Now more than ever: the need for collaborative applied science for bird conservation

Lowland Farmland Birds III: Delivering Solutions in an Uncertain World. A report on the BOU’s Annual Conference held at the University of Leicester, 31 March–2 April 2009

Riparian corridors in the southwestern deserts are among the most threatened bird habitat types in the United States of America. In the early 1900s, dams were built along the length of the lower Colorado River, the primary water source for the Southwest, to meet the increasing water needs of a rapidly growing human population. These changes altered annual flood regimes and disconnected the river from its historic floodplain, which dramatically reduced riparian corridors and affected the organisms that inhabit them. In this case study, we present an overview of efforts to conserve riparian birds, restore their habitat, and monitor their populations along the Colorado River. The goal of this module is to prepare students to think like a professional conservation practitioner who makes decisions that maximize conservation outcomes in light of limitations in local opportunities, budget, and political will for conservation. It also discusses how to determine effectiveness of conservation action, and manage adaptively to further optimize conservation outcomes as new data become available. It uses avian population data to describe the role of monitoring in assessing conservation needs, assessing the effectiveness of conservation actions, and the unique opportunity bird monitoring lends for citizen science by the birding public in conservation science.

Collaborative research by networks of amateurs has had a major role in ornithology and conservation science and will continue to do so. It has been important in establishing the facts of migration, systematically recording distribution, providing insights into habitat requirements and recording variation in numbers, productivity and survival, thus allowing detailed demographic analyses. The availability of these data has allowed conservation work to be focussed on priority species, habitats and sites and enabled refined monitoring and research programmes aimed at providing the understanding necessary for sound conservation management and for evidence-based government policy. The success of such work depends on the independence of the science from those advocating particular policies in order to ensure that the science is unbiased. Wetland birds are surveyed in much of the world. Most countries also have a ringing scheme. Other forms of collaborative ornithology are strong in North America, Australia and Australasia, more patchily distributed in Asia (but with strong growth in some countries) and even patchier in Africa and South America. Such work is most successful where there is a strong partnership between the amateurs and the professional, based on their complementary roles. The participation of large numbers of volunteers not only enables work to be done that would otherwise be impossible but also facilitates democratic participation in the decisions made by society and builds social capital. The recruitment to and subsequent retention of people in the research networks are important skills. Surveys must be organized in ways that take into account the motives of the participants. It is useful to assess the skills of potential participants and, rather than rejecting those thought not to have adequate skills, to provide training. Special attention needs to be paid to ensuring that instructions are clear, that methods are standardized and that data are gathered in a form that is easily processed. Providing for the continuity of long-term projects is essential. There are advantages to having just one organization running most of the work in each country. Various sorts of organizations are possible: societies governed by their (amateur) members but employing professional staff to organize the work seem to be a particularly successful model. Independence from government and from conservation organizations is desirable.

Colin Bibby (1948–2004) was the quintessential bird conservation biologist. Over his career, he served as lead scientist at two of the world's largest bird conservation organizations, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and BirdLife International. His contributions encompassed detailed autecological studies of rare bird species such as the Dartford Warbler Sylvia undata (e.g. Bibby 1978) and Fuerteventura Stonechat Saxicola dacotiae (e.g. Bibby and Hill 1987), a sweeping synthesis of the techniques of bird conservation science (Bibby et al. 1992, 2000), and pioneering contributions in conservation planning such as the Endemic Bird Areas concept (ICBP 1992).

Beyond Biodiversity Conservation: Why Policy Needs Social Theory, Social Theory Needs Justice, and Justice Needs Policy

Çağan H. Şekercioğlu

Conservation efforts are shaped by individual and collective human behaviors, cultural norms and values, economic pressures, and political and organizational structures. As such, the conservation social sciences—disciplines that draw on social science theories and approaches to improve conservation efforts—can play a vital role in advancing the science and practice of bird conservation. We connect the rich, ongoing discussion about the vital role of the conservation social sciences to the specific context of bird conservation and make an argument for the importance of proactive inclusion of these sciences in ornithological societies. First, we introduce the conservation social sciences and illustrate how they can improve the design and implementation of conservation programs and policies for birds. Drawing on discussions from a symposium we organized at the 2019 American Ornithological Society (AOS) annual meeting, we encourage the AOS to make institutional changes that could further support the inclusion of conservation social sciences. These changes ideally would include a working group, conference plenaries and themes, and high-quality social science publications, along with support and encouragement for ornithologists and bird conservationists to partake in trainings and collaborate with social scientists. Strategies for how to do so effectively can be adapted from other conservation societies that have paved the way for disciplinary inclusivity.

