Government of Canada Announces Major Funding
for Bird Studies Canada
(l. to r.) Minister John
Baird, BSC President George Finney, & Minister Diane Finley
27
June 2008 – Last weekend, Canada’s Environment Minister
John Baird and Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
and Member of Parliament for Haldimand-Norfolk, made a funding
announcement at Bird Studies Canada’s Port Rowan headquarters.
Environment Canada is investing $677,037 from its grants and
contributions and community action programs into several important
national BSC initiatives. This funding will support the collection
of information on the distribution and status of certain migratory
birds; monitoring programs to measure the health and status of
wetlands, and of birds breeding in northern Canada; waterbird and
beached bird surveys; bird bander training programs; projects to
monitor and protect at-risk species in various parts of Canada and
to promote habitat stewardship; and an assessment of remedial action
progress for the Niagara Area of Concern. For more details,
visit the Environment Canada website.
Support
for BC Breeding Bird Atlas Continues to Grow
24 June 2008 – We have a series
of significant announcements regarding funding support for the
British Columbia Breeding Bird Atlas. Bird Studies Canada has signed
a memorandum of understanding with the BC Ministry of Environment
for the final five years of the project (2009-2013), which includes
an annual contribution of $80,000 to the project (subject to funding
availability). This is in addition to the $140,000 already received
from BC MoE for the project’s first two years (2007-09). Environment
Canada’s Canadian Wildlife Service has committed $50,000 for
2008-09, in addition to the $50,000 already contributed for 2007-08,
and ongoing in-kind support including housing the Atlas Coordination
Office and associated operating costs. Atlas data will provide
important support to conservation planning and policy at both levels
of government.
BSC has been approved to receive a grant of $49,290 from Vancouver
Foundation for the BC Breeding Bird Atlas. As the largest of
Canada’s 160 community foundations,
Vancouver Foundation
has been helping people give back to the communities they care about
since 1943. The BC Hydro-administered
Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife
Compensation Program recently committed $20,000 to the
project, to support atlassing activities in the Columbia River
watershed in southeast BC, and the
BC Waterfowl
Society has contributed $10,000. We gratefully acknowledge
each of these groups for their generous sponsorship. Their support
is key to ensuring the success of this seven-year project to map the
distribution and abundance of birds across BC, and provide a
foundation for conservation. If you would like to help support the
project, please visit the BC
Atlas website.
Migration Monitoring and Important Bird Areas
Receive Support from U.S. Government
19 June 2008 – Bird Studies
Canada is pleased to announce that it has been awarded two grants
totalling US $118,000 from the highly competitive
U.S.
Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act (NMBCA) grant program.
In 2008, a total of 37 grants were awarded to conservation partners
in the western hemisphere – four to Canadian applicants.
The first project, entitled Population Trends of Neotropical
Migrants in Boreal Canada: Year 2, builds on a NMBCA-supported
initiative launched in 2007. The goals of the two-year project are
to address key recommendations on migration monitoring as presented
in various Partners in Flight planning documents, increase the
scientific and conservation value of the Canadian Migration
Monitoring Network-Réseau canadien de surveillance des migrations (CMMN-RCSM),
and refine our knowledge of the state of Neotropical migrant
landbird populations in boreal and northern Canada. A technical
report on the first phase of the project, along with web-based
visualization tools, will be released shortly by the project
partners. The 2008 phase of the project focuses on completing
isotope analysis of a large number of feather samples collected by
CMMN-RCSM stations from a variety of species across Canada. Analysis
of stable isotopes has proven to be very useful for determining the
breeding origins of birds. Results from this research will be used
to link population trend signals of migrants to their probable
regions of origin. The project represents a major collaborative
effort of more than 20 CMMN-RCSM member stations across Canada,
Environment Canada’s Canadian Wildlife Service, the Ontario Ministry
of Natural Resources Terrestrial Assessment Program, Acadia
University, and Bird Studies Canada.
Visit our website
to learn more about migration monitoring in Canada.
The second project, entitled Enhancing Bird Monitoring and
Conservation at Canadian IBAs through Caretaker Networks, aims
to establish and support a pilot network of IBA Caretakers in
British Columbia. With partners BC Nature and Nature Canada, and
input from a variety of stakeholders across the country, the project
will build, test, and refine web-based data management, analysis,
mapping, reporting, and communications tools that are required to
support the pilot Caretaker work in BC and to support the future
development of IBA Caretaker initiatives elsewhere in Canada. The
project will enhance the conservation of migratory birds in a
variety of ways, including 1) fostering a sense of stewardship on
behalf of local Caretakers that will translate into conservation
action on the ground; 2) raising awareness and enthusiasm for the
IBA program, and bird conservation more generally, across the
country; 3) improving the efficiency of data management and
reporting so that conservation issues and opportunities for birds
can be identified at early stages; and 4) providing new information
that can directly influence land management plans and set
conservation priorities. For more information on IBAs in Canada,
select this link.
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