In 2015, I taught a class called Discovering Insect Species at Oregon State University. The eleven of us (nine students, a graduate teaching assistant, and me) formed a research team studying the diversity of ground beetles of the genus Bembidion.
Throughout eastern Oregon and the Intermountain West migrating and nesting shorebirds depend on saline and freshwater lakes, playas, and nearby wetlands for refueling during migration and for breeding. For example, Wilson’s Phalarope use saline lakes throughout the region as stopover habitat.
Here’s a July 2024 update on the latest locations of seven Trumpeter Swans marked on Malheur Refuge’s Benson Pond in February 2023 with GPS-GSM neck collars to track their migration.
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was once home to as many as 20+ breeding pairs of Trumpeter Swans. As recently as the 1990’s Refuge biologists have a history of collaborating with and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists and managers from Summer Lake Wildlife Area to capture cygnets from Benson Pond and transfer them over to Summer Lake.
Numbers of migrant Trumpeter Swans moving through eastern Oregon have increased dramatically over the last two decades, particularly at Malheur Refuge and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) Summer Lake Wildlife Area. We want to learn more about the origins of these trumpeters and to identify their breeding, stopover, and wintering sites.
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