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Top Audubon Wins for Birds in 2019: Local Everywhere
We acted locally to save birds.
This year our conservation leaders, bird advocates, college students, ambassadors, volunteers, and scientists accomplished amazing things. Collectively, more than 151,400 of us took almost 620,000 online actions on behalf of birds. All of the accomplishments listed below come from the hard work and dedication of our members, chapters, volunteers and staff. We're very proud of what we have been able to accomplish together over the past 12 months.
Keep reading to see the most important ways that our flock worked together this year.
Collaboration Protects 178,500 Tricolored Blackbirds this Season
This year Audubon protected 90 percent of threatened Tricolored Blackbird colonies. Audubon California found nesting colonies in fifteen different farms and in four counties in the Central Valley. Saving the birds was a collective effort from Audubon California’s Tricolored Blackbird conservation team, donors, family farms, agricultural partners including the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, Western United Dairymen, California Farm Bureau, and DairyCares. This was a huge win and a life-saving breeding season for the species.
Piping Plovers Successfully Breed in Chicago for the First Time in 70 Years
For the first time since the mid 1950s, Piping Plovers successfully nested and fledged their young in Chicago. Local birders monitored the nest 24/7 and made sure the pair was safe on Montrose Beach. While, the first clutch of eggs had to be relocated due to pending storms and high lake levels and ultimately failed in incubation, the story didn’t end there. Thanks to the efforts of more than 70 volunteers and quick mobilization of the birding community in Chicago, two chicks from the second clutch fledged and both parents and chicks flew south for the winter in August. The success of the Piping Plover pair was due, in part, to the beach restoration activities of the Chicago Park District and dedicated volunteers, as well as partner organizations in the city and region, and a series of successful advocacy campaigns.