Updates

The Night Shift
by Bob Benson, Bat Conservation International

"There - I see them," I said to my colleagues as I peered through the night-vision scope. Hovering like little helicopters in the light of the moon were several lesser long-nosed bats (Leptonycteris curasoae), the endangered species that for years I had been hoping to view.

Similar in eating habits to hummingbirds, these diminutive bats were feasting on the nectar of the Arizona desert's night-blooming flowers, transferring pollen, effecting cross-pollenation. As I watched their acrobatics, I reflected on how few people are aware of the important role bats play in maintaining the health of our deserts, forests, grasslands, and wetlands.

As the bats danced about delicate blooms, I had no doubt that the same people who enjoy watching a hummingbird feed on a trumpet vine bloom, or a swallow swoop over a wetland, or a flock of waterfowl drop their wings as they descend into a bottomland hardwood forest at dusk would be just as fascinated with bats as with birds if they were properly introduced to these nocturnal creatures.

Bats and birds have some things in common: populations of both are in trouble and both share the same disappearing habitats. Bats are especially susceptible to decline and extinction because they reproduce relatively slowly for mammals of their size, giving birth to only one pup each year.

The status of many bat species has not even been investigated, but in the United States more than half of the species are endangered or their decline is of concern. In Canada, three species are federally listed as vulnerable, and others are listed by provincial agencies as species of concern. In Mexico, 34 species are federally listed as at risk.

Bats are an essential part of a healthy ecosystem. The only mammals capable of true flight, bats help keep insects in check, pollinate flowers, and disperse plant seeds. Yet, despite their importance, bats rank among the continent's least studied wildlife and have long been misunderstood and intensely persecuted by the public.

Modeled after the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and Partners In Flight, a continent-wide initiative has formed to conserve bats and their habitats: the North American Bat Conservation Plan (NABCP, pronounced NAB SIP). Bat Conservation International (BCI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of bat species worldwide, helps to coordinate NABCP.

Through its grant program, NABCP encourages conservation, research, and education. In the past 3 years, it has provided more than $2 million to fund 56 critical bat conservation projects throughout North America. While the NABCP is working on a continental scale to protect bats, you can do something locally.

As you improve your backyard habitats, remember nature's night-shift. You can make a big difference for bats by putting up bat houses. Like birds, bats also need a place to rest. If your project is larger in scale, say, enhancing a wetland, after you install wood duck nest boxes or osprey nesting platforms, you might consider putting up bat houses.

If we all work together, we can keep the skies alive on the day-shift and the night-shift.

For more information, contact Bob Benson, Bat Conservation International, P.O. Box 162603, Austin, Texas 78716-2603, (512) 327-9721, bbenson@batcon.org, or visit website www.batcon.org.

Get Ready for Wetlands Celebrations in 2001
by Leah Graff, Izaak Walton League

The Izaak Walton League of America is heading an exciting effort to protect wetlands by raising public awareness about their uniqueness, beauty, and importance and by promoting local wetland stewardship projects.

The month of May was designated as American Wetlands Month 9 years ago thanks to the efforts of the Terrene Institute, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. Starting this year, the Izaak Walton League will be sponsoring the month-long event and its associated annual activities.

"American Wetlands Month is a wonderful opportunity to conserve wetlands and help educate others about their importance," said Jullie Middleton, director of the League's award-winning Save Our Streams Program. "Wetlands nurture millions of plants and animals, replenish and cleanse the Earth's water supply, and provide sanctuary and serenity for people. Despite these benefits, more than 50 percent of wetlands in the continental United States have been lost."

Through American Wetlands Month, the League will seek to reverse this trend by involving the public in local wetland conservation activities and through education. In the latter vein, the League will host the Communities Working for Wetlands Conference May 16 through 18, 2001, in Orlando, Florida. Attendees will be able to share ideas about wetland education, restoration, conservation, and international concerns. In addition, participants will be celebrating the 10th Anniversary of American Wetlands Month and the 15th Anniversary of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, an international agreement to restore waterfowl populations to levels recorded in the 1970s through wetland habitat protection and restoration.

