10/5/23 (New York) – The National Audubon Society’s Connecticut and New York place of business celebrated the affect of collective motion on chicken conservation at this 12 months’s 2023 Keesee Awards Luncheon. The prestigious Thomas W. Keesee, Jr., Conservation Award acknowledges those that display exceptional management and dedication to protective birds and the puts they want. At this 12 months’s tournament, 3 organizations had been commemorated for their efforts to assist build up the threatened inhabitants of Piping Plovers each in the neighborhood and at a hemispheric degree: Bahamas National Trust, Mass Audubon, and the NYC Plover Project.
“Audubon is proud to honor these conservation champions for coordinating action to reverse Piping Plover declines,” stated Michael Burger, government director of Audubon Connecticut and New York, in his opening remarks. “Through their efforts to engage beachgoers, school-aged youth, policymakers, state and federal agencies, and other environmental organizations, they are proactively building a road to recovery for Piping Plovers before they become federally endangered. Effective conservation of migratory species like Piping Plover requires a specialized approach to each phase of their annual life cycle, which is what these organizations are providing.”
The Piping Plover is a small shorebird that nests without delay within the sand on seashores and offshore islands. Many of its North American nesting spaces are topic to human disturbance or different threats, and it’s now regarded as endangered or threatened in all portions of its vary.
Because probably the most impactful conservation movements pop out of an original love for natural world and nature, Audubon used to be commemorated to have David Sibley settle for the 2023 Audubon New York Award for Environmental Writing.
Though he joked about an artist being not likely to obtain the award, David has revolutionized the best way we learn about birds. His artwork displays his trust that “simple observations always lead to new ideas and new discoveries.”
He continues to be told fantastic new details about even the most typical birds, and seeks to proportion a few of this information in his newest e book, What It’s Like to Be a Bird. An tailored model for center school-aged youngsters was just released this month.
“We are honored to share the stage with Bahamas National Trust and Mass Audubon, and to be recognized for our shared commitment to fiercely protect Piping Plovers throughout their range,” stated Chris Allieri, founder and government director, NYC Plover Project. “Threats ranging from rapidly narrowing beaches due to climate change, increased predation and human disturbance, all contribute to declines in plover nest productivity. In New York City, there is one federally-listed threatened or endangered species that nests here. It is incumbent upon all of us to do everything we can to protect them. We can and we must do more, and NYC Plover Project is here to help lead the charge.”
“Long term partnerships are a blessing. The Bahamas National Trust and National Audubon Society have shared a 64-year relationship that has benefited the birds of the Bahamas,” stated Lakeshia Anderson-Rolle, government director of the Bahamas National Trust. “Audubon supported flamingo analysis which resulted within the status quo of the Inagua National Park and the bouncing again of our flamingo inhabitants. Their help in running with Bahamian hunters in banding and censusing our common gamebird, the White-crowned Pigeon, resulted within the moral and sustainable searching of this species whilst respecting the cultural searching custom. Our fresh paintings to give protection to shorebird habitat helps the acknowledgement that running in combination to give protection to habitat each wintering and breeding is the best way ahead for the way forward for avian natural world.
“Mass Audubon is honored to be recognized along with Bahamas National Trust and NYC Plover Project and grateful for events like the Keesee Awards Luncheon which allows for the building of critical conservation partnerships to protect birds,” stated Lyra Brennan, director of the Coastal Waterbird Program at Mass Audubon. “With shorebirds in steep decline and flyway-wide conservation efforts necessary to protect Piping Plovers, we must combine our 120-year legacy with innovative new approaches and strategic partnerships to ensure the survival of these species.”
The 2023 Keesee Awards used to be co-hosted through Laurie Hodgson, Thomas W. Keesee III, Victoria Shaw, and Virginia Stowe and held on the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan on October 4.
ABOUT THE HONOREES
The Bahamas National Trust (BNT) is a science-based group devoted to successfully managing 33 nationwide parks comprising over 2.2 million acres of each terrestrial and marine spaces. These parks preserve and offer protection to Bahamian herbal sources, controlled through the BNT in a singular personal – public collaboration established through an Act of Parliament in 1959. The National Audubon Society has been an appointed member to the BNT Council for 64 years, contributing to many conservation successes over BNT’s historical past. Over 33 shorebirds, along many vital marine species, rely at the sources and habitat equipped on The Bahamas’ coasts to live on. Thanks to a collaborative effort of nationwide and world organizations and volunteers, amongst them the National Audubon Society, US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Government, over 1,000 wintering Piping Plovers had been recorded in The Bahamas representing just about 10% of the worldwide breeding inhabitants. In 2016 , The Government of The Bahamas known the significance of the Joulter Cays, and authorized its designation as a safe house, protective towards unregulated building and harmful practices reminiscent of sand mining. In 2022 the Joulter Cays, Kemp Cay to Pigeon Cay, and Stafford Creek to Andros Town had been known as important “Key Biodiversity Areas,” important for the worldwide patience of Piping Plovers.
Mass Audubon’s statewide Coastal Waterbird Program displays and protects greater than a 3rd of the state’s breeding Piping Plovers, roughly part of the state’s Least Terns, and a few 3rd of its American Oystercatchers. In partnership with federal, state, and municipal businesses (together with personal landowners), this system helped to get well the selection of nesting Piping Plovers within the state from 135 pairs in 1986 to one,302 pairs in 2022—greater than 50% of all the Atlantic Coast inhabitants.
The NYC Plover Project is a bunch of New Yorkers running to fiercely offer protection to endangered piping plovers and different shorebirds that nest on busiest public seashores of Queens, New York. Founded in March 2021, the 501c3 non-profit group has grown to a body of workers of 4 with greater than 250 volunteers who’ve carried out some 10,000 hours of volunteer carrier connecting with citizens and beachgoers at the seashores of Fort Tilden, Breezy Point Tip and Jacob Riis Park at Gateway National Recreation Area, and the NYC Parks & Recreation seashores of Far Rockaway and Rockaway Beach. The NYC Plover Project connects with many 1000’s of New Yorkers by the use of social media, webinars and occasions the place they distribute stickers, transient tattoos, buttons and instructional fabrics in regards to the plight of town’s endangered species. NYC Plover Project gained the National Park Service’s George & Helen Hartzog nationwide volunteer workforce of the 12 months award in 2022 and is increasing a school-based program around the Rockaway Peninsula this autumn and wintry weather.