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Tennessee warblers have an adventure with our bird technicians.
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CONSERVATION IN ACTION
Migrating birds face adventures both dangerous and delightful on their long journeys. With your help, Paso Pacífico is making a difference in Central America's migratory superhighway. Your donations assist scientific efforts to understand flight patterns and protect essential bird habitat.
In a four-year project, Paso Pacífico has been helping create safe spaces for two endangered subspecies: the southwest willow flycatcher and the western yellow-billed cuckoo (pictured below). Our work focused on the willow flycatcher. This program gradually developed and is also monitoring many migratory birds that North Americans enjoy each summer. Your support has helped reveal critical information, and we are excited to share it with you.
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Left: yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus), photo from the SSRS. Right: willow flycatcher (Empidonax traillii extimus), photo by Orlando Jarquín.
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Thanks to you, our team discovered where willow flycatchers are spending the winter months! Project partner Mary Whitfield (below in front) of the Southern Sierra Research Station (SSRS) led us to find five willow flycatcher sites, three in Nicaragua and two in El Salvador. We now visit these sites monthly during the winter to check the birds' status. Through these visits, we have also learned that individual flycatchers return to the same small patch of habitat each year. Analyzing feather DNA gave us more pivotal information. It turns out that nearly half of the willow flycatchers that visit our sites in Central America are from the endangered southwest subspecies. Only an estimated 1300 breeding pairs exist in this imperiled subspecies, so protecting each bird counts.
In addition, this past season, we were excited to encounter a southwest willow flycatcher first banded in San Diego County in 2017. All these findings illustrate the value of your donations for researching and protecting these imperiled birds.
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Like you, we know that our discoveries are most valuable when translated into conservation action. This year, project partners Lauren Phillips and Tom Albright of the University of Nevada, Reno developed a map that locates potential and preferred habitats for the willow flycatcher throughout Central America. We are now reaching out to the government of El Salvador to plan monitoring and protection efforts at these sites.
At the same time, we are preparing to work with communities to protect these birds. In early March, many rural farmers slash and burn willow flycatcher habitat to prepare fields for planting. This happens just weeks before the birds prepare for the long flight back to North America, and stress from the fires could mean the birds are not strong enough for complete their journey. To help willow flycatchers feed and depart safely, we are now designing incentives to reward farmers for postponing land clearing. Your donations are making this happen.
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In this project, your support also went far beyond the two target species. For example, our technicians manned three overwintering bird banding stations (also known as MoSI stations). We collected biological and morphological data on each bird we captured, carefully placing color-coded bands on the birds for future re-identification. Two of these stations were carried out with the Richland Center - Santa Teresa Sister City Group and the third happened in partnership with Ofelia Gaitan and the Quelantero Private Reserve. These banding stations are part of an international network coordinated by Steve Albert of the Institute for Bird Populations (IBP). Our stations have found that many of our migratory birds overwinter at the same site each year, like the willow flycatcher does. One ovenbird (above right) has checked in with our technicians all four years!
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Working to maximize the impact of your donations, Paso Pacífico has also restored habitat and raised public awareness and appreciation for migratory birds. Your support has helped plant 22,000 native trees in the past three years in partnership with 25 landowners. It has also helped conduct many public birding events, such as Global Big Day and the Christmas Bird Count, and share the love of birds with our Junior Rangers. Paso Pacífico's Mono Bayo Reserve has been an excellent base for these efforts.
This program focused on endangered western birds and was largely funded through a grant made possible by the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act, administered by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. It included contributions from the SSRS and many additional partners, such as Morgan's Rock Hacienda & Ecolodge, the U.S. Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry, the American Bird Conservancy, and the Western Working Group of Partners in Flight. When you give to Paso Pacífico, you help us obtain these grants to make your donations go further for wildlife. Thank you to our donors and all our partners for bringing conservation-critical knowledge to the world.
