Follow this link to watch Tom Kerr's presentation on YouTube.
The TR Site’s April Speaker Nite featured Tom Kerr, the Audubon Society’s Naturalist and Niagara River IBA Specialist. His presentation, "Community Science: Continuing a Long Tradition,” explored the many ways individuals can get involved with science, the environment, and conservation. In particular, Kerr’s talk focused on the history of community science projects and their benefit to the scientific community and the natural world.
Kerr explained that one of the key features of the Audubon Society is community (or citizen) science. Essentially, it is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists. The Audubon Society organizes programs that allow people with an interest in science to explore, observe, and record data to share with others. With so many people observing and collecting data in areas near to them, the scientific community has a large pool of data to draw from, which in turn allows them to advance the field.
Unsurprisingly, Theodore Roosevelt was a citizen scientist. While President, TR was asked by a newspaper reporter if he would keep a list of all the birds he saw at the White House. TR was delighted by the idea and instructed the reporter to address their correspondences in such a way that they would bypass his secretary and reach him directly. Roosevelt took to the task with alacrity and diligently logged 93 species of birds. Today that list serves as a resource for scientists looking to compare the bird populations of today against those of the past.
The Audubon Society was also quite influential in converting an old tradition into a community science project. Before the creation of the society, there was a popular tradition called the Christmas “Side Hunt.” On Christmas Day, participants would go afield with their guns and whoever returned with the largest pile of birds and small animals won. As people became more aware of the declining bird population, the need for conservation became apparent. Beginning on Christmas Day 1900, ornithologist Frank M. Chapman, an early officer in the then-nascent Audubon Society, proposed a new holiday tradition, a "Christmas Bird Census" that would count birds during the holidays rather than hunt them. Renamed the “Christmas Bird Count,” this tradition has continued to the modern day, with thousands of bird watchers participating in the annual count in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
All of the data collected through the Christmas Bird Count and other community science initiatives has led to the creation of a new program called Climate Watch. One component of the program is a computer model that predicts the way birds will react to climate change. Quite simply, climate impacts plant communities, which in turn affect habitats and the species that rely on them. Birds would be particularly susceptible to climate change induced habitat destruction. The newly designed computer model allows scientists to begin to predict the consequences of such changes in an effort to combat them.
Community science can also go beyond the collection of data. Kerr referenced the example of the monarch butterflies, which were recently in danger due to human activity. Monarch butterflies are dependent upon the native milkweed plant which, in the past, grew readily across the country. However, as more and more land has been converted into farms, less milkweed is available to support the population of butterflies. Average citizens were able to intervene and help save the monarchs by planting milkweed in their gardens. The initiative has been so successful that the population of monarch butterflies is beginning to increase.
Kerr finished his talk by discussing several practical resources available to aspiring citizen scientists. Websites like iNaturalist and eBird will help identify and log wildlife sightings, while the local chapter of the Audubon Society offers group walks and bird watching programs. For more information on how to get involved, the Buffalo Audubon Society's website -- http://www.buffaloaudubon.org/ -- is the best place to start!
-- Lindsey Lauren Visser, Public Programming Assistant
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Speaker Nite is part of the TR Site’s regular Tuesday evening programming, which is made possible with generous support from M&T Bank, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site is operated by the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site Foundation, a registered non-profit organization, through a cooperative agreement with the National Park Service.
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