Hannah Suthers
Winner of the 2006 Women and Wildlife
Inspiration Award
Hannah Suthers is a dedicated volunteer
who has committed 28 years to studying bird
populations and the habitats that support them. In
1978, she founded a Bird Banding and Research Station
on the Sourland Ridge in central New Jersey in fields
undergoing succession from farmland to natural state.
Since that time, she has been banding birds and
recording information on their physical conditions and
surveying the natural resources of the Sourlands
region. While her main focus has been birds and bird
populations, Hannah has also documented the herptiles,
plants, mammals and insects on her site.
Hannah’s work has contributed to the Monitoring Avian
Productivity Project, the Sourlands Natural Resources
Inventory, the NJ Breeding Bird Atlas, the Atlantic Flyway
Project and the Herp Atlas Project.
Hannah also founded the Princeton Skinners, a project to
prepare salvaged birds into scientific skins for the
Princeton University Biology Museum. She has mentored many
students pursuing advanced degrees. She has supervised
aspiring bird banders and is certified to train, examine
and field-certify these banders. She has inspired a large
body of volunteers. Hannah’s field station has
recently been approved as a New Jersey Important Bird Area.
Hannah has carried out these remarkable activities while
working full-time in an unrelated field. Now, in her
retirement, she continues to carry out her studies and
gather valuable data that plays an important role in
wildlife and habitat conservation in the state.
Joanna Burger
Winner of the 2006 Women and Wildlife
Leadership Award
Joanna Burger has been a
Professor of Ecology and Evolution at Rutgers University
for 25 years. For 14 of these years, she was Director of
the Graduate School in Ecology and Evolution.
The main focus of Joanna’s research has been
understanding how animals can prosper in habitats affected
or dominated by people, and their interactions with other
animals. She has carried out research in many countries
– Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, India,
Kenya, Mexico, South Africa and Zaire – and on many
species such as grebes, gulls, iguanas, chickens, egrets,
impala and baboons.
For many years, Joanna and her husband Michael Gochfeld
have investigated the effect of low levels of lead on
behavioral development in gulls using a global
feather-based bio-monitoring plan that they developed. They
have demonstrated that certain levels of lead that occur in
the wild are sufficient to cause behavioral effects in
gulls.
She has worked in Barnegat Bay for 30 years on population
dynamics, reproductive success and contaminants in colonial
birds. She has also studied the population dynamics and
behavior of pine snakes and black racers in the Pine
Barrens as well as behavior of shorebirds; colony dynamics
of urban box turtles; and contaminants in estuarine and
ocean fish.
Joanna has published over 350 scientific papers, numerous
chapters and edited or written 17 books. She has consulted
with muncipalities, corporations, conservation groups,
state and federal governments and private citizens. She
also serves on many national and international committees
and is a member of the New Jersey Endangered and Nongame
Species Advisory Council – a body that provides
oversight and insight to the Endangered and Nongame Species
Program in New Jersey.
Thank you to the 2006
Sponsors
We would like to thank the following
Sponsors for helping to make the Women and Wildlife Awards
possible.
* Amy S. Greene Environmental
Consultants
* Bellview Winery
* River Horse Brewery
* The Ship Inn
* Spruce Printing
* Princetonian Graphics
* Fuzzy Dice Design
* ShopRite of Hunterdon
* Pennington Quality Market
* Whole Foods Market
* Patti Bramson and Bob Andrews
* Celebration Party Rentals
* Mr. and Mrs. Robert Bonazzi
* Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Coleman
* Anne A. Williams