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Protecting shorebirds in….Kansas?

How WSHRN built full lifecycle conservation for the Buff-breasted Sandpiper When most people think of shorebirds, they envision oceans and mudflats, not the plains and prairies of the American Midwest. But these areas provide a critical habitat for a large number of shorebirds. That’s why this recent news is so exciting: the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) Hemispheric Council voted unanimously to approve the nomination of the Flint Hills, a 3.7-million-acre (1.5-million-hectare) tallgrass prairie landscape spanning Kansas and Oklahoma, as a WHSRN Landscape of Hemispheric Importance. Manomet is a lead partner in WHSRN and implements program strategies and operations under the direction of the WHSRN Hemispheric Council. The Flint Hills represents North America’s last ecologically intact tallgrass prairie at...

Concord Art and Manomet collaborate for April Art Show

This spring Manomet will be collaborating with the Concord Center for Visual Arts—(Concord Art for short)—the second oldest art association in the country, for a special collaboration of science and art.  From April 9–May 9 an art show titled BIRD: Metaphor + Muse curated by Holly Hanson.    A new component of this particular show will be an additional student-curated art show called Solid Air: C-ART Exhibition where students will create works of art using data from Manomet’s Banding Lab. Through the sharing of talents and ideas, C-ART aims to facilitate meaningful connections among student artists, established artists, and art faculty, to develop collaborative exhibitions and art-making, and to enhance the arts programming at each institution while benefiting the broader Concord community. ...

Somebody should have begun the research years ago

One of the best marketing lines I ever heard came from none other than Manomet Bird Observatory (MBO) in 1987. The cover of the MBO brochure read, “To find answers to some of today’s tough conservation questions… somebody should have begun the research years ago.” I thought the next line was brilliant.  It read simply: Somebody did.[1] Although a great marketing pitch for science, it was also a true statement. Too often we wish we had a valid reference point to measure how the natural world has changed. A recent story in the Alabama press reminded me of the genius of MBO’s pitch almost 30 years ago. The article reported that The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a multi-decade funder...

New Team Member for Development Department

Meet Steve Fulmer Manomet's new Director of Individual Giving  (more…)

Flying Forward: Momentum for Shorebird Science Ventures

Ever since an aerial survey in 2013 documented a 10% increase in American Oystercatcher populations over the course of five years— the distinctive shorebird has been a poster child for conservation success.  The quick recovery of the bird was attributed to a broad coalition of partners implementing a business plan for conservation led by Manomet’s American Oystercatcher Recovery Campaign Coordinator Shiloh Schulte.   We are happy to announce that the good work will continue. Last year, Manomet received a new grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to implement our cooperative American Oystercatcher Recovery Program in 2016. This grant is for the conservation and management of coastal habitat designed to recover the population of American Oystercatchers and associated beach-nesting...

Green Infrastructure for a Healthy and Resilient Taunton River Watershed

Healthy, intact natural systems provide multiple benefits to the challenges posed by climate change. For example, forests and wetlands sequester and store carbon dioxide, helping to limit global warming. At the same time, these natural systems also enhance watershed resiliency by protecting biodiversity and limiting water pollution and flooding from heavy precipitation events.   Nature-based approaches to climate change adaptation can provide significant cost savings as compared to gray infrastructure solutions such as engineered flood control structures. This approach to strategic conservation planning, known as green infrastructure, has gained momentum over the last few years because of its lasting economic, social and environmental benefits.   Manomet is working with a consortium of nonprofit and governmental organizations in the Taunton River...

WHSRN Celebrates 30th Anniversary

As some of nature’s most ambitious and amazing long-distance migrants, shorebirds travel thousands of miles over the course of their annual migration and are dependent on a network of key areas in which to rest and “refuel” throughout their lifecycle. In the early 1980s, scientists in the Americas began documenting serious declines in shorebird populations, which led to recognition of the need for a site-specific, hemisphere-scale conservation strategy.   This vision was formalized in 1985 with the creation of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN). WHSRN follows a simple idea: to sustain healthy populations of shorebirds, we must maintain the ecological integrity of the key sites that provide the habitats and nourishment they need for survival.   This year is...

Fostering collaboration and shorebird conservation in the Mississippi Delta

When you think of Mississippi, shorebirds are probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet each year during both fall and spring migrations, over half a million shorebirds rely on the inland wetland habitats found in the Mississippi River Alluvial Valley.   The region historically contained a complex and diverse array of habitats including wetlands, sloughs, oxbows and mudbars that likely supported these birds, but changes to the region’s hydrology through ditching, draining, levees, reservoirs, and channels have altered these systems greatly.     Today there are fewer acres and types of habitats, but managed public and privately-owned lands in the Delta can start to make up the difference by providing important places to rest and refuel that shorebirds require...

Delta Wind Birds Co-Hosts Regional Shorebird Conservation Workshop for Wildlife Biologists and Landowners

This article was originally published by Delta Wind Birds on October 14, 2015. Access the original article here. Managers of public and private lands from six southeastern states gathered this week in Lambert and Isola, Mississippi, for workshops highlighting land management to support migrating ‘shorebirds’ passing through the Delta. Delta Wind Birds, a local nonprofit organization promoting shorebird conservation, partnered with Manomet, a nonprofit focused on bird conservation, education, and business sustainability, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Lower Mississippi Valley Joint Venture, to host the workshop. Shorebirds are a family of birds including sandpipers and plovers, which are often associated with sandy beaches and barrier islands. However, these birds rely on other habitat types, like inland wetlands found...

Bled, scraped and starved to death: Exploding tick numbers threaten this New England beast

This article is written by Darryl Fears was originally published by the Washington Post on October 7, 2015. Read the original article here. Fair warning: What you’re about to read will make your skin crawl. Right now, in the woods of Maine and New Hampshire, tens of millions of winter ticks are pouring out of eggs and climbing up stalks until they reach an ideal peak — about the height of a moose. If a moose happens by — male, female, calf … winter ticks don’t care — they climb aboard. Other types of ticks, such as wood ticks and deer ticks, grab a bite and drop off. Winter ticks are much greedier. They hang on for the entire winter, fattening up on blood until...