Wake+Audubon+Lecture+Harpy+Eagles

At the Wake Audubon Lecture, Dr. Jamie Rotenburg, an ornithologist from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, discussed his trip to Belize. He worked with technicians in a program called BFREE, the Belize Foundation for Research and Environmental Education to research harpy eagles in the Mayan Mountains of Belize. They worked in an area by the border of the Mayan Mountains called the Bladen Nature Reserve. The BFREE team monitored the harpy eagles' nests after locating them to study their mating, reproductive habits, diets and behavior.

Harpy eagles are one of the largest birds in North and South Americas with wingspans of up to seven feet. Although they are very common in Brazil, harpy eagles were thought to be wiped out of Belize due to habitat fragmentation caused by deforestation of the rainforests. However, this was disproved by a sighting in 1958 and more sightings by the BFREE team in 2000 and onward. Now, more people living in and around the Bladen Reserve are more aware of the harpy eagle situation and are contributing to conservation efforts. Many have been involved in Dr. Rotenburg's educational programs and have become technicians working with BFREE.

Dr. Rotenburg also described the role of drones in the study of harpy eagles. The drones were used to create images and maps to show where the harpy eagles nests were on the Bladen Nature Reserve. These drones were useful to his research because they could be used to create different maps such as 3D maps, or maps that singled out specific areas.

This relates to APES because I learned about a species being affected by habitat fragmentation, which shows the importance of conservation efforts of humans and the difference they can make in keeping a species from going extinct. I also learned about the difference between local extinction and global extinction. In this case, harpy eagles were thought to be locally extinct in Belize because they were still prevalent in other regions.



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