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Stephen Brown
Director, Shorebird Conservation Research Program |
“It is a privilege to devote my career to protecting these extraordinary birds and the habitats upon which they depend, and it would not be possible without the equally extraordinary support of Manomet’s members and our international network of colleagues in conservation research and management.”
As Manomet’s Director of Shorebird Research and Conservation, Stephen Brown works on a wide variety of science and policy issues related to protecting this imperiled group of birds that literally cover the globe during their annual migrations. Stephen was the lead author on the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan which brought together wildlife managers and policy makers from all 50 states and several federal agencies, university researchers, and many other conservation groups to develop a coordinated strategy for restoring the declining populations of shorebirds. Stephen has an active research program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where his work helps to determine the impacts that oil development would have on nesting shorebirds, and he has recently completed a study of American Oystercatchers that included a census of the entire Atlantic and Gulf coasts (see www.shorebirdworld.org).
Stephen has been a conservation biologist with Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences since 1998. Growing up on a farm in Vermont catalyzed Stephen’s passion for nature and wilderness conservation. He earned his undergraduate degree from Hampshire College in Environmental Studies, and his Master of Science degree from the University of Michigan studying the Piping Plover. His Ph.D. research in Natural Resources at Cornell University focused on improving habitat for birds through wetland restoration.
Prior to joining Manomet, Stephen was a Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Massachusetts working on wetland conservation, and an Environmental Policy Specialist in Michigan. Stephen has published dozens of articles on wetlands and shorebirds and in scientific journals. He currently serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan Council, and is a member of the Society for Conservation Biology, the Society of Wetland Scientists, and the Waterbird Society. Stephen also supervises the staff working on the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, which is building shorebird conservation capacity and professional relationships with communities throughout the hemisphere.
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Brian Harrington
Senior Scientist, Shorebird Research & Conservation Program |
“Bird populations and wildlife diversity are rapidly declining, most likely a consequence of human population growth and exclusion of wildlife from their places on Earth. Where will it end?”
Manomet Senior Scientist Brian Harrington has been studying the distribution and coastal ecology of shorebirds since 1972, focusing on migration and southern South American wintering areas. Brian, working with hundreds of cooperators, has led research on shorebird use of coastal habitat at migration stopover sites, as well as identifying major migration sites of shorebirds throughout the United States and southern Western Hemisphere nations. Much of his research has focused on the Red Knot, which illustrates many of the conservation issues he has studied. His book, The Flight of the Red Knot, published in 1996, chronicles the migratory flight of the far-flung Red Knots, from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America and back, and has been called “an informative and wonderfully written account of an ornithological marvel.”
Brian is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, and holds an M.A. in zoology from the University of South Florida. He has been lead instructor in numerous Shorebird Management Training Workshops, worked with the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network to develop programs for providing habitats essential to shorebirds, and partnered with the U.S. and Canadian Wildlife Services and the U.S.G.S to examine shorebird population changes in shorebirds over the past two decades. He recently has focused research on growing habitat conflicts between human recreation and shorebird habitat needs in coastal regions.
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