In this chapter, we mainly introduce the wildlife vertebrates and birds conservation and research. China has great habitat and biological diversity; however, many of wildlife are in peril due to habitat loss and over exploitation in the past few decades. Ever since, China had strengthened the protection of wild animals, especially the establishment of nature reserves. Here we take the protection of giant panda, Milu and Przewalski’s wild horse as case studies. For birds, China has extremely rich bird resources, highly endemism, but faces high threaten for endangered species. In addition, the development of molecular biology, bioacoustics, a variety of analytical software, various analytical models, etc, have played an important role in promoting the scientific researches and conservation of birds in China.

Linking science, policy and practice in the conservation of woodland birds in a rural landscape : a case study in the South-West Slopes, New South Wales, Australia

Long before the applications of Science and Technology for conservation of biodiversity and sustainable development became a recognized field of human endeavour, there have been attempts by individuals and institutions who had the commitment and wisdom to begin the effort. The authors have chosen historical incidents tracing the rudiments of the work of Emperor Ashoka, to the Bishnois of Rajasthan, John Muir, a Scottish-born American in USA, Richard St. Barbe Baker and Wangari Maathai in Africa. People such as Chico Mendes lost their life in preventing the destruction of great Amazonian forest and N. I. Vavilov, a Russian geneticist who foresaw the value of collecting large samples of seeds of cultivated plants in seed banks, much against the then prevalent communist doctrine, not believing in the importance of inheritance. The Chipko movement in Garhwal Himalaya started by Gaura devi and other womenfolk supported by Chandi Prasad Bhat and Sunderlal Bahuguna has been briefly traced. References are also made to the work of Jim Corbett and Salim Ali for the conservation of tigers and birds respectively and recounting the enormous movement to save Silent Valley representing tropical evergreen forest in Kerala from being utilized for generating a very small amount of power. The decision taken by Government of India to refuse Vedanta Resources from utilizing the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa for bauxite mining which is considered as an abode of their Niyamraja, worshipped by the Dongaria Kondh tribe consisting of 8,000 people has been hailed by the Indian people as just. Finally attention is drawn to Prof. A. Abraham’s efforts to develop a Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute in Kerala for collection, conservation and sustainable utilization of 800 medicinal plants, orchids, bamboos and other useful tropical plants. A brief note on the intense efforts made by K. S. Manilal in bringing out English and Malayalam Editions of Hortus Malabaricus compiled by Van Rheede in 12 volumes in old Latin between 1678 and 1693 and in publishing the Flora of Silent Valley has been included.

The recognized gap between research and implementation in avian conservation can be overcome with translational ecology, an intentional approach in which science producers and users from multiple disciplines work collaboratively to co-develop and deliver ecological research that addresses management and conservation issues. Avian conservation naturally lends itself to translational ecology because birds are well studied, typically widespread, often exhibit migratory behaviors transcending geopolitical boundaries, and necessitate coordinated conservation efforts to accommodate resource and habitat needs across the full annual cycle. In this perspective, we highlight several case studies from bird conservation practitioners and the ornithological and conservation social sciences exemplifying the 6 core translational ecology principles introduced in previous studies: collaboration, engagement, commitment, communication, process, and decision-framing. We demonstrate that following translational approaches can lead to improved conservation decision-making and delivery of outcomes via co-development of research and products that are accessible to broader audiences and applicable to specific management decisions (e.g., policy briefs and decision-support tools). We also identify key challenges faced during scientific producer–user engagement, potential tactics for overcoming these challenges, and lessons learned for overcoming the research-implementation gap. Finally, we recommend strategies for building a stronger translational ecology culture to further improve the integration of these principles into avian conservation decisions. By embracing translational ecology, avian conservationists and ornithologists can be well positioned to ensure that future management decisions are scientifically informed and that scientific research is sufficiently relevant to managers. Ultimately, such teamwork can help close the research-implementation gap in the conservation sciences during a time when environmental issues are threatening avian communities and their habitats at exceptional rates and at broadening spatial scales worldwide.

