Dutch Caribbean bird monitoring

The Caribbean is home to 564 bird species, of which 148 (26%) are endemic. The aim of this new project is for nature management organizations to monitor landbird populations, and by using R scripts created by Waardenburg Ecology, manage and analyze the data themselves in the future. The project was launched this year, funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV), and will run through the first quarter of 2028.

Incorporating Waardenburg Ecology’s specialist experience and network of contacts in the Dutch Caribbean to DCNA’s project is a dream collaboration. Waardenburg Ecology will play an integral role by coordinating fieldwork, ensuring adherence to the survey protocol, checking datasets, and providing analyses and bi-annual reports. This project will enable us to assess the overall status of avian populations in different Caribbean habitat types over several years. As the project progresses, Waardenburg Ecology will advise the parks on changes in avian populations, identifying species in need of conservation to ensure their long-term survival.

This project contributes to goals relating to (land)birds and their habitats stated in the Nature and Environment Policy Plan (NEPP) by the Ministries of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV), and Infrastructure and Water Management (I&W). The project was also developed in consultation with Wageningen University & Research who will include the results in their “State of Nature of the Caribbean Netherlands” update.
All data collected will be available on DCNA’s Dutch Caribbean Biodiversity Database, and www.observation.org and www.eBird.org, citizen science databases managed by Observation International and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology respectively. This project perfectly encompasses local, regional and global cooperation, and we at Waardenburg Ecology are proud to be a team member!