We are over halfway there. Thanks to the generosity of a lot of you folks, we will be able to put a larger team of researchers in the field this year than last. At present, we can afford to hire a research staff of three interns in Minnesota and one — and a half — in Wisconsin. This is excellent news!
Our goal, however, is to place four interns in the field full time in Minnesota and at least two (we would prefer three) in Wisconsin. To reach that goal, we will have to raise an additional $16,000.
We are fortunate that a supporter has stepped up to match all donations for the 2024 field season up to $10,000! So that gives us a path to $20,000, if we can just raise $10,000 from other donors.
If you have already donated, thank you so much! Your kindness is keeping us afloat while we look to acquire long-term state and/or federal grant funding. If you have not yet donated and would like to — knowing that every dollar from you now will bring in two dollars to support this summer’s work — please consider helping out now. We would love to ride this generous matching offer to full funding for a robust 2024 field effort!
Click HERE to go to our donate page.
Just to convince you that we really are getting research done, below is a look at the abstract of a just-published paper written by Brian Hoover (a former Chapman postdoc) and me. The paper shows that males’ yodels get higher-pitched with age. This finding suggests that old males signal their age to challengers in order to communicate their aggressive tendencies. Let me know (wpiper@chapman.edu) if you would like me to send you the complete paper. It is not out yet, but the journal is allowing us to distribute the paper to our friends and contacts in order to publicize its findings.
Thanks to Linda Grenzer, a super duper photographer, for this nice picture of the male on her lake and a chick that has just left the nest.