"There are many ways to acknowledge the need to save our Nation's wetlands, ranging from organizing 1-day neighborhood events with minimal planning to develop long-term habitat conservation projects," said Middleton. "Attending the Orlando conference should be high on your to-do list. It is an opportunity to network with other wetlanders, share ideas, and have some fun celebrating two very important anniversaries."

For more information, contact Leah Graff, Izaak Walton League, Save Our Streams, 707 Conservation Lane, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20878-2983, (800) BUG-IWLA, leah@iwla.org, or visit website www.iwla.org.

Tiny Sandpiper Unites Distant Refuges
by Brian McCaffery, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

At first glance, Aransas National Wildlife Refuge (Aransas) on the Texas Gulf Coast and Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge (Yukon Delta) on the Bering Sea coast of western Alaska seem to have little in common.

Aransas is nearly subtropical, a haven for alligators and armadillos; Yukon Delta is subarctic, home to beluga whales and brown bears. One is renowned for hosting endangered whooping cranes every winter; the other is equally well-known as one of the continent's most important areas for breeding waterfowl. Aransas is "only" 55,000 acres; at nearly 22 million acres, Yukon Delta is the largest refuge in the country.

These differences did not stop a sandpiper weighing just over an ounce from making the 3,700-mile flight between Aransas and Yukon Delta in the spring of 1999, dramatically demonstrating an important biological connection between these two distant refuges.

In April 1999, Brent Ortego of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department banded about 300 western sandpipers on Aransas in an attempt to determine the importance of man-made wetland habitats to migrant shorebirds in Texas.

On April 10, Ortego banded one of those sandpipers with #1541-01664. Three weeks later and thousands of miles to the northwest, Humboldt State University graduate student Dan Ruthrauff traveled to a remote, snow-covered field camp to continue a long-term study of western sandpiper breeding biology on the tundra of Yukon Delta. On June 21, Ruthrauff trapped bird #1541-01644 on her four-egg nest. Nine days later, the eggs hatched and a new generation of sandpipers came into the world.

Finding a Texas-banded western sandpiper on the Yukon Delta was quite a surprise. Radio telemetry has shown that western sandpipers migrating from California, Washington, and south-central Alaska all converge on the Yukon Delta for nesting. After breeding, the sandpipers and their recently fledged young return south along the Pacific Coast, with some banded birds traveling as far south as Panama. Ortego's bird, however, was the first documented connection between the Yukon Delta and a migration site outside of the Pacific Flyway.

Although the timing and routes of western sandpiper migration are well-documented along the Pacific Coast, biologists know very little about the birds' migration from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaskan breeding grounds.

"We really don't know what wetland complexes are important for northbound western sandpipers migrating east of the continental divide. Only through studies such as Brent's can we identify and protect the wetland habitats essential for their successful migration," said Yukon Delta Refuge Manager Mike Rearden.

The journey of sandpiper #1541-01664 demonstrates how diverse refuges can function as a cohesive unit to sustain a variety of natural resources. Rearden noted, "No single refuge can provide for all of the needs of a migratory species like the western sandpiper, but by working together to maintain a system of safe havens across the continent, we can provide important habitat throughout much of the species' annual cycle."

For more information, contact Brian McCaffery, Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, P.O. Box 346, Bethel, Alaska 99559, or call toll free (800) 621-5804, or e-mail brian_mccaffery@fws.gov.

Facilitating Migratory Bird Conservation in Local Communities
by Moreno Padilla, Ian Davidson, Mauricio Cervantes, Wetlands International and, Don Paul, Utah Department of Natural Resources

Utah's Great Salt Lake is one of the continent's most notable staging wetland areas for North American breeding shorebirds. Shorebirds are attracted by the lake's tremendous concentrations of brine shrimp, which at times turn the lake a faded pink color. The lake and adjacent wetlands occupy 3,750 square kilometers. Surveys have revealed 40,000 breeding American avocets and between 5,000 to 10,000 breeding snowy plovers, and over 600,000 migrant Wilson's phalaropes using the lake on a single day.

