Institute for Bird Populations Emergency Appeal

The Coast to Cascades Bird Alliance wants to support The Institute for Bird Populations as their long-term studies have been a huge database resource of avian population studies for protecting the wilderness and forested areas. FMI: www.birdpop.org  The text of their letter is below:

October 5, 2025

Dear Friends of IBP,

On September 23rd, IBP received notice that funding for 9 of our projects with the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service was cut, effective immediately. There was no warning or explanation given. The defunded projects included all of our bird monitoring work with the National Park Service’s Inventory and Monitoring Program in 15 parks across the Pacific Northwest, Sierra Nevada, and Southwest regions. We have been doing this monitoring work for over 20 years in some of the parks. Other defunded projects include work on Pinyon Jays across the Southwest, Bank Swallows in Alaska, wetland birds in southeast Oregon, and Gunnison’s Sage-Grouse in Colorado. In total, we lost roughly $1 million in funding. The federal government shutdown, which started today, only magnifies the uncertainty we face.

These cuts represent a huge loss for science-based conservation on public lands, damage continuous long-term monitoring programs that have huge scientific value, and will necessitate painful staffing decisions at IBP.

In February of this year, when all of our federal grants were frozen for months, we reached out and were overwhelmed by the generosity of donors like yourself who pitched in. Your support allowed us to bridge the gap until the federal funding was released, and we were able to mount a successful and fully staffed field season in the spring and summer of 2025. The current grant cancellations are more final; unfortunately, at this time, we do not expect them to be reinstated, though we are still seeking recourse.

Going forward, we are using all of our creativity and ingenuity to hold onto as many of our staff as possible while we seek new sources of funding and new projects where our staff can put their talent and skills to work doing the quality science we have always done to support effective, evidence-based conservation. Your support now will give us time to regroup and emerge stronger from these challenging times. In the 36 years since our founding, we’ve navigated other rough waters, and we will do so again.

We know that you value science. You believe that conservation and land management decisions should be based on evidence. IBP was founded on the belief that data is necessary for effective conservation, both to answer current questions and questions we haven’t conceived of yet. We’ve been collecting and analyzing the data and working directly with land and wildlife managers for over three decades, and with your help, we will do so for many more. If you are in a position to donate, it will be especially impactful right now. There are many ways to contribute, and you can learn more on our donations page.

To help us, please make a tax-deductible donation via our donations page, or send a check to:

The Institute for Bird Populations
PO Box 518
Petaluma, CA 94953

Thank you,

Rodney Siegel, Ph.D., Executive Director