BCR 112: Sidney Gauthreaux Jr. Ph.D.

Today’s show is one of BirdCallsRadio’s featured series called “For The Record, Legacy Interviews™” with this series 7th guest Dr. Sidney A. Gauthreaux, Jr.

Bio:

Sidney Gauthreaux Jr. Ph.D., received his B.S. from LSU at New Orleans (now the University of New Orleans) in June 1963; M.S. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in August 1965; Ph.D. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in August 1968; and held a Post-Doctorate Fellowship at the Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia from fall 1968 until fall 1970. He retired from Clemson University where he was a faculty member from 1970-2006 and taught ornithology, animal behavior, and behavioral ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences. He currently consults in the area of Remote Sensing and Technology and is a visiting scholar in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign where he works with a group assessing avian radars that can be used to prevent bird/aircraft collisions.

Dr. Gauthreaux’s research emphasis on studies of bird migration across the Gulf of Mexico began in graduate school in the early 1960s and continues today. He has used combinations of radar and direct visual techniques to study the characteristics and geographical patterns of bird migration throughout the United States. His research in applied ornithology has examined 1) the attraction of migrating birds at night to different types of lighting on tall towers, 2) the risks of migrating birds colliding with man-made structures such as transmission lines, towers, and wind turbines, and 3) the problem of aircraft colliding with migrating birds.

Awards:

• Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1988
• Elected Life-time Corresponding Fellow of the Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft, 1988
• Elected Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society, 1991
• Provost’s Award for Scholarly Achievements, Clemson University May 2000
• William Brewster Memorial Award, American Ornithologists’ Union, October 2006
• Margaret Morse Nice Medal, Wilson Ornithological Society, April 2009

Show Notes:

• Bird migration on a local New Orleans weather radar (Weather Surveillance Radar (WSR-57)
• If radar could detect raindrops, then it should image birds too.
• Using radars to quantify Trans-Gulf migration
• Clemson University, continued the radar studies. CUROL was established.
• Processes & Tools for collecting data
• WSR-88D NEXRAD radar station
• Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s Bird Cast.
• Tracking of migratory birds Including GIS, geolocators, Avian NanoTags, MOTUS network, Doppler weather surveillance radar
• Next frontiers for today’s ornithologists.

Mentioned in Episode:

Clemson University

BirdCast – The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology

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