The conservation of the Great Salt Lake's migrant shorebirds is linked to conservation of wetland habitat sites in Mexico, Canada, and the Americas. To recognize its international importance, the lake was designated a "hemispheric site" of the Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN).

The Linking Communities Project was conceived as a pilot to explore how communities along migratory bird flyways, and more specifically, at WHSRN sites, could work together across international borders to promote bird conservation. With seed funds provided by the North American Free Trade Agreement's Commission for Environmental Cooperation in 1997, the sites of Chaplin Lake in Saskatchewan, Great Salt Lake in Utah, and Marismas Nacionales in Nayarit were symbolically linked because of their importance to American avocets and many other migratory shorebirds. Earlier workshops in Chaplin Lake (hosted by Saskatchewan Wetland Conservation Corporation) and the following year in Marismas Nacionales (coordinated by SEMARNAP and local municipalities) helped foster a greater understanding of shared conservation issues.

In April, the Utah Department of Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with assistance from representatives from local governments and communities, organized the third in a series of meetings, "Linking Communities and Birds Internationally." Participants, who attended earlier workshops in Canada and Mexico, were asked to focus on issues affecting Utah's Great Salt Lake. Site trips and meetings with local representatives introduced participants to issues affecting the lake's integrity, including urban expansion and the resulting freshwater demands. The side-effects of natural-resource use were examined and recognized as a common issue affecting sites in Canada and Mexico. The 2nd Annual Great Salt Lake Bird Festival increased awareness of a site's biological importance and demonstrated how birds can contribute to the local economy.

Even though there were significantly different cultural and economic challenges in each of the countries, by sharing information, resources, and expertise, participants learned that excellent opportunities exist to reach beyond borders to facilitate bird conservation. The Linking Communities Project has demonstrated that local people do care and are willing to invest in bird conservation as long as there are tangible community benefits. Its future success hinges on empowering local communities and strengthening their capacity to implement on-the-ground conservation projects.

Looking ahead, representatives from each site agreed to work within their local communities to define a simple business plan for site-specific activities, which would be used as the basis for defining a joint approach to advance each site's conservation. The lessons and accomplishments of the Linking Communities Project will help guide North American Bird Conservation Initiative efforts to conserve important bird areas across the continent.

For more information, contact Moreno Padilla, Wetlands International, 7 Hinton Avenue North, Suite 200, Ottawa, Ontario K1Y 4P1, (613) 792-1561, mpadilla@whc.org.

Linking Communities Project Partners

Wetlands International
Utah Department of Natural Resources
The Nature Conservancy
North American Fund for Environmental Cooperation
Canadian Wildlife Service
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The Audubon Society
Friends of the Great Salt Lake
Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences
Local municipalities
Individuals and private businesses

WetKit: New Tool for Working with Wetlands in Canada

WetKit is an Internet site featuring practical tools to help Canadians better understand and manage wetlands. The site was developed in response to a growing awareness on the part of Canadians of the importance of wetlands for habitat, water quality, and hydrology and of the need to protect and restore these ecosystems. Specifically, it responds to the hundreds of inquiries received annually by conservation agencies from individuals who seek advice regarding wetlands on their property. WetKit can link a farmer with a guide for keeping cattle out of riparian areas, an environmental assessment practitioner with a method for measuring wetland functions, a mining engineer with information on creating wetlands for wastewater treatment, or a protected-area manager with ideas for creating a wetland interpretation site.

WetKit is more than a catalogue of wetland resources. The site's powerful search engines help users find the best tool for their sector or geographic region. WetKit also identifies tools that can help answer the most common questions about wetlands, such as "Why are wetlands important?" "Where are wetlands located?" "How can wetlands benefit me or my business?" "How can I prevent impacts on wetlands?" and "Where can I get more help?" Most tools in WetKit are on the Internet, so hyperlinks connect users directly to the tool. In other cases, tools can be accessed through an e-mail address or other contact information.

WetKit is a partnership project, made possible by contributions from the North American Wetlands Conservation Council (Canada), Environment Canada (Environmental Assessment Branch, Biodiversity Convention Office, and Canadian Wildlife Service), Natural Resources Canada (Canadian Forest Service), Industry Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and Wildlife Habitat Canada.