Bulletin News

04/01/2010 

Jillian Liner, director of bird conservation at the Audubon New York office of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, will discuss an international bird conservation program that strives to identify and protect the most important places for birds.

Liner’s talk, “Important Bird Areas: Global Currency for Bird Conservation,” will take place at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 6, in Bowers Hall, Room 109.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is the annual Wilkins Bird Lecture of the Lime Hollow Center for Environment and Culture (LHCEC). The lecture is co-sponsored by SUNY Cortland’s Biology Club.

Refreshments will be served and a question-and-answer period will follow.

Audubon New York implements the program in New York and since its inception in the mid-1990’s has identified 136 IBAs across the state. Working with partners and volunteers, the program has had numerous successes conserving premier bird habitats.

Liner joined Audubon New York in 2001 after spending time in Florida, Minnesota, Montana and Vermont, where most of her work focused on raptors. She also assisted non-governmental organizations and state agencies with landscape inventories and conservation plans. 

A native of Upstate New York, Liner has a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Skidmore College and a Master of Arts in Ecological Planning from the University of Vermont.

The annual Wilkins Bird Lecture was established in 1988 by the Cortland County Bird Club, now called the Lime Hollow Bird Club, in honor of club founder Connie Wilkins. The program is continued by the LHCEC, a member-funded, non-profit organization situated on the Cortland and Tompkins County border and offering free hiking trails, public nature and educational programs and adventure day camps for youth.

For more information, contact Patricia Conklin, Biological Sciences Department, at (607) 753-2717 or Peter Harrity, associate director of the LHCEC, at (607) 662-4632.