Lunch & Learn with Gail Garber, Hawks Aloft

April 13, 2017

"Raptor Conservation"

Gail Garber, Hawks Aloft's executive director, presented a lecture on "Raptor Conservation" at a Lunch & Learn on April 13 hosted by the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Natural Resources and Environmental Law program and the Utton Center.f

Julia Davis, Hawks Aloft Education and Outreach Coordinator, and Gail brought Shadow, a screech owl that has an elbow joint injury; Sunny, a prairie falcon missing a wing tip; and Aguilita, a Red-tailed Hawk who is blind in her left eye. Hawks Aloft cares for twenty non-releasable birds of prey. The education birds have a permanent disability that would prevent them from surviving at-large in nature, but they are provided with housing, a natural diet, and veterinary care so they can live out their life spans.

Hawks Aloft conducts nest surveys in the Rio Grande bosque, and raptor nests are monitored throughout the nesting season by staff and volunteers. Hawks Aloft and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service used the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 to protect the nesting season of birds in the Rio Grande bosque from April 15 until August 15 each year. Conservation, research, and education are the tools Hawks Aloft uses to preserve New Mexico's birds and their habitats.

For more information about Hawks Aloft please click here.