Audubon+Meeting+About+Harpy+Eagles

I attended the lecture about harpy eagles presented by Dr. Rotenburg at the Audubon Society meeting. He is a bird expert from UNCW and he discussed his trip to Belize to study the rare harpy eagles. He worked in the Bladen Natural Reserve, located near the Mayan Mountains, with the BFREE program, the Belize Foundation for Research and Environmental Education. With this group, Dr. Rotenburg studied the birds' behavior, reproductive practices, nests, behavior, and diet. These birds, although commonly found in Brazil, were believed to be wiped out of Belize due to clear cutting and lack of their main food source, sloths. However, this was disproved by the BFREE in 2000 by spotting a harpy eagle. Dr. Rotenburg was able to use drones to take multiple pictures and piece them together to create an orthomosaic, or a 3D overview of the land. After spotting this large creature, Dr. Rotenburg began to educate the people of Belize on the importance of harpy eagles in the environment and how to protect them.

This relates to environmental science because in class we have learned about the importance of certain species in the environment and how they must be protected to avoid extinction. We have also learned about the impact that humans have on the environment through processes such as deforestation causing a loss of habitat for these rare eagles and rendering them incapable for reproduction and they will have no where to go. All of these impacts result in a loss of biodiversity and eventually the decline of the ecosystem. We need to be more aware of the effects we have on the environment to protect future species from experiencing even more problems.