The CWC is a new region-wide waterbird and wetland monitoring program of the SCSCB. The goal of the program is to promote the conservation and management of resident and migratory waterbirds and their wetland habitats through monitoring.
This workspace is being built as a place to share information about the CWC, including the manual "Caribbean Waterbird Census: Promoting Conservation of Waterbirds and Wetlands Through Monitoring," workshop reports, training materials and other resources. As new material becomes available it will be added to the workspace, so check back often.
Check the Blog on this site for news and updates!
Participants at the SCSCB CWC Waterbird and Wetland Monitoring Training Workshop, February 23-27, 2011, Nassau,Bahamas
Participants at the SCSCB Waterbird Monitoring Training Workshop, February 21-25, 2010, Negril, Jamaica
BACKGROUND
In February 2009, the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds (SCSCB) Monitoring Working Group held a workshop entitled "Bird Monitoring in the Caribbean - Why, What, Where, When and How" in Nassau, Bahamas. The workshop was funded by the Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Initiative/Organization of American States, USFWS, USFS, RSPB and many others. It involved twenty-six participants from eighteen West Indian islands and two Caribbean rim countries and eight international presenters, including a representative from Wetlands International. As a result of discussions held at this workshop SCSCB decided to establish the Caribbean Waterbird Census (CWC) to complement the Neotropical Waterbird Census and others around the globe, thereby joining the International Waterbird Census coordinated by Wetlands International. In consultation with monitoring experts and our local partners, we have designed our methods to suit the needs and goals of local partners. We employ a hierarchical approach that enables partners to choose the method that is best suited to their questions, resources and capacity. The results of the CWC can be nested into the NWC but its approach goes beyond that of the NWC.
A second workshop, focused specifically on the CWC, also funded by the WHMSI/OAS was held in Negril, Jamaica in February 2010. This workshop provided an opportunity to further develop the CWC by training potential national and site coordinators and discussing with them how the program will develop throughout the region. At the Waterbird Council for the Americas meeting in Panama (January 2010) a decision was taken to support the CWC and to help SCSCB to develop it as a model for Central and South America. Later in 2010, SCSCB received grants from the Neotropical Migratory Bird Act Program (USFWS), USFS and SPAW-RAC to provide small grants for persons on Caribbean islands to implement the CWC in pilot programs.
NEW: In 2011, we launched the first regional CWC (see below) and we held a third training workshop, again focussed on the CWC, in Nassau, Bahamas, February 23-27, 2011. Reports and powerpoints from this workshop are available below.
THE OBJECTIVES OF THE CWC ARE TO:
Promote inventories, surveys and censuses of waterbirds and their habitats in all Caribbean countries
Encourage broad-based participation in waterbird counts including NGOs, governmental agencies, institutions, communities and volunteers
Ensure that as many internationally and nationally important sites as possible are conserved and monitored
Increase awareness of conservation issues related to wetlands and waterbirds and what can be done to address these issues.
The CWC offers a hierarchical and flexible approach to monitoring (employing levels of monitoring) that enables the user to choose the protocol and extent of participation in the program that is best suited to their objectives, available resources and capacity. The basic CWC protocols (Level 2 – area search and point count) include measures of detection probability, which are essential for accounting for bias in monitoring. Through this program, the Caribbean region will join Wetland International’s global program of wetland bird monitoring, with data from the Caribbean filling a major gap in the coverage of the International/Neotropical Waterbird Census. It can be used to promote site conservation, assess impacts of climate change and other threats on waterbirds and wetlands, and design programs to protect, manage and restore wetlands.
The first version (1.0) of the CWC Manual is intended as a pilot version to be field tested in 2011. Based on feedback and further review, revisions and updates will be made to future editions of the manual. Note that this manual is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to designing and implementing monitoring programs. Many topics have been covered in other manuals, such as “Expedition Field Techniques – Bird Surveys” (Bibby et al.1998) and “The Northeast Bird Monitoring Handbook” (Lambert et al.2009), available for download at our Caribbean Birdwatch workspace.
