Avian advocates
Hawks Aloft has rescued raptors, taught about birds for 25 years
Hawks Aloft is celebrating 25 years of helping indigenous wild birds and educating the public about them.
Hawks Aloft works to conserve indigenous wild birds through conservation, education, avian research, raptor rescue and collaboration with others, according to Gail Garber, executive director of Hawks Aloft Inc.
“We have a really large cadre of birds,” Garber said. “We have well over 20 birds that are educational birds in our program, as well as probably another 10 that are retired and don’t do programs anymore. We try to find birds that tell a story about their habitats or have a story to tell that illustrates why they came to be non-releasable. It could be their injury or something like that, but truly unique stories, and we think that all of our birds have truly unique stories.”
Hawks Aloft has between 80 and 90 volunteers who perform various tasks, including raptor rescue, research, education and bird cage cleanup. It has eight staff members, including three biologists. One of the biologists doubles as a rescue coordinator. Hawks Aloft has a rescue hotline: 999-7740.
“Anybody can call if they have an injured hawk, falcon, raven or whatever, and we will make sure that bird gets into a facility that can care for it,” Garber said. “They get veterinary care in Albuquerque. We have seven local veterinarians that donate their time and services for these birds, and once they receive veterinarian care, we move them to the best facility for their care, for that injury, or that species. We work with other local groups; we work with wildlife rescue; we work with people down in southern New Mexico; we work with the wildlife mission that we collaborate with, and we do collaborate, because we couldn’t do this all by ourselves.”
Hawks Aloft began with one full-time educator and Garber, who worked part time.
“That first year we didn’t have credentials so we did research for anything we could do that would build our skill set,” Garber said. “We are very involved with a number of research projects. Our biggest one is the study of birds in the Middle Rio Grande bosque between Rio Rancho and La Joya (Wildlife Area).”
The study, primarily funded by the Army Corps of Engineers, looks at how many birds there are and the variety of birds relative to the vegetation in the bosque and also to land management.
“We’ve been working on that study now for 14 years,” Garber said. “It tells us a lot like we can track birds’ response to many different things. We use the study of birds as a barometer to measure the health of an ecosystem.”
Hawks Aloft also visits schools with its nonreleasable birds. Its largest program, “Living With the Landscape,” is completely funded by grants.
“We serve the lowestincome schools in our state, and we serve every student in the school with multiple programs throughout the year,” Garber said. “We also take the older kids out on field trips, because a lot of times these kids never get out of their neighborhood, never ever. That’s the whole part of it, to take them out there into nature so they can experience it, and we know it makes a difference.”