted, but what, what was there to begin with? I, I have a challenge. I live in a place that's almost all corn and bean fields now, but it was tall grass prairie before that. And so trying, I mean, people don't even know that if you ask people who live here, what, what would've been here before people settled. They have all kinds of wild ideas about what that might have been, but almost nobody will tell you tallgrass prairie.

[00:41:45] Ed Arnett: I didn't hear anything on uh, feeding uh, bird feeders and such. Any tips on that or pros, cons? What are your thoughts on people feeding birds?

[00:41:54] Tammy VerCauteren: We partner with Wild Birds Unlimited. People have a strong passion for feeding [00:42:00] birds and, you know, just be responsible in terms of keeping your feeders clean. Like I said, if there's outdoor cats, you certainly do not wanna be feeding birds. So I add it to my yard. I figure it's a nice way to create a little extra fuel for birds coming through.

[00:42:14] Tammy VerCauteren: And it's a great opportunity to see the birds, um, in your own backyards a little closer. Again, just, just be responsible. Do it well and make sure you're using good sources of seed. 

[00:42:26] Ed Arnett: Good tips. 

[00:42:27] Steve Riley: I will just add to that one of the things we see a lot of is people cussing bird predators, like, like a sharp-shinned hawk that they hate them because they come into the bird feeder and eat the birds. And I just, I mean, they're, this is part of nature and sharp-shinned hawks are coming to your bird feeder and they're feeding on a little bit different food, but for the most part, you know, they're a part of the system.

[00:42:52] Steve Riley: And if you feel like it's really actually hurting the population, you probably need to adjust how you're placing bird feeders and give [00:43:00] the birds that you're trying to protect, more opportunity to escape' cause it's not easy to catch a bird in flight. So, um, I, I think it's really important for people to understand that predation is a part of the system and, and we shouldn't try to stop that from happening or chase the sharp-shins away or whatever. 

[00:43:19] Tammy VerCauteren: Just recognizing that, you know, the human footprint continues to expand. It's a way to soften that footprint, to recognize that habitat is a limiting factor. And if we can do a little extra in our own yard through some feeding, through native plants, then we can give those birds a little extra boost. 

[00:43:37] Ed Arnett: Yeah, they're pretty darn adaptable in, in urban environments. So, okay, both of you finish this sentence the world would be a different place without birds because 

[00:43:49] Tammy VerCauteren: We wouldn't have the spring chorus to ignite our backyards and our communities, the pollinators and seed dispersers to help with germination and restoration, and the [00:44:00] draw and the call to go explore our outdoors. 

[00:44:02] Ed Arnett: A good one, Steve, 

[00:44:03] Steve Riley: Yeah, the world would be a different place without birds because we would have a really crummy environment to live in. If the birds can't live there, we probably don't want to be there either. 

[00:44:15] Ed Arnett: I, um, recall the Cornell Lab issued a report in 2019 that was a pretty depressing long term demonstration of the loss of birds. It was nearly 3 billion between 1970 and over 50 years. So, that's pretty striking. What gives you guys hope right now for bird conservation, given the reported estimates and what you suggested, Tammy, is that grassland birds are most declining. In fact, all most birds are declining, with the exception of waterfowl and some shorebird species 'cause of wetland conservation. 

[00:44:50] Tammy VerCauteren: I can dive a little bit in on that. People ultimately are part of the solution and with motivation, knowledge, and desire, they can make a positive difference [00:45:00] and we can do anything. So, like you said, Ed, with investments in programs like the North American Waterfall Conservation Act, we actually helped reverse declining trends for waterfowl. With policy changes, we banned toxic substances like DDT, which affected humans, but it also affected raptors, including eagles and peregrines. And now those species are thriving and doing a lot better because we made a commitment and we changed what we were doing. So ultimately, when we come together for common causes, we can then change that narrative from declining and degraded to thriving and full of possibilities.

[00:45:35] Tammy VerCauteren: And Steve touched on this. One in three Americans consider themselves birders. That's a hundred million people. about if everyone gave a dollar to support bird conservation and lifted their voices together to make the future of bird populations across North America sustainable. The next generation ultimately gives me hope.

[00:45:58] Tammy VerCauteren: The Wildlife [00:46:00] Society, your members, the work with young professionals, the collective work of all of us to inspire future scientists and conservationists. There's big minds out there, there's innovation, there's passion, and I'm confident that this next generation is gonna make positive change. 

[00:46:16] Steve Riley: I think Tammy did a wonderful job of, of explaining that. To me, it comes down to, you know, the old adage that none of us are as smart as all of us. And I think in the case of birds, none of us are as powerful as all of us. And the more we bring people together around the common cause of providing habitat for birds. The more the world is gonna be a better place. It may sound a little trite, but birds occupy all habitats including air. Uh, a lot of times we don't think about that, but bird habitat includes the air and the oceans. And wherever people are, there are birds and wherever people care about birds enough to try to keep 'em around. There's hope for the [00:47:00] birds and for the rest of us. 

[00:47:01] Katie Perkins: Awesome.

[00:47:02] Ed Arnett: Well, I really appreciate both of you being here. Thanks for all you do with your organizations, but also with The Wildlife Society. Really appreciate your membership and all you're doing for birds and bird conservation. 

[00:47:14] Tammy VerCauteren: Thank you. Ed and Katie, 

[00:47:16] Steve Riley: Yeah. Thanks