Joan L. Morrison

I have been passionate about birds since I was 6 years old. Always up for a challenge, I began working on caracaras in Florida, which had never been studied anywhere, for my PhD research at the University of Florida in the 1990s. Caracaras there are listed as threatened because of habitat loss and a concomitant population decline. Raptors have intrigued me since the 1980s, when I began working as a field assistant for my mentor, who then was studying a species of hawk in New Mexico. So when I got to Florida, I thought I knew about raptors and could easily study the caracaras. Boy was I wrong! Caracaras are very smart, living as both predators and scavengers. I quickly discovered that many of the capture and study methods used on other raptors don't work on caracaras. Capturing them was a challenge! But my team and I developed a successful method, and so I have continued to study these birds for over 20 years. Even after I earned my PhD and began working as a professor at Trinity College in Connecticut, I continued my research in Florida, sponsoring a PhD student and a post-doctoral student who explored other aspects of the research. Together we have published scientific papers on the caracara's breeding biology, food habits, movements, survival, and habitat associations and we have presented at many national conferences including the annual meeting of the Raptor Research Foundation. One unexpected finding was that Florida's caracaras seem to prefer nesting and foraging in human-managed landscapes such as agricultural lands and cattle ranches, rather than in native prairie grasslands. This situation makes for a positive working partnership among ranchers, scientists, and wildlife managers, who focus on reducing threats to Florida's caracara population. We work together to understand land management actions that favor caracaras and their habitats. A video describing my research in Florida can be found here.

October 2016