Allen Fish Presents:

Keeping the Pulse on the Pacific Raptor Flyway – Forty Years of Community-Driven Conservation Science at the GGRO

Tens of thousands of birds of prey (nineteen species) pass over the Golden Gate each fall. Since the 1980s, staff and volunteers of the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory (GGRO) have been monitoring the Pacific Raptor Flyway from its most visible location, Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands. GGRO biologists, cooperating scientists, and volunteers have used GGRO data to examine species trends, to map flights, and to detect stressors on bird of prey populations. Results from GGRO banding and counting show evidence of species declines and increases, and address a network of questions about raptor conservation biology. Come join us for an evening of solid science and reckless hypothesizing about Pacific raptors, sparked by four decades of migration-tracking at the Golden Gate.

Allen Fish has been the GGRO director for the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy since 1985. He received a Zoology degree from UC Davis and returned there to teach Raptor Ecology in the 2000s. The GGRO is the longest-running Community Science operation in the National Park Service and has helped to launch hundreds of young people into careers in conservation science and education. Allen has recently become obsessed with learning California’s moths and dragonflies.