This week’s Blackbaud Non-Profit of the Match is the Avian Conservation Center. The ACC is dedicated to helping the environment by assisting in the rehabilitation and conservation of injured birds of prey and shorebirds.
The Center will have some of its birds out at the match on Saturday for a demonstration at half time.
We caught up with Daniel Prohaska, the Development Officer at the ACC, to learn more about the Center and how to get involved.
CB: What all does the Avian Conservation Center do aid in the preservation of birds of prey?
The mission of the Center is to identify and address vital environmental issues by providing medical care to injured birds of prey and shorebirds, and through educational, research, and conservation initiatives. The Center treats an average of 600 injured birds of prey and shorebirds each year (more than 7,000 since its beginning in 1991), releasing the majority back into their natural habitat. Although the causes of injuries vary widely, most are human-related – ranging from gunshot wounds to collisions, electric shock from power lines, and secondary poisoning from scavenging behavior. The Center uses these insights and experiences to help the public understand environmental problems and the role birds have in indicating those problems to us through our education programs.
CB: What type of impact do your efforts have on the environment?
The Center is the only comprehensive facility of its kind in the nation combining science, education, research, medical care, captive breeding and oiled bird treatment. This allows the Center to have a unique role in addressing environmental issues. Research programs at the Center focus on a variety of issues related to avian productivity and survivability including an annual Hawk Migration Survey, a long term Swallow-tailed Kite survey, the only federally sanctioned MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity & Survivorship) banding station on the South Atlantic seaboard, research on avian genetics, and numerous toxicity studies. To model environmental conservation, the Center partnered with the Lowcountry Open Land Trust in 2009 to secure a Conservation Easement on the 152 acre campus in Awendaw.
CB: It looks like a big piece of your effort is education, how and what are you teaching people about the birds you have at your facility?
The Center’s standards-based education programs have proven to be a powerful method through which to engage children and adults regarding preservation of wildlife and habitat conservation. Our programs emphasize the point that wild birds are among the world’s most illuminating sentinel species. The rapid and dramatic changes that human activity continuously imposes on the natural landscape have significant, long-term implications for irreplaceable habitat and wild bird populations. Because of their broad distribution, environmental sensitivity, and dependence on a wide range of habitat types, bird populations – and birds of prey in particular – provide critical insight into a growing number of environmental issues including the health of the ecosystem and how well we are managing our natural resources, as a whole. We are defining and fostering a value system, an underlying ethic that will literally determine what of the natural world we will preserve and what will be irrevocably lost.
CB: I know you’ll be doing a Birds of Prey Demonstration at the match on Saturday, do you train the birds at the ACC as well? What’s the training process like?
We train using positive reinforcement. We focus our demonstrations on the natural behaviors that make each group or species unique. Therefore, we are experts at catching the birds doing what we want them to do and rewarding them for it. In most cases, the most difficult behaviors to train are the unnatural ones such as sitting on a human’s fist or traveling in a transport box.
CB: What can Battery fans do to get involved and support the ACC?
12% of all birds worldwide are at risk of becoming extinct in the next 100 years. That’s 50 times the historic rate. We can do something about that, and Battery fans can help. First, we need you to give philanthropically. Every one of the milestones and programs you have heard about requires funding. As a nonprofit organization, every dollar we spend on medical treatment, educational outreach, and research has to be raised every year from people like you who share a passion for this work. You can become a Member at the Center with a gift of $50 or more. Being a Member allows you to be a part of our work and to experience the Center in a unique way.
Second, you can bring a friend to visit us. Our facility is open to the public Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 10am until 5pm. We offer two guided walking tours and two flying demonstrations on those days. Admission for adults is $15, $10 for children ages 6 to 17, and complimentary for those under the age of six.
Finally, stay involved through volunteering, attending special events, and learning more about our work. Consider joining our email list or following us on social media (www.facebook.com/scbirdsofprey, Instagram @Centerforbirdsofprey, www.twitter.com/scbirdsofprey). You can visit our web site (www.thecenterforbirdsofprey.org) for updates and event announcements. Also look for forthcoming information about the first migration-focused birding festival in the southeast, Zugunruhe fest, which the Center will host September 15-17, 2016.
