Citizen Science in the Catskill Mountains

Using Birds in Forested Landscapes to help measure forest health

By Jim Lowe and Alan White

The Catskill Mountains of New York cover an area of more than 6,000 square miles, including more than 300,000 acres in the Catskill Park protected by the state of New York as "forever wild" Forest Preserve.

This sounds very impressive, but is this very large forested ecosystem healthy? Can forest-breeding birds maintain stable population levels in the Catskills, or are appearances deceiving?

This summer, the Eastern New York Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development are teaming up with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Birds in Forested Landscapes project to try to answer these questions. In addition, TNC hopes this project can serve as a model for engaging citizen scientists in the conservation of forest ecosystems. These local volunteers can help us learn about the health of important forests of the Catskills . This new partnership can help the volunteers learn about

Stefan answers questions from the volunteers.

Photo by Emily Seifert/TNC

TNC will supply local expertise, project coordination, and some of the materials volunteers need. Birds in Forested Landscapes supply a proven methodology for studying forest birds, materials for volunteers, a web site for information and data-entry, and biologists to help plan the project and analyze the data. A pilot project is underway to test just how these organizations can work together to achieve their common goals.

TNC started by picking study sites within the forest blocks they are interested in, then recruited volunteers from across the Catskill region to do the Birds in Forested Landscapes project at those sites. Lab of Ornithology biologists Stefan Hames and Jim Lowe then met with the volunteers during a one-day training workshop held in early April at The Catskill Center in Arkville. Stefan and Jim also plan to conduct additional, more detailed studies at some of the same study sites this year.

Jim and Stefan demonstrate a step in the protocol.

Photo by Emily Seifert/TNC

By the end of the summer, the team should be able to collect high-quality data from 60 study sites within the Catskill Park. These data will include information on acid rain, deer abundance, and birds such as Wood Thrush, Veery, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Black-throated Blue Warbler, and Canada Warbler.

If this pilot project is successful, we hope to continue and possibly even expand it in 2007. We will know more when the results are in later this year, but until then, we are looking forward to a fruitful collaboration.

Jim Lowe is project leader for BFL and Alan White is director of TNC's Catskill Mountain Program

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Laura Erickson, editor, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-1114. email: lle24@cornell.edu