The Launch of the Banders Without Borders Initiative
On 9 Sept 2021, the United States Bird Banding Lab (BBL) recently introduced a new initiative to strengthen connections with our sister banding schemes all over the world. This effort is part of our “Banders Without Borders Initiative;” an initiative that will allow banding schemes to share information about their banding program, history, staff, and current projects.
"We are excited for the future,” Says Dr. Antonio Celis-Murillo, Chief of the BBL “Collaboration starts with good conversations; with information sharing, with discussions of shared ambitions and innovations.”
The goals of the Banders Without Borders Initiative are to 1) improve communication among banding schemes, 2) foster learning among the banding community, 3) seek collaborative opportunities, 4) develop and champion partnerships and 5) advance the bird banding sciences.
“International collaborations can be the hardest – banding schemes operate under different governments, frameworks and agreements, but the core goals are often shared. We’re interested in learning about how other schemes use data, how they interact with their users, and share our own experiences in return.” Says Dr. Celis-Murillo. “Whether it’s waterfowl or songbirds, these data are incredibly important to our understanding of demographics, spatial use, and population trends of species.”
To kickstart this initiative, the BBL met with the New Zealand Banding Scheme last week, a successful two hour meet-and-greet of employees, goals and operations. The BBL actively invites other banding schemes from around the world to reach out as they work towards increasing the scope of this initiative in the months and years to come.
“While New Zealand’s Bird Banding Scheme is smaller in size, we still can learn much from each other.” Noted Dr. Celis-Murillo. Since the 1950s, the New Zealand Bird Banding Scheme (NZBBS) has preformed similar responsibilities to the BBL, curating and managing data, overseeing banders and advising conservation.
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