This meeting and presentation took place entirely in person at the Liederkranz Club at 6 East 87th Street, New York.
The evening began with a reception at 6 pm. This was a members-only event, and it was well-attended by the membership and invited guests. Between members, invited guests, and award winners, around one hundred people began filling the room with the sounds of conversation and laughter, which got louder as more people arrived.
At 7:36 pm, President Debbie Mullins called the Society meeting to order.
President Mullins welcomed the audience to this 147th annual meeting of the Linnaean Society of New York and thanked all for coming. She noted that the annual meeting gives the president the opportunity to report on the activities of the Society over the past year, and that she would be presenting those as well as the finances of the past year, the nominees for the Society’s board for the new term, 2025/2026, and the recipients of this year’s Society’s awards.
President Mullins made the following remarks:
In Memoriam
- She gave tribute to all the Society members who have recently passed away and the year in which they joined.
- Michael Bonifanti, 2016
- Helen Hays, past president, 1958
- Orlando H. Garrido, Honorary Member, 2010*
- Jean Held, 1977
- Leo Hollein, 2003
- Anthony Lauro, 1968
- Nina Moinester, 2007
- Paul Meyers, 1970
- Bernard Nathan, 1974
- Irene Payne, 1999
- Alison Rea, 2013
- William Riley, 1965*
- Ruby Senie, 2019
- Olaf Soltau, 2016
- Lenore Swenson, fellow, 1994
- Constance Wiley, 2021
*After the annual meeting, the Society’s board learned of their deaths.
- She noted that Helen Hays, who died a few weeks ago, was a former president of the Society. She was a guiding light for the Great Gull Island project over the decades, beginning in the 1960s, and retired only a few years ago. She will be greatly missed.
Annual Report
- The 2024 annual report was distributed to all members in attendance. It contains the secretary’s report and reports from all the Society’s committees. The president encouraged the members to read them.
- Thirty new members joined the Society in 2024, bringing the membership to 767—almost double the number from before the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The requirements that new members be sponsored and approved by a vote of the membership have been discontinued.
- The Society’s fiscal position is strong, with a current balance of $214,000. Last year’s net income was $26,000.
- The board is looking into the logistics of returning to in-person regular member meetings as a hybrid together with remote attendance via Zoom. Numerous members have been expressing their hope for in-person meetings.
- The president presented highlights from each of the committee’s accomplishments over the past year, and thanked the chairs, committee members, and volunteers for their dedication and hard work.
- The president expressed her appreciation and thanks to the outgoing board members whose terms are ending.
- The president mentioned others who have contributed to the Society’s infrastructure, operations, and growth. And she thanked those on the planning committee for arranging this annual meeting.
- She concluded by expressing that it had been a privilege to serve as president for the past two years, and thanked the Society for its support.
Silent Auction and Raffle
- Gillian Henry presented the results of the silent auction, and drew the tickets for the winners of the raffle bags.
Election of Officers, Board Members, and Motions
- Alice Deutsch, Mary Beth Kooper, and Kevin Sisco comprised the committee for nominating officers and board members.
- Thus far, a presidential candidate has not been found, and the search continues for a person who would be interested in filling the role. In the interim, board members and former presidents will share the responsibilities.
- President Mullins then introduced the officers and board members who have been nominated for election.
- Voting will be done online: following the meeting, ballots will be emailed to all members who are up-to-date with their dues. The poll will be open for two days, and close on Thursday, March 13th, at midnight.
Awards
- Member awards:
- Peregrine Falcon 50-year Member Award to Paula M. Schutte, who joined the Linnaean Society in 1975.
- Fellow to Ken Chaya, former president, vice president, board member, and trip leader, who provided a great deal of dedicated service to the Linnaean Society, including during the COVID lockdown, when he kept the Society vibrant and moving forward.
- Linnaean Society of New York awards: The Society presents several awards each year to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to natural history, conservation, and education. President Mullins introduced each honoree and described and recognized their achievements:
- 2025 Shelda Taylor Award to Jennifer Stalec, a teacher at Eleanor Roosevelt High School. The award honors K – 12 teachers who have made a sustained and substantial impact by educating their students on aspects of natural history.
- 2025 Natural History Service Award to Dustin Partridge, director of conservation and science at the NYC Bird Alliance, for his research and expertise on green infrastructure in urban landscapes. This award is given to individuals who, through working with members of the public, have triggered a lasting interest in natural history.
- 2025 Eisenmann Medal to Bryan D. Watts, the Mitchell A. Byrd Professor of Conservation Biology at the College of William & Mary. He is the founder and director of the Center for Conservation Biology, and the author of over 600 scientific publications. The Eisenmann Medal is the highest award given by the Linnaean Society of New York. It is given to an individual for excellence in ornithology and encouragement of the amateur.
Eisenmann Lecture: “Eagles of the Chesapeake,” presented by Dr. Bryan D. Watts
Dr. Watts began his talk with an introduction to the Center of Conservation Biology, a research unit within the College of William and Mary. Its focus is on birds of conservation concern in the Western Hemisphere. The organization has worked on thousands of projects from Argentina to the Arctic, with about 40 field projects per year, many of which are long-term, multi-decade commitments. He then moved on to present three of those projects, starting with the Bald Eagles of Chesapeake Bay.
