We stand at a pivotal time in history. Our climate is changing and native habitats are being converted for human use. Many of us care deeply about these changes but feel somewhat helpless fighting a never-ending battle. The news is not all bad. If we take a longer view, we have an opportunity now to greatly inform future generations regarding how biodiversity responds to environmental changes. We are the first generation of humans who can easily measure, map, and electronically share and archive data on biodiversity. These gifts allow us to create a legacy of high quality information on the amounts and distributions of biodiversity on the planet, which can serve as benchmarks in time against which all future studies of biodiversity, decades and centuries from now, can be compared. In this talk I will introduce the Oregon 2020 birds project, a benchmark survey of the distribution and abundance of Oregon's birds. I will introduce the important role that citizen scientists can play by contributing their observations of birds.

Douglas Robinson is Mace Professor of Watchable Wildlife in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University. He was born and educated in Illinois, but has traveled the world studying birds. He is passionate about the importance of recognizing the value of our everyday observations of birds for future citizens and scientists. At OSU, he teaches two bird classes, wildlife ecology, and conservation genetics. His research focuses on how birds respond to environmental changes.

ASC board meetings are open to all ASC members, and the board encourages you to come and see what we do. Our monthly board meeting is on Thursday one week before the General Meeting. See the calendar on the last page of The Chat for the meeting location.