Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) and collaborators announce the results of a three-year, multi-state project that fills significant ecological data gaps on bird, marine mammal, and sea turtle distributions and movements.
In response to news of the first confirmed mortality of a Common Loon due to avian malaria in the Northeast, Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) has initiated a crowd funding campaign to investigate the scope of the finding.
Biodiversity Research Institute, working as an executing agency for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, is now conducting Minamata Initial Assessment (MIA) activities in Cabo Verde, Chad, Guatemala, Nepal, Sao Tome and Principe, and Sri Lanka. MIAs are designed to assist countries in developing strategies to ratify and ultimately implement the Minamata Convention on Mercury.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) presents a mid-point progress report of the largest Common Loon conservation study ever conducted. Funded in 2013 by the Ricketts Conservation Foundation, Restore the Call is a five-year science-based initiative to strengthen and restore loon populations within their existing and former range. Research efforts are focusing in three key U.S. breeding population centers from the western mountains to the Atlantic seaboard.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) presents a mid-point progress report of the largest Common Loon conservation study ever conducted. Funded in 2013 by the Ricketts Conservation Foundation, Restore the Call is a five-year science-based initiative to strengthen and restore loon populations within their existing and former range. Research efforts are focusing in three key U.S. breeding population centers from the western mountains to the Atlantic seaboard.
Biodiversity Research Institute will participate at the 2016 North American Ornithological Conference, in Washington, D.C., August 16-20. BRI biologists will present current avian research in presentations and poster sessions. BRI’s executive director, David Evers, Ph.D., will participate in a symposium on birds as indicators of ecosystem health and environmental change.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), announces the publication of the scientific paper Evaluating the effectiveness of the Minamata Convention on Mercury: Principles and recommendations for next steps, published by the journal Science of the Total Environment (now available online).
An international team led by the U.S. Geological Survey and co-organized by Biodiversity Research Institute, recently documented widespread mercury contamination in air, soil, sediment, plants, fish, and wildlife at various levels across Western North America.
BRI's mission is to conduct scientific investigations into human impacts on the environment to better understand ecological health through the lens of animals.
In 2017, with a grant from the American Eagle Foundation, BRI will conduct follow-up work on our 2014 study characterizing Bald Eagle use of the Lower Sebasticook River in central Maine. Attracted by millions of river herring travelling between the ocean and upstream spawning areas, Bald Eagles gather on the Sebasticook during the summer months in higher numbers than likely anywhere else in New England.
A new study led by researchers from Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) shows that Harlequin Ducks in coastal areas of Alaska’s Kodiak and Unalaska islands are exposed to environmental sources of mercury and that mercury concentrations in their blood are associated with their local food source, mainly blue mussels.
A new study, supported by the Minamata Convention’s Interim Secretariat hosted by UN Environment, reveals that women of childbearing age living in four Pacific Island countries have elevated levels of mercury in their bodies.
Biodiversity Research Institute will hold its annual meeting of the Wyoming Loon Working Group in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on May 24. Collaborators from state and federal agencies, nongovernmental research and conservation groups, and local universities will meet to discuss the status of Common Loons in the state. These meetings are an integral part of Wyoming’s conservation efforts regarding loons.
Biodiversity Research Institute will hold its annual meeting of the Wyoming Loon Working Group in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on May 24. Collaborators from state and federal agencies, nongovernmental research and conservation groups, and local universities will meet to discuss the status of Common Loons in the state. These meetings are an integral part of Wyoming’s conservation efforts regarding loons.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) will participate in several capacities at the International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant (ICMGP), to be held at the Rhode Island Convention Center July 16-21, 2017. The ICMGP is committed to better understanding and effectively managing mercury releases and emissions to decrease human and wildlife exposure. This biennial conference brings together a diversity of participants from around the globe. The theme of this year's conference is Integrating Mercury Research and Policy in a Changing World. BRI wildlife research biologists will present current mercury research in presentations and poster sessions. BRI will also host an exhibit booth (#30) in the Exhibit Hall throughout the Conference.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) announces that translocation of loon chicks from Maine to Massachusetts is being carried out this week. During the fifth breeding season of its Restore the Call project, BRI presents a progress report of the largest Common Loon conservation study ever conducted. Funded in 2013 by the Ricketts Conservation Foundation, Restore the Call is a five-year science-based initiative to strengthen and restore loon populations within their existing and former range. Research efforts have focused in three key U.S. breeding population centers from the western mountains to the Atlantic seaboard.
