Western CT Bird Club: The Future of Terns on Great Gull Island; What Next?

FEBRUARY MEETING – Thursday 20 – The Future of Terns on Great Gull Island; what Next?

Due to logistics and the vagaries of the weather in February, this meeting will be held on Zoom. A link will be sent to you shortly before the meeting.

Margaret Rubega will give a talk on the terns of Great Gull Island and what the future might bring. Over 50 years, and with the support of the Linnaean Society of New York and countless volunteers, Helen Hays built one of the most important tern colonies in the world on Great Gull Island in Long Island Sound. Over the next 50 years, climate change will alter conditions for the terns dramatically. In this presentation, Dr. Rubega will describe current activities on behalf of the terns, and future challenges, threats and opportunities at Great Gull.

Dr. Margaret Rubega is a Professor, and Curator of Ornithology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, as well as the Connecticut State Ornithologist. She got her undergraduate degree at Southern Connecticut State University, where she cut classes in accordance with a schedule that maintained her grade while facilitating birding. She obtained a Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine, and did postdoctoral research at the University of Nevada, Reno, before joining the faculty at UConn. She first set foot on Great Gull Island in 1979, and belongs to a team of researchers who began managing the island in 2021.