Saturday, July 19, 2008

Magdalena students witness falcon release

T.S. Last El Defensor Chieftain General Manager

A dozen Magdalena students were on hand Friday to witness the release of five more Aplomado Falcons at the tri-agency site about 20 miles south of San Antonio, N.M.

The field trip was coordinated by the State Land Office in an effort to integrate school children into the agency's natural resource management programs.

"We try to get kids involved in projects that they can do with the Land Office," said Miranda Miller, whose position as instructional coordinator was created this year to facilitate the effort. "We want to try to get students out in the field as much as possible."

Miller said students at schools across the state get involved with releases with other species, as well as wildlife restoration efforts and forestry projects.

Aplomado Falcons have been on the endangered list since the mid-1980s. This initiative fits the criteria under the Endangered Species Act as a program to introduce a non-essential and experimental population of falcons into parts of southern New Mexico and Arizona.

The program is done in cooperation with the Land Office, the Bureau of Land Management, White Sands Missile Range and private land owners.

The Peregrine Fund, a non-profit organization that focuses its efforts on recovery of various raptors and endangered species, is also heavily involved in the project.

"It's been working out great since it started in 2006," said Angel Montoya, a research biologist with the Peregrine Fund. "We're starting to see natural activity, and that's our ultimate goal — to get these birds to reproduce on their own."

So far this year, 20 Aplomado Falcons have been released from the Socorro County site. Montoya said about 150 birds have been released from this and other sites in the program's two years.

While the students didn't get to see the falcons fly away from the wooden boxes that have contained them for the last week, they did get a close-up look. Each student got a chance to climb a small tower were the birds were housed and peek through a small hole to view them up close.

Jim Sauer, a teacher for Magdalena Schools, said the field trip served as an incentive for the fourth- and fifth-graders.

"We try to communicate to them that this is something that they can do for a job, but they have to stay in school," he said. "We need to give them reasons to wonder and imagine and reasons to stay in school."

tslast@dchieftain.com

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