Reprinted From Audubon Chapter Services Newsletter
The Christmas Bird Count is coming! This year’s count period is Dec 14, 2012 to January 5, 2013, and we want to thank you in advance for all you do as Chapter leaders to make this Count happen. Chapters nationwide organize and run hundreds of count circles; your good efforts are the reason the longest running citizen science project in the world is so successful.
This year, as you get ready for the Count and encourage members to join in, there is some exciting news. The CBC is now a free program. For the first time since 1955, Audubon will waive the $5.00 participant fee and replace it with a voluntary donation and sponsorship model. Also, American Birds will no longer be mailed to every participant. Instead, Audubon will move to an online delivery of the CBC summary results and features.
To help Audubon make these important decisions regarding the CBC, we invited people involved with the count to participate in an online survey. The results were very enlightening and are summarized in the 112th CBC summary issue of American Birds that was released in October. The written comments underscored how passionately people feel about the CBC, and that the fee was a major obstacle to the program.
Also highly informative were comments regarding American Birds. The primary sentiment expressed was that recipients do not value American Birds in its printed version, and many survey respondents felt that an interactive, online version of the magazine would better suit their needs—especially if the participation fee was dropped.
An exciting new era has arrived—one with a free and completely online Christmas Bird Count!
For information and results from the Christmas Bird Count, please visit the main CBC website:
http://birds.audubon.org/christmas-bird-count
For information on the history of the CBC, please use this link:
http://birds.audubon.org/about-christmas-bird-count
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