EURING Newsletter - Volume 3 - July 2001

Since 1986, 'EURING technical meetings' offered important venues to statisticians and ornithologists for progressively improving the methods to analyse mark-recapture data. The last meeting was held in october 2000 in California. Nadav Nur and David Anderson report here on the organisation and results of this most interesting conference. The next meeting is scheduled for 2003, and Wolfgang Fiedler offers a first invitation to flock in october 2003 in Radolfzell, Germany.

SUMMARY AND HIGHLIGHTS OF THE
EURING 2000 TECHNICAL CONFERENCE
by Nadav Nur

EURING 2000 LOCAL CHAIR,
POINT REYES BIRD OBSERVATORY,
STINSON BEACH, CA 94970, USA

The EURING 2000 Technical Conference was hosted by the Point Reyes Bird Observatory (PRBO) and was held 2 to 7 October 2000 at the Marconi Conference Center in Marshall, California, USA, a dozen kilometers north of Point Reyes Station, along the shores of beautiful Tomales Bay. The location of the conference was both aesthetic and historic: the Conference Center is on the site of Guglielmo Marconi's TransPacific wireless station, and is now a California State Historical Park. This Technical Conference was the seventh in a lineage of technical conferences which bring together biologists and biometricians, with the aim of advancing the methodology and analysis of data gleaned from the capture and recapture of marked birds. The conference was a rewarding experience for all those who attended, of which there were over 80 scientists from about 20 countries, representing North America, Central America, Europe, Africa, and Oceania.

The conference began on Monday 2 October with a short course, organized by Dan Rosenberg and Anne Viallefont, which was extremely well-attended. The main conference began the following day and continued through lunchtime on Saturday. Each session that followed was packed with papers and lively discussion. In addition to the seven main sessions (listed by David Anderson, below), the conference featured two software sessions, where recently developed and in-progress software were showcased.

Thursday was the mid-conference day off and many participants availed themselves of one of three field trips. The first was a once-in-a-lifetime all-day boat trip out to the Cordell Banks, at the edge of the continental shelf. The boat was a fishing boat, which David DeSante (Institute for Bird Populations) was able to snare for the day, and left Bodega Bay early in the morning. Conditions were unusually calm that day, which made it perfect for observing blue whales, dolphins, and a host of pelagic seabirds. The second field trip, led by Moe Flannery (PRBO), went to the Palomarin Field Station of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, the Point Reyes National Seashore, Bolinas Lagoon, and Muir Woods National Monument, where an impressive stand of ancient coastal redwoods (tallest living things in the world) was at hand. The third field trip, led by Dave Shuford and Nils Warnock (both of PRBO) visited, as well, the Palomarin Field Station (to see the long-term constant-effort mist-netting program in action, now in its 25th year) then went on to the tip of the Point Reyes Peninsula, where a diverse array of species are to be found, including "vagrants" that have wandered off their usual migratory routes. Both of the land-based trips got to see a wide variety of songbirds, shorebirds, ducks, and a handful of seabirds, including species that were over-wintering in California, that were year-round residents, and that were observed in migration. Some participants took the opportunity to relax and stay at the Marconi Conference Center, resting up for the last day and a half of the conference.

There were several distinctive aspects of this conference worth noting: first was the cozy, idyllic setting for the scientific conference, with dining facilities, a meeting room, modern accommodations, all nestled in the pine woods of the conference center. Participants carried on intense discussions of the nuances of capture-recapture methodology in the dining room and at the evening sessions, throughout the week. This Technical Conference had an especially large number of statisticians and biometricians (compared to previous conferences), which made for a fairly equal split between papers on statistical methodology and those on biological applications. It was good to see that graduate students were a conspicuous component, both in the audience, and as presenters.

Any successful conference has many persons and entities to thank and acknowledge, and this conference was no exception. I would like to thank the following:

• First of all the financial sponsors of the Conference, the United States Geological Survey, Autodesk, Inc., and the Western North American Region of the Biometric Society.
• The many staff of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory who worked to bring about the conference, especially Melissa ("Missy") Wipf, EURING 2000 Coordinator.
• Evan Cooch did a superb job as Web-site master, and kept laptop computers working at the conference (with help from Jim Hines).
• John Tautin, who not only organized the poster session (assisted by Tibor Szep), but stepped in to ensure that poster papers could be properly displayed at the conference. John also served on the Finance Committee (together with myself, Byron Morgan, and Franz Bairlein).
• Fernando Spina, EURING President, who provided a Welcome and Introduction to start the Conference as well as providing a gracious thank you to the organizers on the last night.
• Carl Schwarz and Fred Cooke, who collectively stepped in for Prof. George Seber, the Conference's invited Guest of Honor, but who could not attend. Carl supplied the final wrap-up talk, and Fred made the Introductory remarks on Monday evening.
• Finally, David Anderson (Program Chair) and the rest of the scientific session convenors, for providing a program with so much "meat" on its bones, for all participants to ponder now and in the future.

All of us (especially this conference organizer) look forward to the next EURING Technical Conference, which is planned for 2003, to be held in Germany, and to be hosted by Wolfgang Friedel and Peter Berthold of the Max Planck Institute at Radolfzell.

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