Celebrating the Bird Banding Lab Centennial
In 2020, we celebrated an important milestone, commemorating one of the oldest partnerships in conservation — a century of work with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Lab (Lab). From its establishment following the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918, the Lab has amassed a catalogue of 77 million records, while adding another 1.2 million bands each year. Let’s take a look at how the work has developed over the years, and its continued importance in today’s high-tech world.
A Long History
While there is some evidence of people banding birds for hundreds or even thousands of years — John James Audubon tied string around some birds in the early 1800s — an organized system of bird banding has only been around since the early 1900s. A growing movement of scientists began to study the habits of birds, but there was no good system for understanding one of the most important but mysterious aspects of birds’ lives: their migrations. A steep drop in the price of aluminum — which had been worth more than gold — made it possible to stamp identifying marks and return information on tiny pieces of metal which were light enough not to affect birds movements, but durable enough to last for years.
In 1902 Paul Bartsch of the Smithsonian used this new advancement to band around one hundred night herons near Washington, D.C., and the modern banding movement was born. Others were inspired to follow his lead, and by 1909 the growing number of enthusiasts formed the American Bird Banding Association. By 1920, the movement had become an official government program, the U.S. Bird Banding Lab, managed by the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey, which later became the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, They were later joined by the Bird Banding Office in Canada, and work with them very closely.
Fred Lincoln was the first chief of the US Bird Banding Lab. Mr. Lincoln was instrumental in establishing coordinated banding of North American waterfowl and used the early data to develop the concept of the North American Flyways, which were officially established in 1948. By 1946, the first large-scale waterfowl banding program was under way and Mr. Lincoln developed methods to use the data to delineate populations, and derive estimates of abundance, namely the Lincoln-Peterson estimator. Numerous researchers and statisticians came after and have developed some very sophisticated techniques for analyzing banding and recovery data and extended their use to other wildlife and ecological applications. And, it turns out we’re still using one of Mr. Lincoln’s techniques today.
The advent of computers greatly increased the utility of banding data beginning in the 1970s.In the 1990s, with the addition of the (now defunct) 1–800 reporting number and the advent of the internet, band reporting rates increased dramatically and have continued to increase; currently, the reporting rate for waterfowl bands is roughly 90%.
Working Together
Today, there are many participants in the banding program. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists band waterfowl every year as part of the Western Canada Cooperative Waterfowl Banding Program (WCCWBP), a long-term, large- scale pre-season waterfowl banding program. The program is a joint effort between the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS), state and provincial wildlife management agencies, the Flyway Councils, First Nations, and non- governmental waterfowl advocacy and research organizations.
Partner Perspectives
We work with our partners to manage migratory birds based largely on routes the birds follow as they migrate between nesting and wintering areas. Based on those routes, there are four Flyways in the U.S. Atlantic, Mississippi, Central and Pacific. Each of those flyways has a Council that includes representatives from each state, provincial, and territorial agency within that Flyway.
Throughout the flyways and numerous partners that work within each flyway, there are some core banding programs that provide critical information on birds, especially waterfowl populations. The information on waterfowl populations is critical to informing managers about harvest limits and hunting regulations, ensuring a balanced approach to managing these species.
Paul Link, with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, and the banding chairman of the Mississippi Flyway Council Technical Section, is one of the most well-known bird banders in the entire country. He has experience banding nearly every species of managed birds, including mottled ducks, wood ducks, woodcocks, blue-winged teal, and black-bellied whistling ducks. In fact, it could be his claim to fame that Paul himself has banded over 90% of all black bellied whistling ducks in the entire North American program in the last 9 years! He has banded 30,000 black bellied whistling ducks in the last 9 years, with 4,000 recaptures. He also works with the academic community to conduct research including putting backpack transmitters on birds, and leading telemetry projects on white fronted geese, mallards, and blue-winged teal.
He’s even recently been working with the University of Georgia’s Southeast Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study banding blue-winged teal, swabbing, and collecting blood samples in efforts to understand avian influenza. His banding work is essential to monitoring where blue-winged teal spend the winter so that models can be created to see how and where teal come into contact with other birds from their wintering grounds in Central and South America.
Paul has long been fascinated by birds, having grown up watching and hunting waterfowl and upland gamebirds in North Dakota, and has become a national leader in capturing and banding birds. He spends a considerable amount of his free time working to improve safe capture and handling practices for banding and migratory bird management. He thanks fellow banders, hunters, birdwatchers, and all who encounter banded birds for reporting their bird bands as it provides vital information to scientists that are managing species for all to enjoy.
And of course, we don’t want to forget our partners in the National Wildlife Refuge System. Last year over 75 refuges conducted their own banding activities, and dozens more cooperate with state agencies and research organizations to allow banding at their sites. Many more allow state agencies and research organizations to band on the refuge. In fact, the Bird Banding Lab itself is headquartered at the Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Maryland, where they host their own banding station. What a great partnership! Read on for a glimpse into some refuge banding activities, told in their own words:
J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota
Picture a cool September morning. You’re awakened by the annoying buzz of your alarm clock. It reads 4:30 a.m. As you struggle to get dressed, your mind wonders about the day ahead. You step out into the darkness, only your breath is visible. Duck banding season has begun.
