USING AN INNOVATIVE DATA SHARING APPLICATION TO COORDINATE THE EFFORTS OF CALIFORNIA CONDOR RECOVERY PARTNERS

Danae C Mouton; Ventana Wildlife Society; danaemouton@ventanaws.org; Tim Huntington, Darren Gross, Kara Fadden, Evan McWreath, Joe Burnett, Mike Stake

Once extinct in the wild, over 300 California Condors (Gymnogyps californianus) now make up five distinct and intensively managed subpopulations in California, Arizona, and Baja, Mexico. All five flocks are managed by multiple agencies, creating the need for standardization and collaboration among federal, non-profit, tribal, and international partners. To meet this need and increase efficiency in the management of this critically endangered species, Ventana Wildlife Society’s Senior Software Engineer Tim Huntington developed the CACO Central application. Field data related to movements, nesting, handling, and much more is uploaded to the application in real-time by biologists, and is consolidated in one location, allowing for easy access and more effective responses by field teams. By regularly compiling and pre-processing millions of condor GPS locations, CACO Central reduces this workload for biologists, enabling them to focus instead on using GPS data to inform management decisions. The standardization of data formatting across all flocks and monitoring agencies has also increased efficiency in broader-scale research projects involving condors. While some features of CACO Central are specific to condors, many of its core functions can and should be applied to a wide variety of species and monitoring projects in the ornithological field and beyond.

Birds II  InPerson Presentation