Following the second session of the forum, we held a question and answer session facilitated by Paul Willis. The presentations covered by this plenary session were: Back to the future: Aerial surveillance from ‘blimps’ for ecology and conservation (Kye Adams et al. University of Wollongong) Using drones to monitor large and complex breeding bird colonies (Mitchell Lyons, University of NSW) Sniffing solutions to enhance koala conservation (Romane Cristescu et al. University of the Sunshine Coast) Collect, connect, upscale: revolutionising the uptake of citizen science in bird research and conservation (Micha Jackson, University of Queensland).

Migrating birds face an array of challenging conditions and hazards during their annual movements, including novel threats of mortality from anthropogenic structures, such as wind energy turbines and buildings. There is a need for new data sources that can be used to create risk assessments across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, and weather radar data have shown promise in this regard. A primary limitation on the use of weather radar data in macroscale ecology has been the difficulty in data access and processing to make real‐time assessments, and the lack of species‐level information. We compared two weather radar products, LevelIIandUNQC‐CREFthat differ in several aspects. We found the 2DUNQC‐CREFproduct provides similar information to LevelIIdata regarding spatial and temporal patterns of bioscatter, although not without caveats. Due to its rapid availability and ease of use, we combinedUNQC‐CREFdata witheBird daily species counts to quantify autumnal migration along one of North America's major migratory routes. During their autumn migration southward, we predicted birds would use prevailing winds and favorable atmospheric conditions to time their migratory movements. Wind direction and ordinal date were strong predictors as were variables associated with inclement weather, including barometric pressure and ambient temperature. These patterns suggest that at a coarse scale, migratory birds avoid headwinds during their southerly movements during autumn, and more broadly indicate that local weather conditions can be used to predict pulses of migratory activity in the aerosphere. Our results suggest that similar methods could be used to measure the temporal and spatial components of avian migration at greater spatial scales – providing crucial information for conservation and management for migratory faunas. Specifically, future algorithms should focus on real‐time implementation for bird strike mitigation, by altering wind energy facility operation on nights of peak migratory flow, in addition to timing “lights‐out” events to minimize collisions with existing infrastructure such as buildings.

Bridging citizen science and policy for bird conservation in Africa: lessons from the Nigerian bird atlas project

Birds and their habitats are threatened with extinction around the world. Regional assessments of the “State of Birds” are a vital means to prioritize data‐driven conservation action by informing national and global policy. Such evaluations have traditionally relied on data derived from extensive, long‐term, standardized surveys that require significant resources, limiting their feasibility to a few regions in the world. In the absence of such “structured” long‐term datasets, “semi‐structured” datasets have recently emerged as a promising alternative in other regions around the world. Semi‐structured data are generated and uploaded by birdwatchers to citizen science platforms such as eBird. Such data contain inherent biases because birdwatchers are not required to adhere to a fixed protocol. An evaluation of the status of birds from semi‐structured data is therefore a difficult task that requires careful curation of data and the use of robust statistical methods to reduce errors and biases. In this article, we present a methodology that was developed for this purpose and was applied to produce the comprehensive State of India's Birds (SoIB) 2023 report. SoIB 2023 assessed the status of 942 bird species in India by evaluating each species based on three metrics: (1) long‐term change, (2) current annual trend, and (3) distribution range size. We found evidence that 204 species have declined in the long term and that 142 species are in current decline. Birds that have vertebrate or invertebrate diets have declined most rapidly in the long term, whereas those that feed on fruits and nectar have been stable. Birds that require grasslands have declined more rapidly than those that require other habitats, indicating that grasslands are an important ecosystem to prioritize conservation in India. We classify 178 species as high conservation priority and present and discuss important insights about India's birds that can guide research and conservation action in the region. We hope that the detailed methodology described here can act as a blueprint to produce State of Birds assessments from semi‐structured citizen science datasets and springboard conservation action in many other regions where structured data are lacking but strong communities of birdwatchers exist.