HOLD FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, FEB. 14,
1997, 8:30 A.M. PST
Contact: Roger Segelken
Office: (607) 255-9736
Internet: [email protected]
Compuserve: Larry Bernard 72650,565
http://www.news.cornell.edu
SEATTLE -- To the legions of amateur bird-watchers making observations
across North America, the National Audubon Society and the Cornell
Laboratory of Ornithology say: Nest your birds on the Web.
For the first time, citizen scientists and professionals alike have a fully
interactive place to go -- BirdSource -- to share data on which birds are
where and what they are doing there. The World Wide Web site opened for
business today (Feb. 14) with demonstrations at the annual meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Seattle.
Like a fledgling bird testing its wings, BirdSource is beginning modestly.
About 500 "penguins" (online bird-watching guinea pigs) from the
10,000-member citizen-science program FeederWatch began reporting
observations from feeders at homes and schools throughout the United States
and Canada to http://www.ornith.cornell.edu/CS/PFW/main.html.
Eventually BirdSource, which is based at a national supercomputer center,
the Cornell Theory Center in Ithaca, N.Y., will handle much more.
"You will be able to go to BirdSource and ask, 'Where were the Dark-eyed
Juncoes in December 1934?' and instantly see a map displaying reported
sightings of that species," said John W. Fitzpatrick, the Louis Agassiz
Fuertes Director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "You will be able to
'watch' as millions of migrating hawks from North America funnel through
Central America on their way to South America. You will come home from a
day of birding, logon to BirdSource, and share your checklist with
thousands of other amateur birders and with professional ornithologists who
need your data."
And if feeder-watchers aren't sure whether they've spotted a Northern
Flicker or a Varied Thrush, for example, BirdSource will offer up detailed
pictures and recorded calls from those and dozens of other birds, drawing
on sound archives at the Ornithology Lab's renowned Library of Natural
Sounds.
Constructing a fully interactive Web site to process both historic data and
continuously updated reports has stretched the capabilities of World Wide
Web applications, Fitzpatrick said, crediting the staff of the Cornell
Theory Center for its role. The Web-based application relies on an
Informix database server, a Netscape Web server, and Netscape's LiveWire
client-server application development environment. JavaScript
implementations allow users to proofread their entries and check their
identifications. Dynamically generated maps of species distributions will
be created using the geographic information systems (GIS) software.
Financial support for construction of BirdSource comes, in part, from a
matching grant by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to the National
Audubon Society. The site will be co-managed by Audubon and by the Cornell
Laboratory of Ornithology.
"BirdSource will provide the most current and comprehensive data on the
distribution, migratory pathways and population trends for North American
birds," said Audubon President John Flicker. "This partnership is a
perfect marriage of Cornell's high-tech computer capabilities, the Lab of
Ornithology's citizen-science team and Audubon's thousands of volunteer
birders collecting data at the grassroots level. "
In addition to the results from Project FeederWatch and other
Cornell-based, citizen-science observations, BirdSource will be an archive
of data from long-running national projects, including all the Christmas
Bird Counts since 1900. These counts, managed by the National Audubon
Society, represent the largest citizen-science program in the country, with
more than 45,000 volunteers participating each year. The Web site will
offer an array of opportunities for citizen-science participation in
birding, from simple exercises to the complex, from fun to serious,
Laboratory Director Fitzpatrick said.
"An estimated 30 to 60 million people watch and feed birds," Fitzpatrick
said. "At this moment thousands of people are jotting down notes about
their observations. If they 'jot' them on the Web, we will be able to
tune to the movements of bird populations, just like the weather reports
track the movements of storm fronts. We will have up-to-the-minute
accounts on where birds are at any given moment -- and so will anyone who
opens BirdSource."
Emphasizing the value to biological conservation of data gathered by
thousands of volunteers across a wide geographical area, Fitzpatrick said:
"If this had started in the 1890s when there still were passenger pigeons
and Carolina parakeets, perhaps we could have saved those birds. Now we
can get information about diminishing species, in a form that we can
understand and use, while there still is time to help."
The mission of the National Audubon Society is to conserve and restore
natural ecosystems, focusing on birds and other wildlife, for the benefit
of humanity and the earth's biological diversity. The Society is supported
by 550,000 members and 518 chapters nationwide.
The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology is a membership institute for the
study, appreciation and conservation of birds worldwide. The Lab maintains
programs in academic research, public education and citizen science to
foster understanding about nature and the importance of earth's biological
diversity. The Lab and Cornell University together provide an
international center for training both amateurs and professionals in the
ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation of birds.
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EDITORS: "BirdSource" will be demonstrated in the AAAS Exhibition Hall by
representatives of the Cornell Theory Center. Larry Bernard of the Cornell
News Service can be reached in the AAAS newsroom or at the Sheraton
Seattle, (206) 621-9000, Feb. 13-18, or at (607) 255-3651 after Feb. 18.
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