Denver Holt Awarded 2018 Chandler S. Robbins Award

We are so pleased to announce that ORI's Founder, Denver Holt, has been awarded the 2018 Chandler S. Robbins Award from the American Birding Association (ABA)!

This national award recognizes an individual who has made outstanding contributions to bird conservation and birder education. Congratulations Denver - what a fantastic honor!

Holt's lifelong dedication to the owl species of North America has earned him this prestigious national award. Stay tuned for the award announcement in the American Birding Association's October issue of Birding magazine and award presentation at the Space Coast Birding Festival in Florida this January. Here's more about the man for who the award is named:

The ABA Chandler S. Robbins Award for Education/Conservation

Chandler S. Robbins (1918-2017) spent most of his 99+ years working for bird conservation. Even after “retiring” after 60 years of public service, Chan continued to appear at his office in the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and was still an active volunteer at the Bird Banding Lab. Early in his career, he studied the effects of DDT on breeding bird populations, which helped in banning the pesticide in 1972. In 1966, he was lead author of Birds of North America: A Guide to Field Identification which introduced the two-page spreads of illustrations and range maps, still the choice among most birders for how to organize a field guide. But Chan’s greatest innovation and contribution was the creation of the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) in 1966. Chan had observed declines in familiar birds of his area, and decided that we needed a way to objectively monitor bird populations at large scales over long time periods. BBS data have been used in countless publications, and to this day serve as the backbone of species vulnerability assessments for prioritizing conservation action for species, habitats, and regions. This award is given to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to birder education and/or bird conservation.

Photo © Melissa Groo, 2018, while on assignment with Denver on the Snowy Owl Project, Utqiagvik, Alaska.