Last spring Audubon announced the the Migratory Bird Initiative to secure the future of migratory birds in the Western Hemisphere by reducing direct threats and protecting key places across the Americas in coordination with science, conservation and policy partners.
Banding Piping Plovers in the Bahamas: Camilla Cerea/Audubon
A Motus Wildlife Tracking tower in the Bahamas will help scientists to discover the migration habits of Piping Plovers . Camilla Cerea/Audubon
The Initiative brings together the latest spatial information on species distributions and movements across their annual cycles to identify priority areas for 458 species of migratory birds that regularly occur in the United States and Canada. Audubon will use this information to define where and how to focus Audubon’s conservation investments in order to protect, restore and manage key habitat and also mitigate threats along full migratory pathways for these species.
In conjunction with the Bird Migration Initiative, Audubon just launched the Bird Migration Explorer, an online platform through which visitors can learn about the full annual cycle for 458 species of migratory birds that regularly breed in the United States and Canada and use areas in Latin America and the Caribbean during other times of the year.
The maps are based on millions of tracking records from hundreds of researchers across many organizations and working throughout the Western Hemisphere.
With the Bird Migration Explorer, you can take a closer look at your favorite bird as it completes its annual migration using the Species Migration maps, discover which migratory birds use a given location and how they connect it to other places across the Western Hemisphere on the Locations maps, and learn about many of the challenges migratory birds face during the year with the Conservation Challenges maps.
Audubon Outreach Biologist Chad Witko will describe the work that he and other Audubon staff are doing in the area of migratory bird science. He will outline the goals of the Migratory Bird Initiative and give a demonstration of the features of the Migratory Bird Explorer.
Contacting and collaborating with researchers and data-holders across the Western Hemisphere, Chad works to secure spatial data and build relationships central to the success of the Migratory Bird Initiative. He also writes summaries, species accounts, and other communication pieces for outreach around the topic of migratory birds.