Amber Burnette, program associate at the Raptor Center on the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul Campus, will present “Midwest Peregrine Falcon Restoration” at the St. Paul Audubon Society program on Thursday, Feb. 14. The program will be held at Fairview Community Center, 1910 West County Road B in Roseville, just west of Fairview Avenue.
Peregrine Falcons were mostly extirpated by the mid-1960s over much of North America, east of the Rocky Mountains and south of the Arctic due in large part to widespread use of pesticides, most notably DDT.
Restoration efforts began in the eastern states with the first experimental releases in the mid-1970s. In 1982, Patrick Redig of the Raptor Center and Harrison Tordoff of the Bell Museum of Natural History and Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the U released peregrines in the Midwest. Peregrines are now close to carrying capacity. The restored population in the Midwest now inhabits 13 states and parts of two provinces.
To learn more about this topic, visit www.theraptorcenter.org and www.midwestperegrine.org.
This free program is open to the public. A social time with refreshments begins at 6:45 p.m. For more information, call Linda Goodspeed at 651-647-1452.
