| Radio programs for the week of 6 December 1999 (fe91206 - fe91210) | For more
information: Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary BirdSource - Birding with a Purpose Audubon Online -- National Audubon Society (follow their "Birds and Science" link) |
||
100 years of counting birds I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment. Next weekend starts the 100th annual Christmas Bird Count, where more than 50,000 volunteers will count and record every bird species they encounter. Every state and Canadian province, parts of Central and South America will see teams scouring parts of mapped out circles...(John Bianchee, National Audubon Society) "The circles are 15 miles in diameter. And each team covers a certain chunk of that circle, and basically tries to catalog as many birds as they can within that area that they're assigned." John Bianchee is a spokesman for the National Audubon Society, which conducts the century-old bird count... "Citizen-scientists, if you want to call them that, have really made a great contribution to ornithology, and ornithology tells us a whole lot about the state of the environment. It's a really good opportunity for complete amateurs to assist scientists and to gain a lot of knowledge." Audubon's Christmas bird count provides important information about the environment -- especially in Florida... "It's a good yard-marker to show what our impacts have been on the environment and how the environment is fairing. But Christmas bird count tells us a whole lot about Florida and Florida tells us a whole lot about the rest of the country." For more information visit floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University and funded by the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education. |
|||
 fe91207Counting birds for science I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment. Next week, 50,000 National Audubon Society volunteers will begin the 100th annual Christmas Bird Count. Throughout the US and Canada, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands, citizen-scientists will count and record the species they encounter. Ornithologist Jerry Jackson says the data is a boon (Jerry Jackson, Ph.D., Ornithologist and Whitaker Eminent Scholar, Florida Gulf Coast University). "Christmas bird counts have been very useful for example in demonstrating declines in some populations and recovery of other populations." Now with one century of records, the Christmas bird count provides valuable information to scientists... "The Brown Pelican for example, is a bird that we can use Christmas bird count data to demonstrate that it first of all went down during the era of organo-chlorine pesticides, and that it recovered after those pesticides were banned in 1972." And with all the bird count data on a website at birdsource.org, it's available to virtually anyone... "All of the data for past Christmas bird counts are now available in computer format. So analysis of those data is very easy, and a lot of scientific publications have come out of it." For more information visit floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University and funded by the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education. |
|||
|
fe91208 Opening science for everyone I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment. When the National Audubon Society conducts its 100th annual Christmas Bird Count starting next week, scientists will get data that might show a species in danger, or indicate the return of another. But equally important is the process of getting people to appreciate both birds and the environment in which they live. Andrew Mackie is at Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary (Andrew Mackie, Assistant Manager, Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary) "It gets individuals out in the field, it gets them looking at birds. And it gets them connecting birds and the environment together." Staking out part of a 15 mile circle in mostly undeveloped Collier County takes bird counters to places they'd never otherwise see... "Some of the people who have done this -- not knowing what to expect coming in to it -- have been just totally enthralled about some of the areas they've got to see. Some of the places that are kind of off the beaten path and totally new for them." Bird Counts, like the the Christmas Bird Count, can also build some appreciation of nature in children... "I actually started my birding career doing a Christmas bird count at the age of 11 up in New York state and really got me hooked... I've been doing them ever since." For more information visit floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University and funded by the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education. |
|||
| fe91209 Counting on birds in Florida I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment. When the National Audubon Society's 100th annual Christmas Bird Count starts next week, Florida plays an important role. More than 50,000 volunteers will be counting and recording bird species they spot. And with real snowbirds which have left colder states for a winter in Florida, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary's Andrew Mackie says there's much and many to see... "The people up in Minnesota that go out in 40 below weather and maybe see 50 birds the whole day of five or six different species, are really envious when we go out and see thousands of birds." The National Audubon Society's John Bianchee... "Florida is exceptionally unique among all that places in the country considering that you've got the type of habitat that occurs no place else in the world, really. So Florida's importance as habitat is immense." Ornithologist Jerry Jackson will be taking part in one of Southwest Florida's Christmas bird counts... "Southwest Florida ought to be the Mecca for Christmas bird counts. Although there are a number of northern birds that migrate to Florida for the winter that don't come quite this far south." For more information visit floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University and funded by the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education |
|||
|
fe91210 Counting and counting on birds I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment. More than 50,000 volunteers will help the National Audubon Society as the 100th annual Christmas Bird Count starts next week. And while it's used partly as a way to interest people in birds and their environment, the bird count also provides important data for scientists. Ornithologist Jerry Jackson is at Florida Gulf Coast University... "Christmas bird count data gave us the indication that there were problems with birds such as the Peregrine Falcon and the Brown Pelican, back in the days of organochlorine pesticides." National Audubon Society spokesman John Bianchee points out the same benefits... "Bird counts like this are often the first place people find out about a disaster in the environment or a trend in environmental science." That's because much like a Canary in a Coal mine, the relative health of birds can indicate problems in our environment. "They're the first species to show the effect of some type of environmental impact. And birds basically will show you how your environment is doing: If it is able to support the kind of life it has been able to support over time." For more information visit floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University and funded by the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education. |
