The Arc of Conservation

CCB Surveys Reveal Wayne’s Warbler Strongholds in Virginia

October 9, 2024

Dune Foragers: Unraveling the Ipswich Sparrow’s Hidden Diet

February 5, 2025

Published by Center for Conservation Biology at February 5, 2025

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Annual Report

CCB 2024 Annual Report.

By: Bryan Watts
1/17/2025

Working on the front lines of conservation is like being an emergency room doctor. The long hours and relentless pace are exhausting. The clock is ticking and the stakes are real. The right decisions have to be made now or bad things can happen. You use all of the information available and all of the experience you have to diagnose the problem and find a treatment. Time is always limited. You live with the internal struggle of whether or not to succumb to the constant request for meetings where people talk about doing something or spending that time actually doing something. Every day is different. Every day is consequential. Every day is full of the exhilaration of expending your life for something you value.

Wayne’s warbler is a unique, isolated form of the black-throated green warbler that appears to have been declining for several decades. We are desperately working to measure this populations’ vital signs and document requirements in order to develop a management strategy. Photo by Bryan Watts.

Ipswich crew heading out to survey Metompkin Island. Although for many species we have in place programs for regular, systematic surveys that establish benchmarks some species we may kick the tires and do ad hoc surveys to get an initial sense of where we are or how we may best approach surveys. Left to right is Bob Anderson, Harry Armistead, Fletcher Smith and Zak Poulton. Photo by Bryan Watts.

From the outside, conservation may seem like chaos. It is not. Like the narrative arc of a good novel, conservation moves through a sequence of ordered stages. These include identification of species in need, diagnosis of factors causing imperilment, consideration of potential remedies and development of a treatment plan, implementation of treatment with adaptive management and resolution or recovery.

Female ruffed grouse. This species has declined by more than 50% over the past few decades. Several factors such as nest predators and hunting may influence demography but the widespread loss of young forests is the primary driver of decline. Habitat creation at scale will be required to reverse this trend. Photo by Bryan Watts.

Sheep rancher in Argentina. Chaco eagles are globally endangered and ranchers have mistakingly viewed them as livestock predators and shot them. Outreach to educate this community has become an essential management tool. Photo by Bryan Watts.

The Center specializes on the intense, heady first three phases in the arc. We have decades of benchmarks for dozens of species. We are constantly assessing these species and the threats they face. The urgent diagnosis of why a species is declining requires moving in all directions at once, turning over rocks and driving toward answers. Developing remedies requires creativity, innovation and thinking outside the box. The Center thrives in these face-paced spaces where innovation wins the day. The 2024 annual report is dedicated to a discussion about The Arc of Conservation.