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From an early age, Oswaldo Saballos learned to love nature while helping on his family's farm outside of Managua, Nicaragua. As a teen, he volunteered as a community tour guide for the Chocoyero Nature Reserve. There, he discovered a passion for birds and began to volunteer for bird research whenever he had the chance. After high school, Oswaldo entered the Universidad Hispanoamericana to study tourism. Around the same time, he began working for us on a range of projects, including long-term willow flycatcher monitoring. The years have 'flown' by and he is now in his fourth year at the university and at Paso Pacífico. We are fortunate to have Oswaldo on our team. He has great bird monitoring skills and is always up for an adventure.
For the next few weeks, Oswaldo is leading field work to monitor migrating raptors. He was close friends with our late colleague Luis Díaz, who was on the raptor team last year, and so he is especially passionate about developing a raptor monitoring station in Luis' memory. Rain or shine, Oswaldo is in the field today at this station's future site to count migrating raptors that Luis and many of you love. Please donate to help him finish the season. If you give, you will get a special note from Oswaldo and his team in your thank you letter. Support Oswaldo's work here today.
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IUCN Netherlands (IUCN-NL) supports nature conservation in the Netherlands and strengthens high-impact conservation efforts globally through funding land purchases and facilitating partnerships with donors and the private sector. We sincerely thank them and congratulate them on their 20th year. Their donation enabled the purchase of our first private reserve, Reserva Mono Bayo, which lays the foundation for future connectivity across the region. Through IUCN-NL's generosity, we have also been able to participate in several partnership meetings and make valuable connections that augment your donations.
We invite you to read about this wonderful organization's global impact in their 20th-anniversary report. Paso Pacífico’s story is featured on page 116. Our team is so thankful for IUCN-NL and senior leader Mark Hoogeslag for all their support. We look forward to future partnerships with IUCN-NL on behalf of wildlife, communities, and donors like you.
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Paso Pacífico is proud to announce that we have joined the Alliance for Zero Extinction. This important alliance unites over 100 conservation organizations around the world with a strong focus on identifying and protecting the last remaining refuges for endangered and critically endangered species. We are proud to work with them and make your donations go further on behalf of wildlife.
The Cosigüina peninsula has the very last cyanoptera macaws on the Pacific coast. With the known five sub-populations worldwide remaining widely separated, these unique macaws needs extraordinary efforts to save them. They need you to help protect them during the upcoming nesting season. Thank you to everyone who has donated to this project so far: your support has already funded two months of work. Please check out our macaw page and make a difference against extinction today.
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Photo by Set Net Comunicaciones
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PARTNERS MAKE IT POSSIBLE
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For our 13th consecutive September, Paso Pacífico has coordinated the International Coastal Cleanup in Central America. With the theme "Fighting for Trash-free Seas," we cleaned and celebrated with diverse partners from the public and private sectors. Over 300 volunteers recovered more than 28,000 pieces of garbage. A highlight was seeing kayakers from Vladimir Kayak & Boats paddle out into Lake Nicaragua and collect trash at the islets of Granada.
We were heartened to see the nationwide interest in cleaning up the waterways. Thank you to our many partners who helped create awareness and energize the public around this worthy goal. There are too many to list here, but these partners include FUNDENIC-SOS, Fundación Uno, the U.S. Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry, CASCO Safety, Set Net Comunicaciones, Rancho Santana, Asociación CAMBIO, the Nicaragua Initiative for Community Advancement, Amigos de la Tierra, Casa Congo, the UNAN-Leon Environmental Education Program, and the Ocean Conservancy. A full list of cleanup partners is at this link. They made a difference.
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Your estate plan could provide both tax savings for you and legacy support for wildlife and communities in Central America. Please contact Executive Director Dr. Sarah Otterstrom at sarah@pasopacifico.org with any questions.
Thank you to Set Net Comunicaciones, USAID, Orlando Jarquín, Mercedes Peñalba, and Paso Pacífico staff members Oswaldo Saballos, Yorlin Vargas, Anna Chévez, and Jarinton García for contributing photos used in this month's newsletter!
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