On Saturday May 11th, we’ll be participating in the Brooklyn Bird Club's Birdathon for International Migratory Bird Day. On this day, teams aim to see as many species as possible with the goal of gathering donations for a bird-related conservation cause.

This year the chosen benefactor of our club is Save the Choco http://savethechoco.com. The Chocó is a biodiversity hotspot and one of the wettest regions of the planet. Only two percent of the remaining lowland Chocó remains in Ecuador, making it one of the most threatened biological hotspots in the world. The region harbors 9,000 species of vascular plants and is one of the most floristically diverse regions in the neotropics. The Chocó is home to about 270 species of mammals, 210 species of reptiles, 800 species of birds and 130 species of amphibians. Many are endemic to the Chocó region, meaning they are not found anywhere else on earth. Many of our migratory birds including the Cerulean Warbler and Summer Tanager winter in the Chocó.

Save the Chocó‘s mission is to build awareness and collaborate with local and global organizations to help protect vital areas and species throughout the region. This year we will be raising money to help Save the Chocó purchase land at $275 per acre to protect it from the palm oil industry and keep it forever wild. The Rain Forest Trust https://www.rainforesttrust.org has generously agreed to match our donation up to $100,000, doubling our impact.

Our team, the Rowdy Turnstones,  consists of Feminist Bird Club members Jennifer Kepler, Chelsea Lawrence, Molly Adams, and Ryan Mandelbaum, and we will cover Prospect Park, some of Brooklyn's coastline, and maybe even some places in between.