Portland, ME—Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) has confirmed today that the translocation of loon chicks from Maine to Massachusetts has resulted in at least one loon returning to its release lake. In its fifth year of a five-year initiative funded by the Ricketts Conservation Foundation, Restore the Call is the largest Common Loon conservation study ever conducted. Research efforts have focused in three key U.S. breeding population areas from the western mountains to the Atlantic seaboard.
Mercury, a neurotoxic metal, has been found in high levels across all global regions in women of reproductive age
An update on the Restore the Call including the release of eight loon chicks onto lakes in southeastern Massachusetts.
BRI attended the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury (COP1), which took place from September 24-29, 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland. The theme of the Conference was "Make Mercury History."
The chapter, The Effects of Methylmercury on Wildlife: A Comprehensive Review and Approach for Interpretation, authored by BRI Executive Director and Chief Scientist, David Evers, was recently published in Elsevier's Encyclopedia of the Antrhopocene, 1st Edition.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) announces results of its five-year loon study Restore the Call: a male loon chick that was translocated in 2015 from the Adirondack Park Region of New York to the Assawompsett Pond Complex (APC) in southeastern Massachusetts has returned to the APC lake from which it fledged. The identification of this loon (through color bands) marks the first confirmed account of an adult loon returning to the lake to which it was translocated, captive-reared, and then fledged.
BRI researcher and deputy director, Wing Goodale, recently published a new paper on wildlife and offshore wind development.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) announces the publication of the scientific paper Restoration of common loons following the North Cape Oil Spill, Rhode Island, USA, in the journal Science of the Total Environment (now available online). This loon restoration study, conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over a 15-year period, resulted in the acquisition or conservation easements of nearly 607,028 ha (1.5 million acres) of Maine forests and waters to support the protection of 119 loon pairs in perpetuity.
Biodiversity Research Institute announces the successful results of its long-term loon translocation and restoration project Restore the Call: A male loon chick that was translocated in 2015 from New York to Massachusetts returned in 2018 to the region from which it fledged, and now has formed a territorial pair, nested, and successfully hatched a chick in Fall River, Massachusetts.
Fifteen papers have recently been published in a special issue of the journal Ecotoxicology. Findings: at least 58 songbird species show demonstrated effects from mercury. The journal’s October 2020 issue presents results of field, laboratory, and museum studies—from Alaska to Maine to Puerto Rico.
Biodiversity Research Institute announced that a series of scientific studies that assessed the impact of mercury on air, water, fish, and wildlife in New York State was published in the journal Ecotoxicology, an international journal devoted to presenting critical research on the effects of toxic chemicals on people and the environment.
Biodiversity Research Institute announces the formation of its new environmental consulting services division—BRI Environmental offering a full suite of services for evaluating and permitting renewable energy development projects, infrastructure projects, marine installations, as well as residential and commercial development.
Women in three Latin American countries who rely on fish for protein and live in proximity to gold mining activity have been found to have elevated mercury levels, according to a new study, Mercury Exposure of Women in Four Latin American Gold Mining Countries. The study was conducted by the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN) together with Biodiversity Research Institute.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) is part of a collaborative team, led by Duke University, that has received a total of $7.5 million to assess the risks that offshore wind energy development along the East Coast may pose to birds, bats, and marine mammals. BRI’s role is to lead the avian research components for the five-year project Wildlife and Offshore Wind (WOW): A Systems Approach to Research and Risk Assessment for Offshore Wind Development from Maine to North Carolina.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), announces the publication of the scientific paper Savanna fire management can generate enough carbon revenue to help restore Africa’s rangelands and fill Protected Area funding gaps in the December issue of the journal One Earth. The new study builds on a history of collaborative and independent research by BRI, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Soils for the Future, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) that has culminated in this paper, which quantifies the benefits of savanna fire management in Africa.
