The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium Conservation Fund has approved two grants to Ohio Wildlife Center to save Neotropical migratory birds through two projects. One grant is focused on awareness building of human-linked causes injuring migratory birds as well as songbird rescue and rehabilitation. The second is a data gathering and tracking project for the 2019 spring and fall bird migration seasons.
These projects are extensions of a prior conservation grant to the Center linked to the Columbus Lights Out Initiative. Lights Out is a community-wide effort to decrease the hazards to birds during migration seasons, such as urban light pollution, window strikes and skyscraper collisions.
The new grants will support the rescue and care for injured birds from the downtown Columbus corridor and the collection of movement data from rehabilitated songbirds admitted to the Wildlife Hospital and later released to continue migration paths.
The data will be obtained using nanotags applied to songbirds, particularly those that are endangered, threatened or a species of concern. After the rehabilitated birds are released, the nanotags supply information through a chain of Motus antennas that cross from Canada through the United States to North, Central and South America. A Motus antenna was recently installed at the Wilds Safari Park in Muskingum County and one is also located at the Columbus Zoo. 
The awareness building initiative will engage urban stakeholders and building owners and managers to enact lighting modifications and educate the public about migration threats. The second component is assembling a team of volunteers and professionals who will identify, collect and rehabilitate songbirds injured in Downtown Columbus during next year’s fall and spring migration seasons. The team members will monitor specific downtown streets and buildings daily to collect data on bird collisions and transport injured birds to the Wildlife Hospital to be assessed and treated.
According to Ohio Wildlife Center’s Education Director Storm Gibson, who is directing the projects, the outcomes will be an important resource in efforts to deal with increasing threats to migratory songbirds. Information from a recent report of the State of North America’s Birds shows an estimated 600 million birds perish each year in the United States due to human-linked causes such as light pollution in cities. The artificial light from skyscrapers and other tall buildings frequently lures birds off their nighttime migratory pathways. They then collide with buildings or circle lights until they are exhausted and drop to the ground.
“This data will provide rehabilitators, conservation organizations and researchers with a base of knowledge of movement, rate of stop over and other critical information about migrating songbirds,” Gibson said. “The wildlife tracking data will be useful to understand the importance of release location, wildlife movement and the importance of Neotropical migratory songbirds as indicator species in our natural environment,” she added.
The birds selected for tagging will be treated and rehabilitated at the Wildlife Hospital and released back to the wild to continue their migration, Gibson noted. The nanotags will supply movement data to the Motus towers during the migratory flights that will later be part of large information banks available to Ohio Wildlife Center, the Ohio Bird Conservation Initiative and others in the research network.
Volunteers engaged in the monitoring will be trained in data collection and documentation for species identification, measurements, collision and injuries. The grants will also support the necessary equipment and supplies for the Wildlife Hospital to manage the increased capacity and census of injured birds collected by the monitoring teams.
“This is an exciting collaboration with the Wilds, the Columbus Zoo and all the conservation organizations across Ohio to generate critical information in our combined efforts to decrease threats and injuries to migrating songbirds,” Gibson said.