PENSACOLA — With shrinking habitats and other threats, some coastal and migratory birds are declining in population.
Dips for some species, like the common night hawk and Golden-winged and Cerulean warblers, are puzzling scientists, while others race to save the beach-nesting snowy plover from falling victim to Mother Nature’s coastal forces, predators and the public.
Three Gulf Power-supported Power of Flight grants will provide Operation Migration, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and Manomet Inc. researchers the data, tools, strategies and community-based stewardship actions essential to protecting coastal birds.
Researchers will focus on restoring and maintaining the ecology of coastal bird species spanning Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, and gather critical data to better understand how to focus their conservation efforts.
The latest round of grants will build on the success of the Power of Flight program, which, since 2003, restored and enhanced more than 476,000 acres of high-priority habitat for bird species, including the red-cockaded woodpecker, northern bobwhite quail, coastal birds and others.
To date, 88 Power of Flight-supported projects have been implemented across the region served by the Gulf Power and the other Southern Company system’s electric utility subsidiaries.
Operation Migration will conduct monitoring and outreach efforts in support of conserving the critically endangered whooping crane and building a self-sustaining population in the Southeast.
Activities include tracking and monitoring young-of-year cranes following their release, as well as adult cranes in the population during north-south migration flights and spring nesting activities.
The grant also allows conducting web outreach to increase general awareness and provide migration progress updates.
This will be the first time in four years the birds won’t be escorted to St. Marks National Wildlife Preserve near Tallahassee by an ultra light aircraft. For that reason, the Gulf Power service area and west to the Mississippi border and east to the Atlantic coast will be monitored for the migrating birds.
The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute will map the distribution, abundance, timing and habitat affiliations of birds during the spring and fall migrations around the Gulf Coast, including in the Gulf Power service area, using weather radar and citizen-collected data.
Conservation planners and policymakers will use resulting maps as decision-support tools to develop Gulf Power-wide conservation priorities for North America’s migratory birds.
Manomet Inc. will work with federal and state agencies and nongovernmental organizations to develop a framework to achieve long-term conservation and recovery goals for targeted species of coastal waterbirds across the Gulf Coast.
The work will build on the Atlantic Flyway Shorebird Conservation Initiative Business Plan, American Oystercatcher Recovery Business Plan and the recently completed Florida Beach-Nesting Bird Plan. The framework will create strategies with associated actions and costs to guide coastal shorebird and waterbird conservation projects throughout the Gulf Coast region over the next decade.
Audubon Florida is part of the Manomet program.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Gulf Power grants support coastal, migratory bird conservation (VIDEO)