Educating the Next Generation of Conservationists: Meet Belizean Biologist Scandia Cruz
By Lucie Lehmann
A key component of Green Mountain Audubon’s mission is protecting birds and their habitats. We support that goal by educating the public, organizing birding outings, as well as awarding grants to nonprofit organizations that educate the next generation of conservationists and expose school age children to birds and nature. Grants have included scholarships to summer camps at the Audubon Vermont Huntington campus; bird-themed art programs for Abenaki children in Franklin County; and funds to purchase binoculars for the UVM birding club, libraries, Boys and Girls Club, and schools in Chittenden County.
This year, GMAS also awarded a $1,000 grant to Audubon Vermont to bring a gifted young scientist from Belize, Scandia Cruz, 25, to Vermont to work with Mark LaBarr, Audubon Vermont’s Conservation Program Manager. Their work took them across the state, including talking to groups of young students, but it focused primarily on banding and nanotagging birds that breed in Vermont and return to winter in Belize and other Central and South American countries. LaBarr has traveled several times on vacation to work in Belize with the staff at Toucan Ridge Ecology and Education Society (T.R.E.E.S.), where Sanchez is employed. T.R.E.E.S. is host to a Motus tower, a radio receiver that tracks signals from transmitter-outfitted birds, including some tagged by LaBarr here in Vermont. Having taken UVM students with him to T.R.E.E.S. on past trips, LaBarr asked GMAS to support bringing one of their biologists to Vermont. Cruz was selected for the first in what LaBarr hopes will be regular collaborative exchanges between young scientists in Belize and Vermont.
On a hot, muggy morning in June, shortly before Cruz returned to Belize, she singlehandedly nanotagged a male Wood Thrush on a hillside behind the Green Mountain Audubon Center. Afterwards, she and LaBarr sat down to reflect on all that they had accomplished during their three weeks together in Vermont.
“Helping Mark and banding myself, that was so fun,” Cruz enthused, her dark eyes sparkling. “And teaching a lot, especially when you show people why what we do is important. And being able to visit so many places,” she continued, noting that before she traveled to Vermont she really didn’t know where it was or what to expect. Now, she’s a huge fan of the Green Mountain State and feels a personal connection to the place where many of Belize’s birds migrate to and which even felt somewhat familiar to her, due to the mountains.
“If you ignore the conifers, it’s almost the same [as the Maya Mountains of Belize],” LaBarr said smiling, as Cruz nodded in agreement. She talked animatedly about how special it was to see birds on their breeding grounds and hear them vocalize, something she’d never experienced in Belize. Also while she was here, LaBarr located two of the six birds that he had nanotagged last year and which were recorded by the T.R.E.E.S. Motus tower as they migrated through Belize. “Now that I have seen the birds here, I can say for sure that they are here, and if they continued onward, I learned about their backgrounds and the forests that they like,” Cruz explains.
Crediting LaBarr as an excellent teacher, Cruz said the two share a passion for field work and teaching, “foot soldiers in the conservation world,” in LaBarr’s words. It’s those areas that Cruz will focus on when she returns to work and eventually pursues a Master’s degree in the near future.
Much of the time spent with LaBarr was outdoors, working with other young scientists monitoring nesting Common Terns in the Champlain Islands, teaching school kids about bird banding, and honing Cruz’s bird banding and nanotagging skills in various locations across the state, including outfitting a female Wood Thrush–immediately dubbed “Scandia”-- with a transmitter at Carse Natural Area in Hinesburg. And of course there was field research of a different kind, sampling some of Vermont’s culinary delights, with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and maple syrup ranking high on the list of Cruz’s favorites!
If LaBarr, a self-described old school bander, was the primary teacher, he recognized Cruz’s skills and has high hopes for her future in conservation. “I’ve been fortunate to have worked with Scandia in Belize,” he says. “She’s smart and she’s the next generation of bird bander.”
Cruz takes home not just honed field skills but a deepened commitment to imparting important science to younger kids. “I want to go into more stats and mapping…that is something we need in Belize,” she noted. “And I want to learn a lot of skills and teach them to younger kids.”
She also carries a profound sense of gratitude for her family’s support in encouraging her to come to Vermont, for LaBarr’s extraordinary mentorship, for the opportunity to do field work, and for the financial support she received from GMAS. “I don’t think I would have come without it, to be honest. It really helped.”