Moments later, you find yourself huddling in a duck blind, trying to keep warm. Sunrise is still a couple hours away. As you peer through your binoculars, you notice a large number of ducks approaching the shore. For the past few days, the site has been baited with barley to insure a good catch for today’s banding. Eager to eat, the unsuspecting ducks continue to make their way. At the precise moment, when the largest number of ducks is feeding, a button is pressed. Rockets explode, carrying nets over the ducks to trap them. Refuge trucks and personnel rush to the site to prevent ducks from escaping or injuring themselves.
The ducks, sometimes up to 800, are transferred from the nets into holding crates where they wait to be banded. One by one, the ducks are removed from the crates. Biologists and refuge personnel first determine the species, age, and sex of the duck. Special tools are used to secure an aluminum band around the leg of the duck. The duck is then released.
These bands provide valuable information such as where the ducks go when they leave the nesting grounds, how long they live, and often where and how they died. Much of this information comes from bands returned by hunters. When a hunter shoots a banded duck, he or she can send the band number to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and receive a special certificate. This certificate will tell what kind of duck it is (species), what sex it is (male or female), where it was banded, and how old it was when banded. Hunters often cherish these bands as rare treasures of pleasant times spent with family and friends, enjoying the beauty of the outdoors.
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon
During July and August, staff and volunteers from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) and Malheur NWR come together on nights of the new moon for a week of duck banding.
Depending on the location, different techniques are used to capture ducks. At Malheur Refuge, airboats are integral to duck banding operations. The shallow, expansive waterways at the Refuge are best navigated by these highly maneuverable, flat-bottomed watercraft. Airboats also give us the opportunity to capture a diverse variety of waterfowl species, as opposed to capturing a specific range of waterfowl with different methods, such as pre-baiting an area for the use of rocket nets. Instead of attracting only those species that prefer a specific type of bait, airboats allow us to pursue any and all species present in a given area.
Why are these operations conducted at night, under a new moon? In essence, the darker the night the better! We need full use of our spotlights in order to capture these ducks at night. Any additional light (from the moon, for instance) gives ducks the opportunity to see us and elude capture.
Once captured, a leg band is placed on either leg. This band has unique identification characteristics that describe where, when, and by whom the individual was banded. If this individual was ever found in a different location, we can track it back using the ID and have some sort of idea where this duck was first banded.
Duck banding in our the area is unique in that we primarily use spotlights and airboats to capture ducks out on the water. It works like this: We have two airboats, each with an airboat operator and two netters. Each netter is on the left and right side of the bow. The driver will then use the spotlight to point at a particular duck on the water and maneuver the boat as close as possible for one of the netters to capture the duck. Once captured, the duck is placed in one of our duck crates located on the boat. Once crates are filled, the ducks are then returned to the banding station where they are identified to a particular species, age and sex. Then a band is placed on their leg. Meanwhile another set of netters and empty crates are out on the airboat gathering more ducks. We repeat this cycle from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Talk about a true night shift!
Using Bands to Help Birds
It may be a simple ring of aluminum (or sometimes plastic), but we can learn a lot! Bands are recovered by live recapture in banding programs, harvested by hunters, or found after death. Banding records help scientists understand bird migration patterns, population status and trends, behavior, and other information. Data is widely used by scientists to make better decisions for management of bird populations, such as setting hunting seasons, or protecting habitat.
We have learned much about birds through banding over the decades. For example, in 1944, American scientists first learned that chimney swifts wintered in Peru when bird bands were returned to the US embassy there.
More recently, Wisdom, the Laysan albatross was recognized to be both the oldest bird in the world and the oldest bird mother, when she hatched chicks earlier this year at Midway Island National Wildlife Refuge through banding data. In fact, the same biologist who originally banded Wisdom in 1956 returned and found his band on her in 2002!
Although many species of birds have been banded over the past century, much of the analytical work has focused on hunted species, especially waterfowl. This is because banded birds from hunted species are more likely to be recovered, so there are greater numbers of recoveries, which makes true statistical estimation of metrics such as survival and harvest rate possible.
Banding data are crucially important in the management of waterfowl species such as mallards, pintails, black ducks and wood ducks. And, along with harvest survey data, banding and recovery data are used to calculate the Fred Lincoln’s abundance index to aid in the management of several goose species, such as snow geese, and white-fronted geese. All these methods require that you re-encounter at least some proportion of the banded birds, and require that you keep track of both bandings and encounters. In most cases, those re-encounters require the cooperation of numerous members of the public around the world.
Getting Involved
Perhaps the greatest strength of the Bird Banding Lab is the network of people around the country who report banded birds they encounter. If you find a band, or harvest a banded bird, you can become part of this great legacy too! Just go to www.reportband.gov. You’ll need the band number, or numbers. If you are lucky, you might even find a reward band. You’ll also need to know where, when and how you encountered the bird, and your contact information, in case there are any questions. The USGS Patuxent Bird Banding Lab will send you a certificate of appreciation that includes information about the sex, age and species of the bird, and where and when it was banded. You can even keep the band!
One hundred years, dozens of partners, and millions of people: the numbers add up to a legacy of helping birds wherever they are.