The Eagles of Chesapeake Bay
In his introductory description of the Chesapeake Bay, Dr. Watts noted that it is one of the great estuaries of the world, with shallow waters and a dendritic shoreline that result in a highly productive habitat, including for fish-eating birds such as the Bald Eagle, Osprey, and Great Blue Heron. It is also an area that is becoming engulfed in the rapid development of the Boston-to-Washington corridor and the Virginia Golden Crescent; the resultant habitat loss is having an impact on these species.
Dr. Watts next talked about the Bald Eagles: their traits as part of the sea eagle subfamily, their habitat needs and preferences, and details about their life cycle, all punctuated with photos from around the Chesapeake Bay. He then moved on to the data, which illustrated the devastating effect of DDT on Bald Eagle populations, with maps of nesting sites around the Chesapeake Bay over time together with bar charts constructed from chronological data of nesting pairs. He described the monitoring methods, which amped up to aerial surveys beginning in 1962, and his own involvement flying as part of a team for over 30 years with the famous Professor Mitchell Byrd, and Captain Fuzzzo (with three “z’s,” with the middle “z” being silent…to spontaneous audience laughter).
With the banning of DDT and the enactment of federal legislation directed at protection of endangered species, the Bald Eagle and Osprey populations have rebounded. Dr. Watts estimates that there are now 3,000 pairs of Bald Eagles in the Chesapeake Bay, up from about 60 to 70 pairs at the height of the DDT period. Osprey pairs have increased from 1,400 to around 12,000, and Great Blue Heron pairs from fewer than 1,000 to now 15,000. Over this time, there was an exponential growth in the birds’ reproduction, reaching a maximum in the late 1990s to early 2000s. Dr. Watts explained that research suggests that since that peak, a negative behavioral feedback loop is now bringing the populations to a new stable level based on territory constraints.
The Chaco Eagle
Dr. Watts introduced the Chaco Eagle (Buteogallus coronatus), which he described as one of the most endangered eagles in the world and one of the least known. It lives in arid habitats in south central South America in Argentina, Paraguay, and southern Brazil. Formerly named Crowned Eagle, it has a small crest of dark, gray feathers. Fifteen years ago the Center of Conservation Biology began assisting in conservation efforts with local researchers in Argentina to protect this eagle. The center provided technology and training to local scientists to learn about the ecology of the eagle, and to understand why it is so endangered.
Included in the information the center learned is that Chaco Eagles’ principal prey are snakes and hairy armadillos; that they seem to produce a single chick per year; that the chick has a long dependency period of 12 months or longer; and that adults are dying at a rapid rate. As to why the adults are dying prematurely, field work has provided answers: 1) electrocution by power lines: rural infrastructure has not been upgraded to raptor-safe, international standards; 2) killing by ranchers: local lore tells of Chaco Eagles preying on lambs—a fiction, as borne out by research and evidence to the contrary.
Addressing the indiscriminate killing of Chaco Eagles, Dr. Watts told us that an outreach and education program was developed and implemented to involve ranchers in the efforts to protect the species. He showed a photograph of himself demonstrating to a rancher how to band a Chaco Eagle. And he emphasized the need for multi-generational participation in these efforts in order to ensure sustainability of the species, showing another photo of a mother introducing her young daughter to a Chaco Eagle in-hand.
Panama City—Remarkable Wetlands, Shorebirds, and Encroaching Development
Dr. Watts concluded his lecture with a topic that he told the audience he had particularly selected to honor Eugene Eisenmann, having to do with Panama and the ecological treasure of the habitat near the Panama Canal.
In 1997, at the time when the United States was handing over control of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama, the State Department asked Dr. Watts to do a rigorous assessment of waterbirds as part of its conservation recommendations to the Panamanians. One location was the shoreline just east of Panama City along the Pacific coast. Dr. Watts described it as a remarkable place, an internationally important area for migratory shorebirds with especially high densities of birds—on the order of 14 birds per meter. In 2008 he returned to Panama with the Center of Conservation Biology to do another survey. He found that the coastal mangrove forests and mudflats to the east of Panama City that they had surveyed in 1997 were being cut down and filled in to build high-rise buildings on this ecologically important terrain.
Dr. Watts honed in on his theme: conservation must be local. And while research is important, conservation requires the commitment of the people who live there. In 1997 Dr. Watts had been concerned that the Panamanian people might not know how globally important the Panamanian Pacific coastline is for migratory shorebirds. At that time he wrote a booklet describing the birds and the importance of the habitat, and printed about 10,000 copies. He handed the booklets over to the Ministry of Education. Ten years later, in a classroom at one of the field sites he was visiting, he noticed one of those booklets tacked onto a bulletin board. And he had noticed over those ten to fifteen years that a national awareness and pride was building about the efforts to support shorebirds. In the early 2000s, the Panama Audubon Society directed their focus to shorebird conservation. To that end, the Center for Conservation Biology has periodically gone down to Panama to support them with equipment and training on shorebird survey techniques, all with the goal of building the capacity for local scientists and volunteers to do the work.
Dr. Watts concluded that conservation requires the commitment of the local area, government entities, corporations, citizens, and citizen groups. And it needs to be multi-generational. We can offer help, but it is those who have the closest, local stake who ultimately will shepherd conservation forward.
At 9:02 pm, following the Q&A session, President Debbie Mullins thanked Professor Watts and adjourned the meeting.
Respectfully submitted by Lisa Kroop, Recording Secretary