Missouri Tropical Bird Account
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| Birds that we enjoy during the breeding season, such as Baltimore orioles, spend up to eight months of the year in tropical regions like these mountains in Central America. | |
The Missouri Conservation Heritage Foundation supports efforts to protect Missouri birds year-round. To that end, donations to this account will help fund habitat protection and related conservation activities at critical sites in the region between eastern Mexico and Panama, where 95% of Missouri’s tropical migrant breeding bird species spend the winter. Donate now>>
Partners in these efforts include the Missouri Department of Conservation, seven Missouri Audubon chapters, the American Bird Conservancy, the United States Agency for International Development, individual Central American conservationists, and environmental education and conservation organizations in Central America like Enchanted Wings Nature Center in Copan Ruinas, Honduras, and Guaruma, at the edge of Pico Bonito National Park, Honduras. Many of these partners have joined a new coalition : The Avian Conservation Alliance—ACA—helps provide a collective voice for Neotropical migratory bird conservation efforts in this hemisphere. Go to more on tropical birds and ACA>>
Funds from this account will help with land acquisition, protection and restoration as well as monitoring, research, education and ecotourism development in areas that harbor high numbers of bird species that breed in Missouri. Two current projects are in and around the El Cielo Biosphere Reserve and in the Yucatan Peninsula, near Cancun. Both of these projects are in Mexico.
In 2008, the Foundation helped fund a Spanish/English guide book on the birds of Lake Yojoa, Honduras, which was used in a three-week training effort for park guards and naturalists from Pico Bonito National Park, Honduras, and other conservation areas. The book was also used during an international birding festival in the Lake Yojoa region, which previously had no bird field guide. A generous gift to the Foundation from an anonymous donor made this project possible. >>Pictured at right are trainees during the bird course, who used the book during their training.
<<Also in 2008, the Foundation delivered children’s environmental and other Spanish language books to several Honduran elementary schools in communities that border important conservation areas. The books, valued at $800, were donated by the Jefferson City, Missouri, facility of Scholastic Press, Inc.
