Social media's window on the animal kingdom

Source: The Philadelphia InquirerSept.儲存 28--Nature-watching -- an outsider's hobby, right?Geese crisscross the sky, eagles nest all over Pennsylvania and New Jersey, hawks and falcons are on their way, and elk whistle ghostly in Benezette.But birders, hunters, conservationists, and animal enthusiasts of all furs are also turning to Twitter, Facebook, blogs, apps, and a proliferation of "hawk cams" and "eagle cams" to get their beast on. Here, as in so many realms of human life, social media help people build communities around shared interests.Since 2009, the "Hawk Cam" website at the Franklin Institute has opened a window onto the bedroom lives of hawks and their babies during the February-June breeding season. "It's phenomenal," says Karen Elinich, director of science content and learning technologies at the institute. "Every year, we see a surge of new visitors to the site. It's a virtual community." There's a club called the Franklin Hawkaholics, more than 2,300 strong, with its own Facebook page, on which members post announcements, photos, and discussions. There are blogs with name like Hawkwatch. Many a science class, many a school project in our area, begins with a cam visit.Twitter and Facebook are no substitute for getting out into nature, says Eric Stiles, CEO of New Jersey Audubon. "But if your goal is to connect people to nature and its conservation," he says, "you have to use social media to engage them and get them to the next level." Which, for nonprofits like New Jersey Audubon, means activism and monetary support.David Mizrahi, vice president for research, works with the center's Citizen Science project. He studies the migration patterns of the semipalmated sandpiper. Researchers go to Brazil, Suriname, and the Delaware Bay, fitting tiny geolocators on the birds so his team (and fans of their research) can see where the birds go."We post photos on our Facebook page of what we're doing," Mizrahi says. "It helps people connect with our work. People like that immediacy. And the visual is worth way more than the word." Links on the page guide the curious to more detailed studies and information.Twice now, "we've found a bird from Brazil breeding in Alaska," Mizrahi says. "That's a 25,000-kilometer round-trip for a bird that weighs less than an ounce. These are real learning moments for us, and for people following us."Social media "definitely makes it easier for people to connect with migratory birds," says Laurie Goodrich, a senior monitoring biologist at the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Kempton, Pa. "People put tracking instruments on peregrine falcons and eagles, and there are a lot of websites you can vmini storagesit to see where they're going."Picking up the theme of citizen science, Goodrich says, "We get to see this feedback loop, where visitors -- citizen naturalists -- send us e-mails or photos about the wildlife. We've learned, for example, where there are snakes on the trails. Sometimes a videographer will see things we didn't know about, and that becomes part of the record."You may have heard eagles are staging a comeback around here, with more than 250 bald eagle nesting sites in Pennsylvania, and more than 100 nesting eagle pairs in New Jersey. This is a 30-year anniversary of sorts for eagle restoration in Pennsylvania.Social media and citizen scientists have played a role even here. Brittany Howell, communication specialist at the Pennsylvania Game Commission, writes by e-mail that "not only were we able to post information on social media about bald eagles, but we also received observations from people who had seen bald eagle nests or nesting behavior in their neighborhoods. This helps our biologists to determine the number of active bald eagle nesting sites in the state." The commission is on a state tour with a film about its efforts to bring the eagles back.Apps abound, apps for the hunter to locate animals, apps for the birder to anticipate "good flights," apps, as we've seen, to track sightings and migration.Mary Linkevitch, director of communication and grants at Hawk Mountain, says, "Birders love social media. It's great when we're able to post, 'The winds are great' or 'A cold front's coming through and we expect a good flight tomorrow.' We always see a surge of visitors the next day. When they go home, they post comments on our website -- or complaints if they didn't see any birds." Howell says, "There's a very dedicated following for the Waterfowl Migration Update website, which tracks the snow goose sightings at Middle Creek."In March, an eagle cam at Duke Farms of Hillsborough, N.J., caught a sequence that went viral, attracting almost 140,000 views on YouTube. A hungry hawk trying for a lunch of eagle chicks is intercepted by the nesting parent, which, lightning-quick, overpowers the intruder, and, with gruesome efficiency, dresses the fresh kill for the kiddies' dinner.Nature, red in tooth and claw. But also an education. Compelling viewing. It lets us know how things work. Seeing it makes you want to protect it."These media," Stiles says, "can give people what they need to have -- a sense of involvement, of ownership."jt@phillynews.com215-854-4406 @jtimpaneCopyright: ___ (c)2013 The Philadelphia Inquirer Visit The Philadelphia Inquirer at .philly.com Distributed by MCT Information Servicesself storage