William Mackin

I am fascinated by nesting behavior in birds and have studied Audubon's Shearwaters, White-tailed Tropicbirds, and other seabirds in the Bahamas, Tobago, and around the Caribbean. These seabirds are poorly known, declining, and mysterious. Why do they nest in huge numbers on some islands and not others? How do they coordinate their breeding activities with mates and neighbors? Where do they forage? I have collaborated with other scientists and many volunteer assistants to address these questions since 1998.

My details:

UNC-Chapel Hill, PhD in Biology 2004 titled "Breeding Behavior and Communication of Audubon's Shearwater in the Bahamas" under R. Haven Wiley

Harvard University A.B. cum laude 1997, concentrating in Biology

Board member of Environmental Protection in the Caribbean (EPIC) since 2012.

I have published numerous peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and maps on seabird conservation, and I am a master bird bander under the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory. I have banded thousands of shearwaters, tropicbirds, terns, and even a couple of owls under my permit, and I am competent with using Program Mark to analyze mark-recapture data.

July 2016