Singing the Blues: The Challenge of Conserving Cerulean Warblers

Monday, February 4, 2013 at 7:30pm to 9:00pm

Cornell Lab of Ornithology, auditorium 159 Sapsucker Woods Road

Dr. Amanda Rodewald will discuss the plight of the Cerulean Warbler, a Neotropical migratory bird species, and high-priority conservation efforts to help stem its rapid decline. It remains unclear if the declines are linked primarily to changes, loss, and fragmentation of forests on the warbler's U.S. breeding grounds or if they can be traced to the species' wintering grounds in the northern Andes. Changing land use practices, including the conversion of shade-coffee to sun coffee, pasture, or other non-forest land uses, pose serious threats to the species. Dr. Rodewald will discuss how forest management in the Appalachian Mountains affects breeding density and reproduction and how shade-coffee farming and silvopasture/grazing in Colombia and Venezuela influence winter habitat quality for Cerulean Warblers and other migratory birds. She will also highlight ways that our individual choices as consumers can support conservation.