This Thursday, October 6, please join Oconee Rivers Audubon Society for our fall potluck and speaker meeting at the Sandy Creek Nature Center. The outdoors potluck and social hour starts at 6pm, followed by our speaker meeting at 7pm (talk details below):

Black Flies and the Critically Endangered Whooping Crane: Is there a link?

Elmer Gray University of Georgia entomologist

Reintroduction of the Critically Endangered Whooping Crane, Grus americana, was initiated at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Necedah, Wisconsin in 2001. The cranes began attempting to nest at this site in 2005 and the phenomenon of unusually high levels of nest desertion has been observed each year. Significant populations of black flies have been observed on the nesting birds and around the nest sites. At the request of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, applications of a biological larvicide have been conducted. Adult populations of the black flies were significantly reduced on the refuge. Biologists determined that six of 20 first-time nests were incubated to full term in 2011, as opposed to zero of 43 for the previous six years. This work represents the first time that a biological larvicide has been used to suppress black fly populations that are attacking an Endangered Species.

Mr. Gray currently serves as a Medical and Veterinary Entomologist at UGA where he supervises the staff of UGA’s Black Fly Rearing and Bioassay Laboratory. This laboratory operates the world’s only black fly colony.

Richard Hall President, Oconee Rivers Audubon Society Athens GA

You must be a subscriber to post to GABO-L. Instructions for subscribing (and the guidelines) are found here: http://www.gos.org/gabo.html.  Please read the guidelines before posting.

Send regular postings to gabo-l@listserv.uga.edu

To search GABO-L archives or manage your subscription, go to http://www.listserv.uga.edu/archives/gabo-l.html

To contact a listowner, send message to GABO-L-request@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU