Dear Friend,

	Russ Bradley with an adult Rhinoceros Auklet. Photo by Annie Schmidt

PRBO’s long-term studies, built on rigorous science and personal passion, are essential to reducing the growing threats to nature’s health from habitat loss, climate change, pollution, and more.

Following are recent accomplishments and next steps, driven by PRBO’s unique science-to-solutions conservation approach!

To help achieve these next steps, please make your most generous gift today!

Protecting Ocean Wildlife and Food Webs

• PRBO documented 180 Northern Fur Seal pups (as seen at top left) born on the Farallones this year, an enormous increase since 1996 when they first returned to breed thanks to our protection efforts with the USFWS. The population was decimated in the early 1800s; an estimated 200,000 were slaughtered in one year alone.

	Brandt's Cormorants. Photo by Annie Schmidt

Next Steps: Continue monitoring and conserving the rich wildlife of the Farallones, including reversing Ashy Storm-Petrel declines by eradicating the non-native house mouse.

• Nearly 50 whales have been injured or killed due to ship strikes off California since 2001. Through our ACCESS ocean research partnership with NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS), we chronicled an increasing number of whales feeding in the busy shipping lanes approaching San Francisco Bay.

Next Steps: Recommend preventative actions, such as reducing ship speeds when whales are present, to NOAA and the US Coast Guard.

• Our extensive data from Antarctica, where PRBO has worked since 1972, were key to identifying climate change dangers for Adélie and Emperor penguins as well as minke whales. We communicated these and other findings to international fisheries management entities and contributed to US and New Zealand proposals to establish a large marine protected area (MPA) at the Ross Sea, the most intact marine ecosystem remaining on the planet.

Next Steps: Continue to support establishment of this vital MPA; help craft a management plan for its future success.

• Based on PRBO and partner data spanning three decades, we identified seabird feeding “hotspots” across the California Current (off the West Coast from Canada to Baja, Mexico), provided the scientific foundation for their protection to regulatory agencies, and published our findings in the prestigious journal Ecological Applications.

Next Steps: Identify where human threats (e.g. overfishing and shipping) overlap with food web hotspots to guide conservation efforts.

	Photo by Corinne deBra

Safeguarding SF Bay's Tidal Marshes and Outer Coast as Sea Levels Rise

• We developed an innovative Sea Level Rise mapping tool (www.prbo.org/sfbayslr) to help habitat managers and policymakers prioritize conservation investments today by exploring climate change impacts on San Francisco Bay tidal marshes and dependent birds in the future. One alarming finding: mid- and high-level marshes (which comprise more than three-fourths of all tidal marsh in the Bay) could decrease by 93% by 2110.

Next Steps: Expand on-line tool to highlight highest priority marshes for conservation; apply tool to development, restoration and other decisions.

• Along the San Francisco Bay Area’s outer coast, we are also helping habitat and urban managers plan for sea level rise and storm hazards through “Our Coast, Our Future,” launched by PRBO, Gulf of the Farallones NMS, and US Geological Survey. We met with 55 stakeholders to ensure the forthcoming on-line tools will be useful — and used — for adaptation planning.

Next Steps: Complete the online viewing tool and expand it to San Francisco Bay shorelines.

Your generous support ensures that PRBO will continue transforming science into conservation action.

Restoring Watersheds for Wildlife and Human Communities

• Drought is expected to worsen in the West over the next two decades, with likely severe ecological and economic impacts. PRBO and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) are working with ranchers and farmers to “rewater” Central Valley watersheds by expanding eco-friendly cattle grazing and other beneficial practices that enhance soils, recharge ground water, sequester carbon, and increase bird and other wildlife habitat.

Next Steps: Secure matching funds and hire five new “partner” biologists targeting 50,000 acres of Central Valley foothill rangelands and streams.

• In the face of ever-shrinking permanent snowpack in the Sierras, the largest freshwater source for wildlife and people in California, PRBO joined the US Forest Service, private landowners and other partners to help restore Sierra meadows. Mountain meadows are critical for storing and slowly releasing water downstream, as well as for Yellow Warblers, endangered Willow Flycatchers, and other wildlife.

Next Steps: Expand PRBO’s meadow management and restoration leadership across the Sierra Nevada.

Enhancing Shorebird Habitat on Agricultural Lands

• Partnering with the NRCS, PRBO helped more than 70 rice farmers secure $2.7 million in new Farm Bill funding. Our goal is to increase shallow-water habitat and food for shorebirds, using practices developed by PRBO and partners on over 27,500 acres of rice lands in California’s Sacramento Valley.

Next Steps: Provide on-site assistance to rice growers; assess outcomes for migratory birds and refine practices as needed.

Training Future Conservation Scientists and Environmental Stewards

• 	School children planting a native shrub at a STRAW restoration site. PRBO photo.

  The STRAW Project (Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed) became a part of PRBO this year. STRAW has engaged 25,000 students to restore 21 miles of creek habitat for birds, fish, clean water and more, guided by PRBO's science for over a decade.

  Next Steps: Increase student and community engagement while also testing new climate-smart restoration practices.

• PRBO’s acclaimed Conservation Science Internship Program has trained more than 1,500 students over the past 40 years, many of whom then made their careers in conservation agencies, academia and non-profits. PRBO interns are essential to amassing the long-term data sets that help us tackle urgent environmental perils.

Next Steps: Recruit 62 interns for 2012 to work across PRBO, from the Farallones to the Sierras, in science and outreach.

Much of PRBO’s success stems from our unique, hands-on internship program — the data collected, the leadership spawned and the future partners seeded near and afar!

Thank you for making PRBO's science-to-solutions leadership possible with your most generous gift today!

	Best wishes, Ellie M. Cohen President and CEO

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