Wizarding World of Wildlife Camp at TRC

This week, TRC welcomed summer campers for our popular Wizarding World of Wildlife camp. 

The "herbology" topic included a visit to the CBS Conservatory on the UMN/St Paul campus.  Campers explored how carnivorous plants interacted with their "prey" by enticing it to come to them.  The campers then got to watch TRC staff Ian Dorney feed Lois the education great horned owl, and compare and contrast how owls procured their prey with a much different approach. 

Meet TRC's Summer Scholar Treana Mayer

Meet Treana Mayer, TRC's
Summer Scholar

We are excited to introduce you to our Summer Scholar, Treana Mayer. The Summer Scholars are veterinary students who have earned the opportunity to work in research with faculty during their summer break. They received grant funding through a competitive process based on proposals they wrote. During the summer, they will work closely with faculty to learn more about the research process as well as take a lead role in one specific project.

“I’m a rising second year doctor of veterinary medicine student right here at the University of Minnesota, with a strong interest in the fields of free roaming wildlife, conservation medicine, and One Health. My background includes an undergraduate degree in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, and experience working with many types of avian species, including endangered, domestic, and captive-wild birds.

In the future I’m considering an advanced research degree after my DVM, to investigate unknowns regarding wildlife health, and emergent infectious diseases. I am passionate about anthropomorphic climate change, and its impacts on the health of our ecosystems, animal and human communities. In choosing to pursue veterinary medicine, I felt compelled to use this toolset to mitigate human caused impacts to our neighboring species, and to explore adaptive strategies to improve the health of animals and people alike.

This is why I’m most excited to be here at The Raptor Center as a Summer Scholar, to support their mission in the clinic, while working on a research project for reducing subjectivity in body condition scoring. My hope is to contribute towards the greater standardization of wild raptor health data collection, to allow for greater collaboration across organizations, improving our understanding of these amazing birds in the future.”

Celebrating Thirty Years of Peregrines

This 21-day-old peregrine chick now has identifying
leg bands. 

Today, three peregrine chicks - two female chicks and one male - were banded at the historic 33 S. 6th Street/City Center/MultiFoods Tower in downtown Minneapolis. 

This site is historically very important to the Midwest peregrine falcon restoration project.  It was the first urban site to host a “hack box” of peregrine chicks, and the first Minnesota site since the 1960s to produce a wild-hatched peregrine that would fledge successfully. In 1985, Dr. Harrison “Bud” Tordoff and Dr. Patrick T. Redig, co-founder of The Raptor Center, approached the building management team at 33 South 6th Street to inquire about putting a “hack box" (also known as a "release box") on the roof. This release box would house young captive-bred peregrine chicks that would be the start of a reintroduction of the species.

The breeding adults were both at this site last year.  The male is Triumph, b/r 58/P, a 2013 hatch from the Mayo Building in Rochester, MN.  The female, who had previously been at another site in downtown Minneapolis, is b/r 22/X, from a building on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota.

TRC staff provide leadership, technical advice, and administrative support for the Midwest Peregrine Society, which includes 13 Midwest states and two Canadian provinces.

We thank the building management for their generosity in allowing this work to continue.

The history of the Midwest peregrine restoration project, as well as a searchable database for the public to look up individual birds, sites and states, is here.  

Jackie Fallon, Midwest Peregrine Society

The arrow points to where the nest box is
located.

TRC Interpretive Naturalist Mike Billington and Artemis
the education winged ambassador peregrine falcon.