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  • WHERE I WORK

I track bird movement to enhance conservation efforts

Ornithologist Ana Gonzalez studies migration patterns and works with local scientists to protect threatened birds.
By
  1. Nikki Forrester

    1. Nikki Forrester is a science journalist based in Davis, West Virginia.

Ana Gonzalez sits cross-legged on a ground sheet with two colleagues whilst holding a small yellow bird ready for tagging to track its migration from Mexico

Ana Gonzalez is a protected-areas analyst for the Canadian Wildlife Service in Delta, British Columbia. Credit: Ugo Mellone

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“The bird in my hand is a yellow-breasted chat (Icteria virens). This species breeds in North America — occurring in southern British Columbia and southwestern Ontario in Canada and in much of the United States — and then migrates to Mexico and Central America during the Northern Hemisphere’s autumn months. The chat is a declining species in North America, in part because it relies on habitat adjacent to bodies of water such as rivers and streams, much of which has been destroyed. In 2001, one population in the Okanagan valley in Canada had just 25 breeding pairs remaining. But conservation actions, including monitoring these birds and restoring their habitats, have helped their populations to recover. There are now more than 250 breeding pairs in the area.

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Nature 635, 250 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03596-8

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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