By Thomas Hayes | Ridgway's Hawk Project Coordinator
Hold on to your hats folks!! The Ridgway’s Hawk is coming back in a big way in Punta Cana. As we suspected 2016 is going to be and already has been a land mark year for the Ridgway’s Hawk Project.
We are working double time trying to get everything accomplished during this very busy time of year. Thanks to a new pair of hawks deciding to call the release site their home, we have had to make plans to move the release site in 2016. Male Black 2/5 and Female Black 3/8 have been making a nest right on the platform at the release site. We thought they may move off and find a more suitable nest site, but it appears they are bound and determined to stay put. Hopefully this young pair will be successful at nesting in 2016.
We are currently monitoring 11 pairs of Ridgway’s Hawks in Punta Cana. On top of that, 6 pairs are currently incubating eggs. This is truly an amazing sign that these hawks are adapting well and that we are on our way to creating a new, self-sustaining population of Ridgway’s Hawks in the Puntacana area.
As usual for this time of year we are very busy monitoring the wild population of hawks in Los Haitises National Park. This year we are monitoring more than 100 pairs which are more than ever. One of our main objectives is to increase the production in these wild pairs. With this effort, we are able to increase production enough that we can remove nestlings for releases and at the same time, increase the production of fledglings in the wild population in LHNP. This is a win win for the Ridgway’s, especially since we have hired 15 local Dominican field technicians to help us accomplish this task. This has been a great way to help the local communities see the Ridgway’s as a valuable resource.
In about a month we will begin to bring the nestlings to Puntacana for release. Our goal for 2016 is to release 25 healthy hawks into the area. Hopefully the nesting pairs in Punta Cana will be successful in raising some young hawks as well.
That’s it for now, time to get back to work. As always, a big thanks to all of you who help support this very important work!!!
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
