This program and our monthly meeting is CANCELLED!! We will reschedule this program for November of 2020!

ARE MONTANA’S HIGH MOUNTAIN STREAMS CAUSING THE DROP IN HARLEQUIN DUCK POPULATIONS?

By Chris Hammond

Beautiful harlequin sea ducks spend most of the year in salt water, surfing with sea gulls and cormorants along the Pacific Coast, from Alaska to Seattle.  But they migrate east to breed and nest in high, fast-moving Rocky Mountain streams. In icy waters, these ducks mate for life, although the colorful males stay in the breeding grounds for approximately six weeks before returning to the coast, while the females and chicks stay behind and don’t return until September. Unfortunately, harlequin ducks are suffering a serious population decline, and biologists are searching for the causes, identification of which will help them shape their conservation efforts. To help them find answers, biologists from agencies in British Columbia, Alberta, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming have expanded a previously existing project, The International Harlequin Duck Migration and Connectivity Project.

Chris Hammond, a nongame wildlife biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (Region 1), participates in the project and for our March 16^thprogram will share his summary of the project to date, preliminary analyses, and intriguing new information emerging from this research.

As a FWP wildlife biologist based in Kalispell, Chris is responsible for survey, inventory, management, and conservation of, primarily, nongame wildlife species. He also works on mitigation projects that involve conservation easements, acquisitions, habitat restoration, and potential species reintroductions. His undergraduate and graduate work focused on the ecology of common loons in northwest Montana. He is a co-chair of the Montana Common Loon Working Group, a co-chair of the Harlequin Duck Working Group, and a member of the Bald Eagle Working Group, Herp Working Group, and Bat Working Group. He has authored the following conservation documents with assistance from the respective working group members and other colleagues:

• Montana Bald Eagle Management Guidelines: An Addendum to Montana Bald Eagle Management Plan (1994)
• Montana Bald Eagle Status Report 2009, 
• Conservation Plan for Common Loons in Montana, and
• FWP Northwest Montana Terrestrial Climate Change Species Monitoring and Conservation Plan.

You can read an interesting article about Chris Hammond’s work and The International Harlequin Duck Migration and Connectivity Project in the Oct 22, 2019 Montana Outdoors article. https://issuu.com/montanaoutdoors/docs/harlequin

Join us and learn about harlequins, a bird that many of us have never seen--and may not ever see-- from a “duck whisperer” on Monday, March 16^that 7PM at the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge. The meeting will be held in the Visitor’s Center of the Refuge located north of Stevensville, just off the Eastside Hwy. Turn west onto Wildfowl Lane. The public is invited. Contact Mike Daniels for more information, 381-9800.