Area served Western Hemisphere Founder George H. Fenwick | Revenue $8.9 million in 2012 Founded 1994 | |
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Focus Conserving habitats and eliminating threats to wild birds Location The Plains, Virginia, United States. Key people George H. Fenwick, President Mission Protection of wild birds and habitat throughout the Americas Headquarters The Plains, Virginia, United States Type of business 501(c)(3) Non-profit Organization Similar National Audubon Society, American Birding Association, The Nature Conservancy, African Wildlife Foundation, The Wildlife Society Profiles | ||
The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a non-profit membership organization with the mission of conserving native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. Its focus is on threats to birds in the Western Hemisphere—threats which include overuse of pesticides, urban sprawl, habitat destruction, and invasive species.
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ABC works in cooperation with other groups and agencies, including: Fundación ProAves, The Bird Conservation Alliance, Partners in Flight, the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, and others. Their partner projects have included publication of bird guides, education on the location and construction of wind turbines, educating farmers to promote bird-friendly agriculture, and raptor conservation. Their Conservation Counterparts Program helps other organizations fundraise for Latin America and Caribbean conservation projects.
American bird conservancy
Latin America
In Latin America American Bird Conservancy works with partner groups such as Fundación ProAves to purchase land that protects endangered bird habitat. They are also working with partner organizations to reduce the conversion of coffee farms that offer habitat to the cerulean warbler, by helping growers market premium beans as cerulean warbler-friendly. In Colombia they have helped to protect wintering bird habitat by partnering with Fundación ProAves to help create the first preserve dedicated to a single U.S. migrant, the Cerulean Warbler Bird Reserve. Also in Colombia, they helped fund an expedition in 2010 that discovered two nesting colonies of the endangered Baudó oropendola, one of the rarest birds in the world with less than a dozen known birds before the discovery.
United States
Several organizations, including the American Bird Conservancy and the United States Geological Survey, were commissioned by the U. S. Federal Government to study the US State of Birds in 2007. They found that 800 species of birds in the U.S. were "endangered, threatened or in significant decline", with more birds threatened in the state of Hawaii than any other region. The study found that 39% of ocean birds were declining in population. They also learned that conservation efforts are very effective at helping bird populations to recover, with positive increases in some wetland bird species due to wetland conservation.
In the U.S., they are trying to stop mountaintop mining in the Appalachias in order to protect vital breeding habitat. In 1996, after American Bird Conservancy threatened to sue the U.S. Navy over the San Clemente loggerhead shrike (Lanius ludovicicanus mearnsi) whose habitat was formerly used by the Navy for bombardment training, the Navy agreed to take steps to protect the species and its habitat.
Cats Indoors is a public education campaign by American Bird Conservancy to encourage control of cats in order to protect birds from predation by cats. The objective of the Conservancy's campaign is that all domestic cats should be kept indoors.