April 5, 2004

Awards and Honors

Predatory bird researcher Brian Walton honored by Audubon Society

By Tim Stephens

Brian Walton

Brian Walton, coordinator of the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group (SCPBRG) at UCSC, was honored last week as an Audubon champion at the annual Audubon California awards luncheon in San Francisco.

Walton began studying peregrine falcons in high school and participated in the first California peregrine falcon survey in 1970. That survey found only two nesting pairs of falcons remaining in California. Under Walton's leadership, SCPBRG helped bring the peregrine falcon back from the brink of extinction to become one of the few endangered species to be "delisted"--removed from the endangered species list--by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Walton graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and later earned a master's degree from San Jose State University. He has been coordinator of SCPBRG since 1976, where he leads research in captive breeding and wildlife management of falcons, eagles, condors, and other rare or endangered raptors.

Walton said he is most proud that SCPBRG has been a starting point for so many young biologists in his field and that the species they have studied have responded so well to the management programs the group has been involved with. Both peregrine and eagle numbers now exceed the known historical population sizes estimated by biologists when management activities began in the 1970s.

The Audubon Society is dedicated to protecting birds and other wildlife and the habitat that supports them through a national network of community-based nature centers and chapters, scientific and educational programs, and advocacy on behalf of areas sustaining important bird populations.

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