Tonight at 7pm The Sanibel Captiva Conservation Conservation Foundation is hosting a presentation on the conservation biology of swallow-tailed kites. Avian Research and Conservation Institute Executive Director Ken Meyer is the featured speaker.
The graceful black-and-white fliers with narrow, pointed wings, slim bodies, and a forked tail frequent swamps, marshes, and large rivers, especially in Florida. These migratory avians head to South America at the end of summer.
Meyer is the Co-founder, Research Ecologist, and Executive Director of ARCI in Gainesville, Florida. He received his B.S. in Zoology from the University of Maine and his Ph.D. in Zoology/Behavioral Ecology from the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). Meyer has studied the conservation biology of birds in Florida and beyond since the 1980’s, beginning with his research on swallow-tailed kites, which continues to this day.
After serving as a Post-doctoral Associate and then Research Associate at the University of Florida from 1988 to 1992, he conducted studies of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers and the bird communities of south Florida pinelands for the National Park Service in Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park. In 1997, he co-founded ARCI and soon branched out to other research challenges on a broader range of species. He has served on species status-review committees for state agencies and biological review panels for National Wildlife Refuges; and as a graduate student advisor and committee member in his position as an adjunct Associate Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida.
Register for the event HERE.