For Immediate Release: December 6, 2007 
Contact: Mel Lloyd BLM 970-244-3097

Mark your calendar for the 108th Annual Christmas Bird Count

MONTROSE, Colo. — The Bureau of Land Management Uncompahgre Field Office (UFO) and Black Canyon Audubon Society are organizing the 2007 Christmas Bird Counts for the tri-community area of Montrose, Delta and Hotchkiss.  The counts will take place on December 15 in Hotchkiss, December 16 in Montrose, and December 22 in Delta.  Local birders and nature enthusiasts will join others across the Western Hemisphere from December 14 to January 5, 2008, to participate in Audubon's century-long wintertime tradition, the annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC).  This year’s counts are expected to exceed the 2,052 individual counts that occurred in 2006 across the Americas, Caribbean, and in the Pacific Islands.  About 70 million birds were tallied by a record 58,000 volunteers last year.

 “Each CBC volunteer observer is an important contributor, helping to shape the overall direction of bird conservation,” Geoff LeBaron, National Audubon's Christmas Bird Count Director said. “Audubon and our partners at Bird Studies Canada, the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, and the Boreal Songbird Initiative rely on data from the CBC database to develop Audubon’s ‘State of the Birds’ report.”  The Audubon’s WatchList, published in last season’s CBC report of American Birds and used to prioritize Audubon's bird conservation work, also depends on the annual CBC. 

“The BLM supports the local Christmas Bird Count because it provides essential data needed for conservation,” BLM Biological Staff Supervisor Missy Siders said. 

The CBC is vital in monitoring the status of resident and migratory birds across the Western Hemisphere, and the data, which are 100 percent volunteer generated, have become a crucial part of the U.S. Government's natural history monitoring database.  Because of this data, scientists, as well as you, can monitor the status of your local birds, discovering whether populations have changed during the last 100 years.

“Our partnership with the Black Canyon Audubon Society complements BLM’s Healthy Lands Initiative, for which public land managers are setting priorities and managing across landscapes to mitigate resource impacts,” Field Manager Barb Sharrow said.  The CBC helps us by telling us how we’re doing in managing for wildlife and riparian habitat.”

The CBC began over a century ago when 27 conservationists in 25 localities, led by scientist and writer Frank Chapman, changed the course of ornithological history.  On Christmas Day in 1900, the small group posed an alternative to the “side hunt,” a Christmas Day activity in which teams competed to see who could shoot the most birds and small mammals.  Instead, Chapman proposed that they identify, count, and record all the birds they saw, founding what is now considered to be the world's most significant and oldest citizen-based conservation effort. 

Those planning to participate in the local counts should meet at 8 a.m. at City Market in Hotchkiss, volunteers in Montrose should meet at 8:30 a.m. in the south City Market parking lot near Java Hut, and Delta-area counters should meet at 7:30 a.m. at City Market.  For more information about CBC participation or to view real-time count results, visit Audubon's website at www.audubon.org/bird/cbc.  For local information on the counts, in Montrose contact George Steele at (970) 327-0262 or gsteele05@centurytel.net, in Delta Jacob Cooper at certhia@bresnan.net, and in Hotchkiss Jason Beason at (970) 527-4625 or jasonbeason@tds.net.

-BLM-