Republican Herald
February 18, 2002
By Rory Schuler
KEMPTON - In an exchange of science between nations at odds, two Cuban scientists spent time sharing knowledge with ornithologists at the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary during the weekend.
Dr. Nicasio Vina and Miguel Abad, of the Cuban Science, Technology, and Environmental Ministry, study the migration routes of osprey and have been in Pennsylvania for the past month, mostly in Harrisburg.
At Hawk Mountain, they spent time with Keith L. Bildstein, director of research and education. The Cubans are seeking advice on how to deal with Cuba's rising ecological threats and insights into the northern migration paths of osprey and raptors. Osprey spend their summers in Pennsylvania and points north, and then migrate to Cuba and South and Central America during winter months. Observation along the birds' entire migratory route is essential to understand and protect the birds at any locale along the way.
Vina and Abad's visit at Hawk Mountain will conclude tomorrow, but they expect to return after the new "visiting scientist wing" of the sanctuary is complete in September. The new facility, under construction at Hawk Mountain, will eventually provide a place of residence, laboratory, and office space for visiting scientists at the base of the sanctuary in West Brunswick Township, funded by philanthropist and businessman Sarkis Acopian, Easton.
The Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association, working with the Penn State Capital College, state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Jim Brett Global Conservation Education Fund of the Berks County Community Foundation, has sponsored a six-week training program in exchange for the Cuban research scholars.
The two men, unaccustomed to winter, hail from BIOECO (Eastern Center of Geosystems and Biodiversity), in Santiago de Cuba, near Guantanamo Bay in southeastern Cuba. Despite the climate differences, both men said Pennsylvania is very similar in population disbursement, size and geography to their home island, located 90 miles off the southern Florida coast.
"The island runs about 700 miles east to west," Vina said while pointing to a map of Cuba. "Our population is about 11 million, while Pennsylvania's is 13 million." Hawk Mountain is an opportune place to spot osprey because the birds take advantage of updrafts along the Appalachian Mountains. In Cuba, they utilize similar winds while tracing the Sierra Maestra mountain range, just west of Vina and Abad's home research center.
Satellite telemetry has determined osprey are capable of flying about 300 miles on a good day. About 1,600 miles separate Hawk Mountain and the Cuban research center. It takes an osprey about two weeks to migrate that distance, but scientists are unsure why the birds either choose to stay in Cuba after the flight, or stop, refuel, and fly farther south to Central or South America.
"That's exactly the kind of question we're asking," Bildstein said. "It's largely unknown why they decide to travel or stay in Cuba."
Observing birds merely in Cuba, or merely on the East Coast of the United States, only supplies a small piece of the entire osprey migration puzzle. "A lot of the species that we call our birds end up over-wintering in the South, many in Cuba," Bildstein said. "They're partially Cuban, and unless we protect them during their entire life cycle we're really not protecting them fully."
The sanctuary has hosted interns from 30 countries from six continents and is currently involved in cooperative research projects in Soviet Georgia, where vultures are being studied, and other birds of prey in Mexico, Costa Rica and Bolivia.