President’s Message

AVAS STRIVES FOR AN INFORMED PUBLIC

by SeEtta Moss

  Our October Program meeting in Cañon City was quite successful with 21 in attendance—not bad for a meeting in my little town. This gave us a jump-start on meeting our objective to increase attendance in our monthly program meetings by an average of 10 persons per meeting.

  As we reported in our last two Harriers, we developed a number of goals and objectives as part of our summer strategic planning, approved them in our September Board meeting, and your Board is working hard to achieve these. But we really need your help in order to achieve our objectives, especially this one. Please consider attending at least one program meeting this year and bring a friend. Hopefully we will have some programs that will interest you.

   Which brings me to next month’s program topic that is about fire and birds. After this summer’s horrendous forest fires in and near our area, including the Iron Mountain fire west of Cañon City and the Hayden Creek fire, we thought that members would like to hear about the effects of forest fires in Colorado and their effect on birds and other wildlife.

  We are quite pleased to have Dave Leatherman providing this program due to his training as a forest entomologist and his many years of experience working for the State Forest Service. If hearing about the positives and negatives of forest fires on wildlife seems interesting to you, I’ll bet you have a friend who is also interested so bring one along and help us meet our objective.

  Hope to see you there!

 November program

HOW FOREST FIRES AFFECT BIRDS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

  This month’s AVAS program meeting will feature the relationship of forest fires to the preservation of a healthy environment. It will take place in the education room at the Pueblo Zoo on Nov. 8 at 7:00 p.m.  

  Dave Leatherman will give a presentation on the Colorado fires of 2000 – 2002 and how they affected food items for birds and other wildlife. He will also compare the burned areas with regions where fire has been suppressed for decades, and emphasize the importance of snags (dead, standing trees) for bird life.

  Dave has been a forest entomologist (insect specialist) with the Colorado State Forest Service since 1974. He is the Service’s primary expert on the mountain pine beetle and he conducts research on several other insect species that impact trees in Colorado.

  Leatherman is also an avid birder with 347 species on his life-list from Larimer County alone. He is a former editor of the Journal for Colorado Field Ornithologists.

  This free program should be of high interest to all who are interested in forest fires’ affect on nature. Bring a friend for the social time at 7:00 followed by the program at about 7:30.