A bare-headed rockfowl named Eunice, radio-tagged by forestry professor Paul Beier, will allow researchers in Africa to develop ways to protect the birds' breeding sites.

Fulbright grant helps forestry professor protect rare African birds

NAU forestry professor Paul Beier is in the thick of things working to protect a rare bird species in Africa.

Beier recently was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant worth about $40,000 to study the endangered bare-headed rockfowl in Ghana.

"We are surveying for breeding sites in 7,500 acres of tropical forest. The surveys are complicated by limited visibility and dense tangles of vines and thorns," Beier said. "My project is to estimate population size and distribution in three forest reserves in southwestern Ghana and to radio-tag birds to learn about their habitat use, movement and reproductive success."

The project is a joint effort among the Ghana Forest Services Division, the Ghana Wildlife Division and a local conservation organization to conserve and increase the bird population.

Beier also is working with local communities to create an eco-tourism bird-watching project so people can view the "flashy and rare" bird in its natural habitat.

Beier previously studied bird diversity in fragmented and degraded forests of Ghana in 1999-2000, also funded by a Fulbright grant. Since then, he has visited Ghana annually to contribute to a community-based sanctuary for hippopotamus in northwestern Ghana, and an elephant migration corridor in northeastern Ghana. He also has worked intensively protecting natural wildlife habitats in the U.S.

Paul Beier

The rockfowl work in southwestern Ghana is a new effort, but is also a community-based conservation effort.

"The main reason I am involved in this project is that it not only advances conservation by providing scientific information on a species, but it helps develop a local capacity for conservation," he said. "Our study of habitat use, including how reproductive success varies with logging and forest conditions, is important to guide how these forests are managed. Currently, timber extraction dominates forest management decisions."

After more than 30 years of not being documented in Ghana, the bird was rediscovered in 2003. Only 12 breeding sites have been found, and only two to three are active in any given year.

"The bare-headed rockfowl population is declining due to widespread forest loss and degradation," Beier explained. "It is vulnerable because it nests only on overhanging cliff faces in intact forests. Suitable nest sites are found in only a small fraction of forest."

Thanks to the Fulbright grant, Beier conducted his research from September to November, and will return for three months in the spring of 2007.

"On this visit, we attached a radio tag to a bare-headed rockfowl that we named Eunice, after the wife of James Oppong, a wildlife ranger working with me on this project," Beier said. "This was the first time a bare-headed rockfowl had ever been radio-tagged. We developed procedures to accurately determine bird locations, and relocated Eunice 12 times, finding that she usually foraged 100 to 250 meters from her nest site. When I return in June, we should know the location of several active nest sites, allowing us to greatly expand the radio-tracking work."

At NAU, Beier teaches wildlife ecology and conversation biology. He received a bachelor of arts from Catholic University of America, and a master's of science degree and a doctorate degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

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