Late last year, Manomet Shorebird Recovery Program coordinators for the Southern Cone and Northwest Mexico visited sites in California to share lessons and experiences and encourage the nomination of a new WHSRN site at Morro Bay on California’s central coast.

 

Southern Cone Programs Coordinator Diego Luna Quevedo and Northwest Mexico Programs Coordinator Eduardo Palacios attended the annual meeting of CRIMBI, the Copper River International Migratory Bird Initiative, in San Diego.

 

CRIMBI is a network of scientists, land owners, state and federal government agencies and environmental nonprofits that work together to protect migratory bird habitat on the west coast of the Americas, from the north slope of Alaska to Peru.

 

“Conserving shorebirds involves responding to questions that are common at a hemispheric scale,” Luna Quevedo said. “Initiatives like CRIMBI allow us to establish strategic connections with partners and to share experiences and lessons learned between North and South America.”

 

At the meeting, Luna Quevedo gave a presentation on activities at WHSRN sites in the Southern Cone and possible ways for the SRP to connect with CRIMBI. 

 

After the meeting, Luna Quevedo and Palacios joined Luis Fernando Castillo of the WHSRN Hemispheric Council, Catherine Hickey of the U.S. WHSRN Council and Jim Chu of the U.S. Forest Service on a trip to several important shorebird conservation sites in southern and central California.

 

The group visited WHSRN sites Sacramento Valley Wetlands and Ricelands, the Grassland Ecological Area, Elkhorn Slough/Moss Landing and potential site Morro Bay.

 

During the visit, Morro Bay co-managers Audubon California and California State Parks expressed their willingness to nominate the area as a regional WHSRN site.

 

Another of the trip’s highlights was a visit to the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Management Area, where the California Department of Fish and Game leases portions of land to rice growers who employ practices to benefit migratory birds, such as providing shallow water for shorebirds during the fall on fallow fields.

 

– Haley Jordan