HMANA Lunch & Learn Series: Tracking Montana’s Ospreys
Wednesday, April 17 at 12:00 pm EST
HMANA welcomed Rob Domenech, executive director of Raptor View Research Institute, for the April 2024 lunch & Learn where he discussed Tracking Montana’s Osprey. The presentation included a brief history of the Montana Osprey Project, when it started and why, blood heavy metals analysis (i.e., Mercury levels) in Osprey sampled along the Upper Clark Fork River Superfund Complex; a summary of color band encounters, and an overview of our satellite telemetry tracks of Osprey tagged along the Bitterroot River – with a few standout stories of satellite-tracked individuals.
Rob Domenech, executive director of Raptor View Research Institute (RVRI), graduated from the University of Montana in 2002 with a Wildlife Biology degree. He worked throughout western Montana for much of the 1990s, scouting for suitable sites to establish the first fall raptor migration ridgeline banding study in Montana. He founded RVRI in 2004 to continue and better facilitate his raptor research and migration studies. Domenech is one of the country’s leading authorities on Golden Eagle and Osprey ecology.
His work includes standardized migration counts, satellite telemetry, wing-tagging and color-banding, eco-toxicology studies, and more. RVRI’s data have contributed to over a dozen publications in top-tier scientific journals. When not in the field, you can find Rob promoting awareness of raptor ecology and related conservation challenges to youth and community groups.
