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More and more people are beginning to appreciate birds. Yes, they are gorgeous, but we are also impressed and humbled by their athleticism and awe-inspiring feats. Migrating birds travel staggering distances annually and navigate the same course, year after year, using tools such as landmarks, the sun, the stars and the earth’s magnetic field. Many are long-distance athletes, traveling up to tens of thousands of miles during these annual journeys. Birds are talented architects and entertaining performers during breeding season. Some can survive in the harshest of climates and in the most barren of landscapes. Some spend their lives in flight, only coming to land when it is time to produce young. Some kill with deadly precision while others can fly underwater. Birds are tough, they are fascinating and they endlessly amaze us with their survival skills and athletic abilities. But, they are in trouble. According to the 2016 “State of the Birds Report”, one third of all of North America’s birds are in need of conservation action due to a myriad of factors. The gravest threats are habitat loss, window collisions, climate change, cat predation and accidental bycatch and overfishing of forage fish stocks and pollution. But why should we even care? And what can we do to help?
This program will explain why birds matter, the perils they face, and how we can, as individuals and communities, work together to help protect them.
Stella Miller, Conservation, Education and Outreach Manager at Wild Birds Unlimited, is the former president of Huntington-Oyster Bay Audubon, a position she held for over ten years. Since 2006, Stella has spearheaded conservation advocacy efforts such as a national “Save Our Raptors” campaign, “Long Island to Guatemala:The Avian Connection” partnership, the Long Island “Keep Your Cats Indoors” educational campaign and a Bird Friendly Communities Initiative which included designing a native demonstration garden at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. She is a founder of the Preserve Plum Island Coalition and was instrumental in assembling the original 40+ organizations that comprised the coalition. While at Audubon she coordinated community and fundraising events, and habitat restoration projects with her volunteer group, the Habitat Heroes. After creating a Youth Outreach Committee, Stella mentored teenagers, teaching these teens the valuable skills they needed to become community leaders themselves. She created a “Bridging the Generation Gap: Connecting Teens and Seniors Through Nature” program which was implemented in various nursing homes. Believing in the critical need to form collaborations and build bridges, she worked with other community organizations as well as stakeholders on a state, county and town level, in order to protect our natural areas. She is a recipient of the Norman Stotz Award for Outstanding Chapter Leadership, awarded by Audubon New York, was honored as one of the Oyster Bay Historical Society’s “Top Advocates for Historic Preservation and Education” for her dedication to preserving Long Island’s natural history and in 2016 was recognized by the Oyster Bay Chamber of Commerce for her work on behalf of Audubon.
