Raptor survey takes flight in the Bridgers

Every morning for the next two months, Isabel Masi, Oskar Robinson and Emily Quillen will hike to a concrete helipad perched high on the ridge of the Bridger Mountains to clock in for work. Their job? Counting migrating raptors as part of a decades-long effort to monitor their populations. 

Masi, Robinson and Quillen are this year’s “hawkwatchers” for the Sacajawea Audubon Society (SAS)’s 34th annual Bridger Mountains Raptor Survey, which monitors long-term population changes to the 17 raptor species that migrate through the Bridger Flyway each year. The flyway is a critical migration corridor for raptors, allowing the birds to soar long distances with minimal effort, according to SAS’s website.

“I get to live the dream. Wake up every day, hike, hang out with awesome people, count raptors and identify which ones are flying by,” said Quillen, a Livingston resident. “I think it’s pretty cool that I get to be a part of that.”

Raptors are keystone predators, playing a crucial role in maintaining the structure of ecosystems. “Their populations are really a key barometer of ecosystem health, because they’re at the top of the food chain,” said Raptor Survey Coordinator Steve Hoffman. “What happens to them could eventually happen to people, because we depend on healthy ecosystems as much as they do.”

Data collected by SAS’s hawkwatchers each year determines if specific populations are declining and need intervention, because the flyway is a major migration route for many species, primarily golden eagles, according to Hoffman. The survey’s long-term findings have demonstrated that golden eagle populations have declined by 35-40 percent over the last 35 years.

“We do statistical analysis on an annual basis, and we write a report at the end of each season,” he said. “One of the results of this work has been that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to conduct an intensive North American study on golden eagles, because we’ve seen some serious declines and we don’t really know why.”

Hawkwatches are currently going on all over the continent due to the onset of migration season, according to former hawkwatcher and current SAS board member Bret Davis. Collaborating organizations will combine their data and add it to the Raptor Population Index, a continental-scale conservation tool used to monitor migratory raptor population trends, he said. 

At almost 35 years old, the Bridger raptor survey provides invaluable long-term data that allows researchers to more accurately identify changes in population trends, according to SAS Treasurer Loreene Reid. 

This project is also entirely donor-funded, Reid said. When other organizations stepped away from supporting it, SAS took over its management and leadership. The society now raises approximately $20,000 annually to keep the project alive.

“We have no staff. We only exist on the backs of our dedicated volunteers and our very qualified expert consultants,” Reid said.  

Two of these volunteers are Erna Smeets and her husband Bill Simkins. Along with being major donors to the survey, Smeets — originally from the Netherlands — and her husband have been housing hawkwatchers in a cottage on their property for several years.

“The nature here is so wild and so abundant. It’s gone in the Netherlands, but here it exists — but once it’s gone, you can’t bring it back. If we don’t know that our raptors are disappearing, then we can’t make sure they can’t disappear,” she said. 

“So if we don’t, as citizens, help the effort, then who is going to?”

Hoffman said that community members can assist the raptor survey by hiking up to join the hawkwatchers and helping to count the migrating birds. “The more eyes we have up there, the more birds we see,” he said.

Further, Reid said that when volunteers assist with bird counting, their time is valued at $29 per hour for grant purposes. The SAS then tracks these hours and can use them as equivalent monetary contributions when applying for funding.

“Because I love them and I’m a human, I owe it to them to do whatever I can to help them, even if that’s just count how many are flying by,” Quillen said about her motivations to join the project. 

“Even if these birds are just passing by, this flyway is so important to them,” she said. “It’s important that we have people up there every year monitoring their numbers to make sure they ain’t going nowhere.”

To learn more about the annual raptor survey, visit SAS’s website at https://sacajaweaaudubon.org/. 

To make a trip up to visit the hawkwatchers or volunteer to help count migrating raptors, reach out to Steve Hoffman at (406) 461-5714 or email him at swhoffman0322@gmail.com to receive guidance and directions.

To check out the count data for over 300 North American hawkwatch sites, visit https://hawkcount.org/.