In keeping with the DBC tradition of giving, the club provided $2,612 in grants and donations in 2025. This included renewal of our coalition membership in the Bird Conservation Network and an IOS grant of $2,462 to student Auriel Fournier, who will develop and test automated processing for recordings that can detect King Rails. Here is the full abstract of Auriel’s proposal:
Development of automated processing for recordings to detect King Rails
King Rails have experienced significant population decline over the past several decades, especially in the Upper Mississippi River/Great Lakes Region and action is needed to sustain King Rails across the region and in Illinois. It is challenging currently to evaluate habitat restoration and management impacts on King Rails because detecting King Rails if they are present at a site is difficult due to their secretive nature. Automated Recording Units can address some of these challenges, but they need to be tested for each species to assess their biases and effectiveness. I’ve done this work for other marsh bird species, and here propose developing a custom algorithm for King Rail that can be used to process many hours of Automated Recording Unit recordings. I am working with the marsh bird committee within the Upper Mississippi/Great Lakes Joint Venture where we want to increase the resiliency of King Rail populations (increase population and increase number of places with King Rails). In this proposal we would develop and then test an algorithm for detecting King Rails in audio recordings, which would allow the Joint Venture to monitor wetlands across the state and region and ultimately inform workshops with wetland managers. Link to full Project Proposal Document: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZBDNTqeTXIsdxmFsj2dlVxMvLDf1C_LV