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BRI Webcams Update
What a season! Spring brought a lot of activity to BRI's webcams. Five chicks hatched and fledged on the BRI Finch Cam. One falcon chick fledged on the Peregrine Cam and two eagle chicks are getting ready to do the same on Eagle Cam 2. Two osprey chicks recently hatched on the osprey cam and BRI's Loon Cam, which was installed on April 27th, has a pair consistently at the nest. As always, BRI continues to regularly broadcast video blogs related to the wildlife webcams and our research projects.
Check it out for yourself and be sure to share the experience with your friends and family by following:
Photo: Pegrine falcon pair and chick from the Peregrine Cam
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BRI Education - Something for Everyone
BRI's Education program has been busy this spring. To celebrate the return of loons to Maine lakes, Patrick Keenan has been offering presentations around the state about loon natural history and nesting behavior - educating audiences about the sensitivity of loon nest sites to human disturbance. Elementary age audiences love role-playing as loon scientists and using real data to make observations. See this recent press to learn more.
If you are a teacher or part of a lake association and would like to learn more about BRI visiting your school or group, please e-mail Patrick at
patrick.keenan@briloon.org. |
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BRI Reaches Across the Bering for the Yellow-billed Loon
This summer BRI will expand its collaborative efforts to understand the Yellow-billed Loon (YBLO) by supporting field investigations in far northeastern Russia. In Russia,where the YBLO is listed as a Red Book species, little if any research is being conducted on the Yellow-billed Loon. No ongoing management or conservation measures are in place to protect the species and all of the breeding sites are located outside of protected areas.
To learn more about this bird at risk and BRI's collaborative research program with activity on the North Slope in Alaska, Victoria Island in Canada and Russia, go to:
Yellow-billed Loon
Photo: Mikhail Ettuvgi and Sergey Vartanyan starting a fire in traditional Chukchi fashion -- eastern Chukotka
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Banding, Recovery and a Passion for Loons
We couldn't resist sharing this story and its images from a passionate volunteer on Pleasant Lake in New London, NH. Kittie Wilson, a volunteer for the Loon Preservation Committee - a BRI collaborator - has been following this pair of loons for years. Find out what she discovered through persistence and a passion for this beautiful species.
Pleasant Lake Loons
Photo by Kittie Wilson: Common Loon and chick on Pleasant Lake, NH
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Ospreys as Bioindicators in Casco Bay, Maine
Over the 2009 field season, BRI's Wing Goodale will investigate current levels of nearly 200 contemporary and traditional contaminants in osprey eggs across Casco Bay in Maine. Ospreys are an optimal species to monitor contaminants because they are long-lived fish-eaters that feed at the top of the food chain. As a result, their eggs are reflective of contaminants in the aquatic food web in which they feed. Wing's 2009 field season results will build on his 2008 study that measured PBDEs, PFCs, PCBs, OCs, and mercury in 23 species of Maine birds.
Photo by Chris DeSorbo, osprey in Casco Bay
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Greetings!
We are off and running as a new field season with over 70 studies is under way. Our staff of nearly 50 people is working hard to collect new information across North America, from Maine to Alaska and Colorado to Nova Scotia and Russia. Our interests are many, but all are connected to BRI's underlying mission to assess ecological health through collaborative research, and to use scientific findings to advance environmental awareness and inform decision makers. Much of our work in 2009 is to better understand the potential ecological exposure and effects of environmental contaminants, such as methylmercury and flame retardants, and to measure and monitor how wildlife responds to alternative energy production, such as hydro and wind. The complexities of such studies and associated findings will continue to be distributed through scientific venues, policy workshops and outreach programs, including our popular webcams. Through this newsletter, explore the monitoring networks that BioDiversity Research Institute leads in an attempt to determine ecological changes over space and time. Our long-term monitoring work with the environmental mercury issue now reaches across international boundaries. And, efforts to monitor the international migration of birds and bats are now happening on coastal Maine to better cite future marine-based wind farms.
Please help us to continue this work by considering a tax deductible contribution. Any amount is greatly appreciated and will help to support science and education important to this generation - and many to come.
There are answers for how to live sustainably within our environment - we just need to understand the underlying complexities. - David Evers, Executive Director
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BRI Gears up for a Busy Field Season
 It's that time of year again. Despite the feet of snow still on the ground in March, there was a palpable buzz around BRI's Gorham, ME office as program managers and staff biologists began gearing up for the field season. Now in early June, our staff has tripled in size as seasonal biologists disperse far and wide to meet new colleagues and reconnect with old ones. Together, they will gather data from all over North America as part of the many new and continuing research projects at BRI. Check out where we'll be this season.
BRI 2009 Field Season
Photo: BRI's Rick Gray preparing equipment for diurnal loon capture
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BRI Coordinates Two Major Mercury Monitoring Networks
BRI coordinates two major collaborative mercury monitoring and research programs. The Global Loon Mercury Monitoring Research Cooperative (GLMMR) contributes information to national and global regulatory interests through ongoing monitoring of breeding loons in the U.S. and Canada. The goals of the Terrestrial Ecosystems Research and Assessment (TERRA) Mercury Network are to: 1) Link atmospheric deposition of mercury to a biotic response through concurrent measurements of mercury in multiple media; 2) Evaluate the exposure of biota in locations and ecosystems thought to be most affected by long-distance mercury transport; and 3) Evaluate the exposure of upper trophic level biota that are thought to be most vulnerable to mercury contamination.
For more information about GLMMR, contact David Evers. For more information about TERRA, contact BRI's Kate Williams.
Staff photo: Araneida |
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BRI Launches Maine Biomonitoring and Assessment Network (MBAN)
BRI recently launched a new broad-based study to evaluate poorly understood bird/ bat movement and usage patterns along coastal Maine. Information gained through BRI's MBAN program is important - over the long-term - in understanding changing patterns due to global warming. Of more immediate relevance, is MBAN's role in helping to evaluate the best placement of island community and offshore wind farms. Phase 1 of the project, already underway, comprises of a comprehensive literature review, a ranking of species most at risk, a preliminary map of high bird/bat use areas, and initiation of a long-term field study on the southern tip of Isle au Haut and potentially in Casco Bay.
For more information, go to BRI's web page on coastal wind farm development in Maine and/or check out Wing Goodale's interviews on MPBN's Maine Watch and in the Portland Press Herald.
Staff photo: Ruby-throated humming bird Isle Au Haut, Maine |
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BRI Continues Push for Maine, National and Global Mercury Monitoring Networks
 For several years, BRI has been collaborating with scientists from all over the country to establish regional and national mercury monitoring networks.
In 2007, BRI assisted Maine Senator Collins' and Congressman Allen's offices in drafting and introducing bills to establish a National Mercury Monitoring
Network. If all goes well, these bills will be reintroduced this year in both the house and the senate.
BRI's efforts - and those of other mercury scientists around the globe to create comprehensive mercury monitoring networks - were summarized on June 4, 2009, in an article written for Nature online. The article frames researchers' challenges within the context of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) treaty to control mercury emissions, which negotiators plan to forge by 2013.
Methylmercury
(MeHg) is a known neurotoxin that bioaccumulates and biomagnifies
through aquatic food webs. Elevated MeHg levels in fish have resulted
in extensive fish-consumption advisories for much of the North American
coastline.
To find out more about methylmercury and BRI's efforts, go to:
Mercury and Toxins
Staff photo: bald eagle chicks
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