Economic woes threatens raptor count

published on Sunday, August 2, 2009 9:30 PM MDT

By DANIEL PERSON Chronicle Staff Writer

The Montana Audubon is doing some emergency fundraising in hopes of keeping open a bird-watching station on Bridger Ridge, after the national organization that had funded the site announced it couldn’t afford it this year.

ERIK PETERSEN/CHRONICLE A golden eagle takes flight from a tree HawkWatch International first opened the site in 1990 and two observers and plenty of visitors have been watching for migrating raptors between Aug. 27 and Oct. 31 every year since.

The site has been particularly vital to keeping stats on golden eagles, which like to soar above the Bridger Mountains on their way south for the winter, said Steve Hoffman, executive director of Montana Audubon.

And while the people stationed at 8,000 feet, directly above the Bridger Bowl ski area, are volunteers, it costs HawkWatch $8,000 to $11,000 every year to operate the observation site, said Caroline Goldman, executive director of HawkWatch. The costs are associated with training bird watchers and giving them a small stipend for food.

This year, their fundraising has been hammered, she said.

“It’s just in reaction to the economic climate right now. A lot of nonprofit organizations are suffering from this,” she said.

The organization, which keeps tabs on all species of raptors, has run a network of 14 sites in the West, Goldman said. About five will be dropped by the organization this season.

The Bridger Mountain site’s longevity n data has been collected there 19 consecutive years - made it better suited to go dark for a year, if necessary, Goldman said.

“Once you hit about 15 years, you can trust that information,” she said. “The more years you have, the more flexibility you have in the future. Because we have 15 years, skipping a year won’t hurt the data that much.”

But skipping a year will none the less hurt, Hoffman said, and his organization needs to raise $5,000 to see to it that doesn’t happen.

“It weakens the statistical value of the data. You can run certain kinds of stats when you have consecutive information,” he said. “It’s a huge difference between 20 years of continuous data and 20 years with a break.

“We want to end up with 50 years of data in the Bridgers,” Hoffman said.

Most raptors seen from the Bridger Mountains are golden eagles, Hoffman and Goldman said.

It’s speculated that the huge birds appreciate the strong lift that comes off the mountains, Hoffman said. The Bridger Mountains’ consistently steep western face is hit with a steady wind from the southwest, which is perfect.

“If you’re 14 pounds, you have trouble staying airborne,” he said.

The observers stationed on the ridge count how many raptors they see migrating and take note of time and weather factors. The data collected there has led researchers to determine the golden eagle population is dropping, even as other raptors are doing better.

“That makes it even more important we do this count,” Hoffman said. “The eagles are probably the best environmental barometers out there.”

Bridger Bowl, which hosts the Bridger Raptor Festival every year in conjunction with the count going on above its chairlifts, has already pledged $1,500 to keep the site open, said Doug Wales, marketing director at the mountain.

While there are plenty of things going on at the festival in addition to the raptor count, Wales said the count is the underpinning of the event, which has been going on for 14 years.

“It has been a significant part of this, in recognition of that science and what gave impetus to the whole festival,” he said.

Daniel Person can be reached at dperson@dailychronicle.com or 582-2665.

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