The “30-YEAR Bird Study”
North American breeding bird populations have declined by an estimated three billion individuals (30%) since 1970. Habitat loss and degradation are likely the primary causes of declines. Maine’s commercial forest is the largest contiguous tract of intact (non-developed) forest east of the Mississippi and is in the heart of the largest globally significant Important Bird Area in the contiguous U.S. What role does this enormous, undeveloped landscape play in continental-scaled bird conservation today?
In 1992-1994 we conducted extensive surveys of birds across a one-million-acre section of Maine’s commercial forest in the Moosehead Lake region of north-central Maine. We set out to answer the question posed above by replicating the entire 1990s study in 2021 and 2022.
We now have the answer. We hope you’ll download the report shown to the right. You may be surprised at what we found.
Click on image to watch 2-minute video about project.
Study Area
Project Team
John Gunn, Ph.D., Spatial Informatics Group – Natural Assets Laboratory and UNH
John Hagan, Ph.D., Our Climate Common
Jonah Levy, Tufts University Ph.D. student
Kelsi Anderson, University of New Hampshire, Master’s student
Peter McKinley, Ph.D., The Wilderness Society
J. Michael Reed, Ph.D., Tufts University
Funders
Cooperative Forest Research Unit, UMaine
Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund
Maine Timberlands Charitable Trust
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
University of New Hampshire Ag Experiment Station
The Weyerhaeuser Company
National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, Inc.
The Wilderness Society
Horizon Foundation
Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Trust
The Betterment Fund
Forestry Landowner Partners
Landvest
Huber Forest Resources
Weyerhaeuser
Appalachian Mountain Club
FINAL REPORT
MARCH 2024
(click on image to download)
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Susan Sharon interviewed John Hagan 30 years ago on the original project in 1992. She came back to reprise the story on June 30, 2022, and did a final story that aired on MPBN on March 28, 2024. Click on the link below to listen to the 5-minute story.
Pizza generally leaves the crew speechless, but not when Susan Sharon of Maine Public Radio visits. Susan was in her element doing field work. She got up at 3:30 AM the next morning, completed 8 point counts with Jonah and Jalen by 9 AM, and got soaking wet in the process. She loved it. Susan would have made a fine field biologist, but she’s very good at the radio thing. Susan and John observed that they were both doing exactly the same thing 30 years ago. Radio and birds, respectively. Sometimes you find your calling and can’t stop.
PROJECT VIDEO VIGNETTES
Tribute to the 2022 field crew!
Meet Jonah Levy and Kelsi Anderson
Misery in Misery Township
Project Press
Click on image to read featured story in Maine Sunday Edition of the Portland Press Herald, August 8, 2021.
