PRESS ROOM

ROYAL OAK, Mich., 

The eighth biennial State of the Strait conference – titled “Urban Bird Summit: Status, Trends and Risks to Species that Call the Corridor Home” – will be held Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, at the Detroit Zoo.

Up to 200 participants from Canada and the U.S. are expected to attend the conference to learn about threats to avian species in the southeastern Michigan-southwestern Ontario region and projects to help protect birds in this area. The conference is a collaboration between State of the Strait and the Metro Detroit Nature Network, a partnership of conservation and outdoor recreational organizations working to bring conservation to cities and make nature part of everyday urban life. Earlier this year, metropolitan Detroit became the 29th Urban Bird Treaty City in the U.S.

“We share a special and important corridor with our Canadian neighbors. This conference is a useful communication tool that allows us to review, assess and discuss important issues within the Corridor from binational points of view,” said State of the Strait conference U.S. co-chair Steve Francoeur.

“This binational summit is quite timely, as it builds upon Detroit becoming an Urban Bird Treaty City this year,” said conference Canadian co-chair Jan Ciborowski. “Improving Canadian and U.S. natural resource management is important to us all.”

The State of the Strait is a binational (U.S.-Canada) collaboration that hosts a meeting every two years to bring together government managers, researchers, students, environmental and conservation organizations and concerned citizens. Participants work to understand historical ecosystem conditions and assess current ecosystem status in order to achieve a better future for the Detroit River and western Lake Erie.

“We have a long history of protecting birds at the Detroit Zoo, throughout the state and around the world, and we’re happy to convene our partners who share this commitment to conserving birds and their habitats,” said Scott Carter, chief life sciences officer for the Detroit Zoological Society (DZS).

The DZS encourages the community through educational literature to take preventative measures to protect migratory birds from window strikes, which occur when a bird collides with a window and dies. An estimated 1 billion birds in the U.S. are killed from window collisions each year.