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About Us
The Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group (SCPBRG) is a member of the University of California, Santa Cruz's Institute of Marine Sciences. Our organization's work has been, and continues to be, entirely supported by foundation grants, gifts from individuals, and contracts awarded by state and federal agencies. Organization founders, the late UCSC professor emeritus Ken Norris, and Santa Cruz veterinarian Jim Roush, formed the SCPBRG three decades ago in response to declining populations of peregrine falcons and other birds.
The Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently presented an award to the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group in recognition of its "Pioneering efforts in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to bring back the peregrine falcon".
The award underscored SCPBRG's important contribution of field and laboratory research, and role as a wildlife management innovator. In addition to its success with the peregrine, SCPBRG bred in captivity and released Harris' hawks, elf owls, and aplomado falcons and has participated closely in the efforts to rebuild bald eagle and California condor populations.
Today, the SCPBRG program makes an important contribution to avian wildlife management and research in California and the West. To learn more about the current goals and objectives of our research and management work, please see "Mission Statement".
Our current efforts include:
- Overseeing research toward solutions to negative avian and bat interactions with California's power transmission network, and generation structures.
- Maintaining a statewide information concerning peregrine falcons.
- Working with others to help restore the delicate ecology of California's Channel Islands.
- Developing and implementing non-lethal solutions for protecting beach-nesting seabirds from avian predators such as shrikes, hawks, owls, and falcons.
- Collaborating with East Bay Regional Parks biologists to learn more about prairie falcon habitat use in the face of development pressure.
- Assisting corporations and government agencies with the management of peregrine falcons nesting on urban and other structures.
- Using satellite and conventional telemetry in our research of bald eagles (paper in review).
In addition we:
- Lecture to schools and community groups through our education program to describe our conservation biology work with slide presentations that include a visit by a tame falcon or golden eagle.
- Participate in recovery planning for several state and federal listed threatened and endangered species.
- Provide training and technical expertise to other biologists in areas of raptor research field techniques.
- Oversee and coordinate the annual statewide Mid-Winter Bald Eagle Survey in cooperation with a nationwide, multiyear effort.
We are located at the UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Laboratory and part of the UCSC Institute of Marine Sciences, but UC Santa Cruz does not fund our work. We are entirely supported by charitable gifts, research grants, and government agency contracts.
