April 2008

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On 21 January 2008, Antonio Zazueta, a small-scale fisherman in Bahía de Kino, Sonora, was camping on Isla Tiburon, in the Eastern Midriff Island region of the Gulf of California. As he set up his things he noticed the leg of a dead Brown Pelican on the shore. Dead birds are not uncommon to find on the beach, but Antonio noticed that the leg had an aluminum band on it with numbers. He pulled the band off of the leg and took it with him.

Several weeks later he was participating in a small-scale fisheries conservation workshop hosted by Comunidad y Biodiversidad, A.C. and the University of Arizona. One of the UA representatives was SJV Education and Outreach Coordinator Jennie Duberstein. Antonio knew that Jennie worked with birds, so he brought the band to give to her, along with details about when and where he found it.

Jennie went to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Bird Banding Laboratory’s web site and entered the information about the band. The website said that the band was not found in the database, but within two days Jennie received confirmation from the Lab: the Brown Pelican had been banded on Isla Rasa when it was still a chick in the next, some thirty years earlier, on 21 June 1978, by University of California Davis researcher Dr. Daniel Anderson. The online database only contains information about the past twenty years—this band was just too old to be included! Because the bird had been dead for awhile by the time Antonio found the band, it is difficult to say exactly how long this pelican lived. Brown Pelican life span is approximately 15-25 years, however, so it is a fair guess to say that this was a relatively long-lived bird.

Bird banding is important for studying the movement, survival and behavior of birds. About 60 million birds representing hundreds of species have been banded in North America since 1904. About 4 million bands have been recovered and reported.

Data from banded birds are used in monitoring populations, setting hunting regulations, restoring endangered species, studying effects of environmental contaminants, and addressing such issues as Avian Influenza, bird hazards at airports, and crop depredations.

The North American Bird Banding Program is under the general direction of the U.S. Geological Survey and the Canadian Wildlife Service. Cooperators include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mexico's National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity and Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources, and a wide range of other federal, state and provincial conservation agencies, as well as universities, non-profit organizations, environmental consulting firms, and other private sector businesses. However, the most important partners in this cooperative venture are the people who voluntarily reported a recovered band.

SJV Technical Committee meeting set
The spring meeting of the Sonoran Joint Ventur Technical Committee will take place from 30 April to 2 May in Hermosillo, Sonora, at the Hotel Bugambilia.

The main topic of discussion will include Breeding Bird Surveys in northwest Mexico. Humberto Berlanga (from CONABIO) and Keith Pardieck from the USGS in Patuxent, Maryland, will join us to provide an introduction to, discussion of, and training for Breeding Bird Surveys. All Mexican biologists who are interested in having a BBS route are invited to attend.

Other topics of discussion at the meeting include strategic planning for communications, education, and outreach and how to link objectives from the SJV Conservation Plan to education and outreach efforts, the SJV monitoring rogram, Focus Area updates, and a number of other important presentations and working sessions.

SJV staff will drive down from Tucson on 29 April. The meeting will take place on 30 April and 1 May, with a field trip combined with Breeding Bird Survey training on 2 May. The group will return to Tucson the evening of 2 May.

Please contact Carol Beardmore as soon as possible if you are planning to attend this meeting. We have negotiated a special rate for meeting attendees, so mention that you are with the SJV group when making your reservation.

SJV partner receives $1M for wetlands restoration
California Waterfowl received a $1 million
grant for wetland habitat restoration and improvements in two important areas for wildlife in southern California. Money spent at the San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge’s Sweetwater Marsh in south San Diego Bay, will improve tidal marsh conditions and improve breeding habitat for the federally listed California least tern (endangered), light-footed clapper rail (endangered) and the western snowy plover (threatened). Additional restoration will occur in the San Jacinto Valley on the state owned San Jacinto Wildlife Area and on 3 nearby private properties dedicated to wildlife.

The grant was awarded by the North American Wetlands Conservation Act and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Work on the project will begin in the spring of 2008 and will continue through the end of 2009. Major contributing partners include the state’s Wildlife Conservation Board, California Department of Fish and Game, the Sonoran Joint Venture, US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Port of San Diego and California Waterfowl.
California Waterfowl is a widely respected nonprofit, hunter-supported conservation organization with a mission to conserve the state’s waterfowl, wetlands, and hunting heritage. The association has received numerous awards, including Conservationist of the Year in 2006 from The Wildlife Society. In the last 20 years they’ve restored, protected or enhanced more than 300,000 acres, providing habitat for millions of birds and animals, and introduced more than 250,000 children to the wonders of the great outdoors.

See the full Press Release here.

For more information, please visit www.calwaterfowl.org.

Participant Report: 10th Annual Course-Workshop on the Conservation and Management of Wetlands in Mexico
By Eunice Murúa Figueroa
[Editor's note: The 10th Annual Course-Workshop on the Conservation and Management of Wetlands in Mexico was held from 4-17 February 2008 in the cities of Mazatlán and Culiacán, Sinaloa. Educator Eunice Murúa Figueroa was chosen from a competive pool of applicants to receive a full scholarship from the Sonoran Joint Venture to attend this course. The following essay reports on her experience.]

The principal objective of the course was to build the capacity of people who work in the conservation of wetlands and the species that rely on them by teaching them about the most up-to-date conservation methods. Each day comprised intensive sessions lasting from 9am to 6:30pm every day. Speakers and instructors came from Mexico, the United States, and Canada and included representatives from government agencies, universities, and non-profit institutions. They provided excellent didactic material to improve our understanding of their talks, including a manual for the management and conservation of wetlands, fact sheets, field guides, and more.

In addition to the classroom sessions, the course also included several field trips. Topics included everything from evaluation of wetland health to identification of birds. These field trips were an excellent complement to the classroom work and improved participants’ retention and understanding of the theory they discussed inside.

I am very grateful to the Sonoran Joint Venture for giving me the opportunity to participate in this course. It gave me an excellent panoramic view of what is necessary for the conservation of these ecosystems, which are very important from both the environmental and social points of view.

The information and skills I gained through my participation in this course will be invaluable to me in my work with the Red Juvenil de Promotores Ambientales. We are currently working to develop a small workshop focusing on the evaluation of wetlands in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, focusing on their current state of health and possible ways to undertake restoration efforts where necessary. We are also working with local bird experts to plan a bird identification workshop, where participants will learn about both migratory and resident birds. Finally, on 9 May 2008 we are planning the first International Migratory Bird Day Festival at Estero del Yugo, in Mazatlan, Sinaloa.

For more information about the Red Juvenil de Promotores Ambientales, contact Eunice Murúa Figueroa.

New WHSRN Site in SJV region
The Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) Hemispheric Council voted unanimously at its January 2008 meeting in Nayarit, Mexico, to approve two new WHSRN sites, one of which is in the SJV region: Ensenada de Pabellones in Sinaloa, Mexico. Ensenada de Pabellones is a 45,000-hectare Site of International Importance which hosts more than 300,000 wintering shorebirds representing species such as Western Sandpiper (Calidris mauri), Marbled Godwit (Limosa fedoa), and American Avocet (Recurvirostra americana. It also is part of the Área de Protección de Flora y Fauna “Islas del Golfo de California” [Gulf of California Islands Flora and Fauna Protection Area]. Many thanks to Mexico’s National Commission on Biodiversity (CONABIO) and Pronatura Noroeste for their efforts in conserving and nominating this important place.