New study Amazon forests capture high levels of atmospheric mercury pollution from artisanal gold mining published in Nature Communications. An international team of researchers documented substantial mercury accumulation in soils, biomass, and resident songbirds in some of the Amazon’s most protected and biodiverse areas.
BRI is part of an international group of scientists who published a joint letter in Science, just prior to the next round of international negotiations on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. This letter urges more attention to the diversity of contaminants that pollute the environment and adversely impact biodiversity.
The threat chemical pollution poses to biodiversity on a global scale has been acknowledged in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. In its current form, Target 7 proposes to regulate the release of chemicals to the environment and names specific indicators focusing on pesticides, nutrients, and plastic waste. The Minamata Convention on Mercury reinforces that Target 7 of the Framework must include the following per new supporting publications: nonagricultural biocides, PFAS, toxic metalloids including mercury, and endocrine disrupting chemicals.
BRI is proud to tell its story in a new video featuring stunning cinematography that captures the work we do and why we do it.
On the remote island of Rota, a tiny dot in the vastness of Oceania, a group of field biologists from distant places join forces each year to study threatened and endangered species of bats, indigenous crows, and other wildlife. In 2017, New Zealand native and bat specialist Josh Guilbert started full-time research on the “Friendly Island.” That first year, he met two seasonal volunteers who had previously worked at a wildlife research group in Maine—Biodiversity Research Institute.
Julia Gulka tackles emerging environmental issues in an office surrounded by photographs, illustrations, and personal watercolor paintings of the birds she studies and the places she has traveled.
BRI’s field biologists seek out opportunities that put them into close contact with the natural world. In fact, those encounters captivate, awaken, and spark their motivation and passion.
Careful siting of renewable energy development seems to play a key role in minimizing impacts to wildlife, but this requires detailed knowledge of where animals breed, winter, and migrate. To address this need, BRI established a wildlife and renewable energy program in 2009, which has evolved over the past 12 years into BRI’s Center for Research on Offshore Wind and the Environment (CROWE).
Led by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), with funding from the Global Environment Facility, and executed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), the Eliminating mercury skin lightening products project will work to reduce the risk of exposure to mercury-added skin lightening products, raising awareness of the health risks associated with their use, developing model regulations to reduce their circulation, and halting production, trade, and distribution across domestic and international markets.
In a sparsely furnished office in Kajiado, Kenya, large sheets of white paper cover nearly an entire wall. Quick illustrations, mind maps, color-coded charts, and task lists cram the pages with plans and strategies for grazing management orchestrated by the newly formed Kajiado Rangeland Carbon Project team. In the language of the local Maasai tribe, Kajiado means The Long River; the region is located south of Nairobi and bordering Tanzania. Staff on this project understand what is at stake and are eager to embark on an adventure that will help enhance their local economy while conserving wildlife and precious habitat.
As an ecological modeler and the director of BRI’s Quantitative Wildlife Ecology Research Lab, Evan spends much of his time considering innovative ways to analyze large datasets such as the 2023 Maine Bird Atlas, or working with offshore energy wind developers along the Atlantic coast.
Understanding that climate change is a global threat does not always mean that an individual perceives climate change as personally relevant or harmful, nor a priority in need of addressing. Talking about climate change in a way that fosters meaningful engagement is increasingly important to move individuals towards action.
Why does the world need so many types of mushrooms, or spiders, or birds, or any other species? The answer is wrapped up in the term biological diversity. Every species on Earth plays an integral part in the health of our planet. When an organism becomes extinct, a wide web of other organisms suffers, and we all suffer in the long run. The study of mushrooms has helped scientists understand the intricate connectedness all species have to the earth and to each other.
Author and field biologist Jeff Fair has followed loons, bears, and other wild spirits across the North from Maine to Alaska for more than 40 years, studying and writing about what his pursuit of them has allowed him to find.
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