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First Planning Meeting
August 20, 2005
| On Saturday, August 20, 2005,
19 members of WCAS met at the Rocky River Nature Center to
develop a strategy for adopting the Rocky River Important Bird Area (IBA).
Also in attendance were Dan Petit, Director of Natural Resources for
Cleveland Metroparks, and Jerry Tinianow, Executive Director of Ohio
Audubon. Jerry served as facilitator for the workshop. |
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During the workshop, the participants developed a plan for WCAS to adopt
the Rocky River IBA. The plan includes three working committees that
will plan the adoption in detail. The three areas of effort include
finding a coordinator for the project, studying how to conduct point
counts for birds throughout the watershed, and planning and organizing a
formal dedication ceremony for the IBA in 2006.
Click here for details of those follow up meetings.
Study, Coordinator, and
Dedication Group & Committee Chairperson meeting minutes. |
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Why is it important to adopt
the IBA?
Without data on the
presence of birds and suitable habitat for them to thrive, valuable
habitat in the watershed is subject to commercial development. Adopting
the IBA means having a plan in place for teams of dedicated volunteers
to conduct point counts of birds throughout the watershed year-round. A
coordinator would collect the data and submit it to Cleveland Metroparks
and Ohio Audubon, who would have the data available to combat
development.
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According to Ohio Audubon,
WCAS is the first Audubon chapter in Ohio to plan to adopt an IBA.
Ohio has 19 chapters and 63 IBAs. WCAS is setting the standard for
Audubon chapters to take this initiative.
If you are interested in helping in this
way, you can call Tom Romito at (216) 741-2352 or E-Mail him at
tomromito@ameritech.net
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