At the beginning the CWC will function as an informal partnership of Caribbean organizations that plan to monitor waterbirds at least once per year using methods based on an agreed standard methodology. It is envisaged that eventually there will be a regional coordinator and that each territory will implement its own national CWC program, with a national coordinator coordinating the national efforts and site coordinators implementing the surveys on the ground. SCSCB is seeking funding to support this proposal and has already obtained funding to support pilot projects in selected islands including Anguilla, Antigua, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, St Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Turks and Caicos Islands.
We hope that many people will participate in the CWC, from interested volunteers and birders to natural resource/ wildlife professionals working in government and non-government agencies and organizations. All of the data collected will be of immense value in helping to raise awareness about the importance of wetlands, better understand the distribution and abundance of waterbirds in the Caribbean in relation to habitat conditions and threats, and improve the effectiveness of management and conservation actions. We look forward to working with you on this exciting program.
DATES FOR THE SECOND REGIONAL CWC IN 2012:
CWC survey dates in 2012 are Saturday, January 14th to Friday, February 3rd inclusive. This includes 3 weekends and World Wetlands Day (WWD) on Feb. 2nd, in case you want to make your count part of your WWD celebration.
AVAILABLE RESOURCES
Caribbean Waterbird Census Manual: Promoting Conservation of Waterbirds and Wetlands Through Monitoring, Version 1.0, December 1, 2010. As described above, this is a pilot version containing count protocols and and data forms for field testing and review. Please send us your feedback and comments to improve the manual. Also, don't hesitate to contact us if you have questions about any of the protocols (Lisa Sorenson - LSoren@bu.edu, Ann Sutton - Asutton@cwjamaica.com). Note: the manual is presently being laid out by a graphic designer, a more visually appealing version will be available shortly.
CWC Monitoring Workshop reports - Summary Report & Photos, Full Report & Photos from CWC Workshops in Negril, Jamaica, February 2010, and Nassau, Bahamas, February 2011 -NEW.
Monitoring papers and manuals are available for download at our Caribbean Birdwatch workspace.
Powerpoint presentations for training in bird ID and monitoring methods - NEW - revised versions from our most recent workshop in Nassau, February, 2011, have been upoaded. Feel free to download, use, and adapt these as needed for your training workshops. Note that some of the presentations are animated so be sure to view them in presentation mode to be aware of the animations. Also, talking points are included in the notes page for many of the presentations. We recommend that you download the CWC Manual (link above) and read this to have a thorough understanding of the the CWC manual and options for monitoring methods.
Caribbean Bird ID Monitoring Flickr Group - NEW! - This group has been set up as a resource for bird identification for people who are conducting bird monitoring, such as the Caribbean Waterbird Census (CWC). Our goal is to create a reference library of photos to help with learning bird ID of resident and migratory birds that occur in the Caribbean, and also a place for people to ask for assistance if they have a photo of a bird whose ID they are unsure of. We invite you to visit the site and post your photos!
eBird Caribbean Rarities Flickr Group - NEW! - The purpose of this group is to document observations of birds made outside of that species normal range or normal seasonal occurrence. By including images here, your photographs will be available to the wide audience of eBird Caribbean and Flickr users.
eBird Caribbean - enter your CWC Monitoring data here!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This is a Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Initiative (WHMSI) project, with funding and support from OAS, USFWS (Div. of International Conservation), USFWS (Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act Fund), US Forest Service, RSPB, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, CAR-SPAW, Rare Species Conservatory Foundation, and Optics for the Tropics. We are very grateful for the support we have received from many additional partner and sponsors: Negril Area Environmental Protection Trust, Bahamas National Trust, Ramsar Convention, Wetlands International, Waterbirds Conservation Council for the Americas, National Environment and Planning Agency, Caribbean Coastal Area Management Trust, Jack Sprat Restaurant, Irie Safari Boat Tours and WildlifeCounts.com.
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