Dr. David M. Bird

Dr. David M. Bird is Emeritus Professor of Wildlife Biology and the former Director of the Avian Science and Conservation Centre at McGill University in Montreal, where he worked on birds of prey — including bald eagles and ospreys — for 40 years. After publishing 200 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, authoring/editing more than ten books on birds and wildlife, and supervising fifty graduate students, he was the 2017 winner of the Doris Speirs Award for Outstanding Contributions to Ornithology in Canada from the Society of Canadian Ornithologists. He has worked with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (aka, drones) for more than 12 years, e.g., counting water birds and mapping their habitat use, censusing hawk and eagle nests, dispersing nuisance birds, and tracking birds wearing transmitters. He has given several keynote/plenary talks and has organized symposia, workshops, and panel discussions regarding drones and wildlife studies at conferences worldwide. During that time, he also founded the Journal of Unmanned Vehicle Systems.

M. Blake Henke

M. BLAKE HENKE received his M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Johns Hopkins University in 1996 and his B.A. in History from the University of Virginia in 1990 (with a minor in Environmental Science).  His professional career has been focused on Environmental Consulting and Management — touching on hazardous waste sites remediation (Superfund and RCRA), soil and water sample management and testing (for organic and inorganic analyses), toxic substances control and compliance, environmental technology development and transfer, environmental technical writing and editing, and (for the last twenty years) on wildlife biotelemetry technologies development, sales, and marketing.

As the Director of the UMBC Center for Conservation Research and Technology (CCRT), Mr. Henke directed a multi-million dollar research and development effort to design, develop, and demonstrate wildlife tracking and monitoring technologies (for application primarily to birds) for conservation and basic science applications. This is a role he continued with Earthspan, as Project Manager on a National Science Foundation grant to develop a new biotelemetry tag for small birds called the crossband transponder.  All of that experience contributed to the formation (in 1999 with Dr. William S. Seegar) and growth of North Star Science and Technology, LLC, a world leader in wildlife tracking and monitoring technologies for both birds and terrestrial mammals.  Mr. Henke continues to own and operate North Star, developing and marketing yet new and smaller tracking tags and collars (and ear tags) for birds and terrestrial mammals, and now harnessing drones for use in wildlife research and conservation.

Brett Mandernack

Brett received his B.S. and M.S. in Wildlife Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He has had the privilege to research three formerly endangered species: Timber Wolf, Peregrine Falcon, and Bald Eagle. Brett has been a licensed falconer since 1985 and a master bander since 1999.

Since February 1987, Brett has managed an amazing nature preserve situated along the Mississippi River in southwest Wisconsin that is owned by Kohler Co. and the Kohler Trust for Preservation. Research undertaken there includes studying the dynamics of a Bald Eagle winter night roost, raptor migration counts, and satellite tracking adult Bald Eagles to document movement ecology of the eagles that overwinter in that region. More recently, he has tracked immature Bald Eagles to investigate movement behavior as they approach and enter into adulthood. Brett has also tracked fledglings from the online Decorah, Iowa, Bald Eagle nest, the most viewed eagle nest in the country.

Dr. Mike McGrady

Mike is an avian ecologist who has worked mostly on raptors for the past (almost) 40 yrs. That work has occurred in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. Mike received his B.Sc. from Davidson College, and his PhD from Edinburgh University. He has worked for conservation and research NGOs, governments, and in academia; he founded Natural Research, a research charity and ecological consultancy company in Scotland. In recent years he has been an independent avian researcher and consultant. Consultancies have mostly focused on wind energy, but have included road, harbour, waste management, electricity distribution infrastructure and conservation projects. Currently, Mike has research projects on vultures, falcons and eagles that are resident or migrant visitors to the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. He has long-term research projects on Steller’s eagles in Russia and Peregrine falcons in Scotland.

Dr. William S. Seegar

WILLIAM S. SEEGAR received his B.A. from the College of Wooster, Ohio, and his Ph.D. in Pathobiology from The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. Dr. Seegar was the recipient of a National Research Service Award at Johns Hopkins; was a NATO Research Fellow at The Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge and Oxford University, England; and while a scientist for the United States Department of Defense received the Civilian Research and Development Award for management of the Bird-Borne Program at Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University.  His management of this program lead to the development and fielding of the first satellite based tracking device for birds which was accomplished in 1983.

He is currently retired from the U.S. Army Edgewood Research and Development Center where he developed interface capabilities between space-based tracking and monitoring systems and the rapidly evolving field of computer-based geographic information systems for natural resource management and conservation. He founded the LLC technology company, North Star Science and Technology and co-founded the not-for-profit company, Earthspan.  He currently is the CEO at Earthspan where in his retirement continues his research of the North American, Tundra Peregrine falcon.

Michael Yates

Mr. Yates has conducted studies in various U.S. states, Canada, Greenland, and Russia. Species involved have included the peregrine falcon, gyrfalcon, golden eagle, ferruginous hawk, Swainson’s hawk, and various other hawk and falcon species, greater sage-grouse, common loon, American white pelican, brown pelican, white-faced ibis, bighorn sheep, pronghorn and feral horse. His helicopter and fixed-wing surveys of game species and cliff nesting raptors encompass hundreds of hours. He has collected, processed and appropriately archived thousands of biological samples from captured individuals. He has served as Principal Investigator or Co-investigator in many of these studies, and authored or co-authored many peer-reviewed publications.