Volunteers wanted for rare bird study on isolated N.S. islands

Applicants must be prepared for long hours, rustic accommodations, physical exertion and severe weather

Frances Willick · CBC News · Posted: Jul 03, 2018 12:00 PM AT | Last Updated: July 3

It could be a trip of a lifetime or your worst nightmare: being stuck on an isolated island for weeks at a time with no running water or electricity, rustic shared accommodations and potential exposure to extreme weather.

The volunteer application for a study on rare birds warns applicants of the position's challenges: "If you cannot take isolation, communal living, long hours, physical exertion, bugs, the heat, the cold, irregular supplies of fresh food, or primitive working conditions, this may not be the right job for you."

Researchers from Oxford University and Acadia University are travelling to Seal Island and Bon Portage Island to study why rare birds end up off the coast of mainland Nova Scotia and whether they make it back to their fall migration destinations.

Lucinda Zawadzki, a PhD student at Oxford, explains that since rare birds are by definition infrequent visitors, "nobody really has an understanding of why or how they get here."

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Debate begins over rare bird's affect on New Mexico jobs

SANTA FE — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday proposed to list the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species, igniting a debate about whether protecting a rare bird could cost New Mexico jobs.

This Western grouse, found in five states, has been a candidate for listing since 1998. The recommendation begins a yearlong process of whether the lesser prairie chicken should receive federal protection.

Fish and Wildlife said it made the recommendation based on evidence that the lesser prairie chicken's population and habitat are in decline.

"Listing cannot come soon enough for the lesser prairie chicken," said Taylor Jones of WildEarth Guardians. "Threats are increasing, the species' range is contracting and current conservation efforts are too little, too late."

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce took the opposite position, sending out a statement headlined, "Here we go again." Pearce, R-Hobbs, successfully led opposition to listing the dunes sagebrush lizard as an endangered species.

"Unfortunately, our jobs and our way of life in southern New Mexico continue to come under assault," Pearce said. "The prairie chicken is yet another example that federal species regulation is not based on science, but rather driven by lawyers for extreme interest groups, like Santa Fe-based WildEarth Guardians, who filed the lawsuit in this case."

The Environmental Defense Fund, based in New York City, entered the debate suggesting the type of compromise that ended the dunes.

Continued:  http://www.daily-times.com/ci_22103356/debate-begins-over-rare-birds-affect-new-mexico