VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR CURLEW REPRODUCTIVE STUDY

A joint project with US Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Defense, Washington State University-Pullman, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

We are beginning to recruit help for our curlew research project. We need up to 5 volunteers for days between April 26 ? May 7 and May 17 ? 21 to help search for Long-billed curlew nests. Nests will be located using rope dragging methods where the rope floats along the tops of the vegetation flushing curlews from their nest. Rope dragging is most effective when curlews are on their nest, of course. This means that we should be dragging during the hottest part of the day when curlews are known to protect their eggs from overheating by shading them.

Logistics: We will meet at 8:00am at Umatilla refuge near Irrigon, OR. We will depart from the refuge to one of our 4 field sites. Please prepare for a full day in the hot sun. You will need a lunch, water, sunhat, and sunscreen. We should arrive back at Umatilla refuge by 4pm. If a full day is not possible, please make the necessary arrangements with your own vehicle. Temporary housing at Umatilla refuge may be available for those who are interested in helping multiple days. Please contact me for information concerning housing.

Volunteers need only be physically fit, be able to recognize a curlew, and have an interest to help. Unfortunately, I cannot guarantee we will locate a nest for every effort. I predict some days may be fantastic while others we will be fortunate to locate one nest!

This is a large scale effort and we want volunteers to reserve the day(s) you and your group are interested in helping out. This will ensure that we don?t overload volunteers because we have a limited amount of equipment.

Contact: Email Sidra Blake at sidrablake at hotmail.com (please put curlew in the subject heading) or at 509-430-3055


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