Listen to Audubon’s President on Why Bird Conservation Matters

Transcript: 

This is BirdNote!

We like to know what leaders value. Here, David Yarnold, president of Audubon, describes being deeply moved by birds:

“I was in Kearney, Nebraska to watch the Sandhill Cranes and when they took off at dawn, … twenty thousand of them, and it was just deafening…. You know, the juveniles with their high-pitched screeches, it just made the hair on my arms stand up!”

And on the Atlantic Flyway, south of Charleston, there’s a small barrier island called Deveaux Bank… 

“…it’s home to about 5,000 pairs of breeding Brown Pelicans, and I had the chance …to take my wife and daughter out there – and there were oystercatchers …and terns and the pelicans and … they just filled the air and it was one of those moments when you know…you’re in some other creature’s place on earth! Very magical place to be.”

We asked David why bird conservation matters.

“…I know that where birds thrive, you’re going to have clean water and clean air, and that’s …good for kids, it’s good for birds, so conservation to me is a core principle about how to live my life.”

BirdNote celebrates the work of conservation organizations such as Audubon to protect birds and the environment we share — today, and for future generations.

For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.

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Credits: 

Interviewed by Chris Peterson

Producer: John Kessler

Executive Producer Emeritus: Chris Peterson

Executive Producer: Sallie Bodie

Editor: Ashley Ahearn

Associate Producer: Ellen Blackstone

Assistant Producer: Mark Bramhill

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.  Calls of thousands of Sandhill Cranes recorded by A.A.Allen; calls of Sandwich Terns [138114] recorded by J.H. Berry; Brown Pelican juveniles; T..A. Parker.

Adult Brown Pelicans recorded by Martyn Stewart of naturesound.org

© 2014-2019 BirdNote         December 2014 2019    Narrator: Michael Stein

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