Golden Gate Audubon’s monthly Speaker Series in San Francisco and Berkeley features renowned naturalists, photographers, ornithologists, authors, international travelers, and other fascinating speakers. To cover event costs, we ask non-members for a voluntary donation of $5. Non-members may attend for free if they join that evening. As always, GGAS members are welcome to attend free of charge. Speaker Series venues are:
San Francisco: Sports Basement, 1590 Bryant Street San Francisco 94103
Berkeley: Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda (between Solano and Marin)
Doors open for refreshments at 6:30 p.m. and the speaker will start promptly at 7 p.m.
Thank you to Recology – our San Francisco Speaker Series Sponsor.
Golden Eagles in a Changing World
How disease and ectoparasites represent new threats to eagle populations
Ben Dudek
Berkeley
Thursday, November 21
6:30 p.m. refreshments,
7p.m. program
Golden Eagles are a well-studied, widely distributed raptor species. Long-term monitoring of Golden Eagle populations have revealed several current and emerging threats, including landscape-mediated diet shifts that may increase the potential for disease infection, and warming temperatures that may increase the distribution and abundance of eagle ectoparasites. This presentation will cover the prevalence of the disease trichomonosis and the abundance of ectoparasitic Mexican chicken bugs, and the risk factors associated with disease and ectoparasitism. Management to mitigate these threats requires first identifying and understanding factors that influence individual susceptibility within populations, and how eagles may adapt to these threats physiologically or mechanically through the use of aromatic nest material. Given the projections of current climate trends and the increasing human ecological footprint, monitoring threats to raptor populations and the ability of birds to respond to these threats, is important in a changing world.
Ben Dudek is a wildlife biologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. He earned his M.S. in Raptor Biology at Boise State University studying Golden Eagle nesting ecology in the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area in southwestern Idaho. Ben has worked with birds for organizations across the western United State including the Institute for Bird Populations, Hawkwatch International, and Yosemite National Park and he is a volunteer at Golden Gate Raptor Observatory.
NOTE: No speaker in December because of the Christmas Bird Count! Please join us for our Oakland count on Sunday, December 15, or our San Francisco count on Friday, December 27. Registration will open in November.
Then see you for our next speaker in January 2020!