Until this summer, fewer than 80 Florida grasshopper sparrows lived in the wild. But now, there are 25 more. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission began releasing the birds on May 9, an accomplishment made possible in part by a confidence-boosting disease risk analysis workshop facilitated by CPSG.

The long road to release started back in 2015 when a captive breeding program for the birds launched. But soon after, an intestinal disease spread among captive chicks. Concerns arose: If released into the wild, could captive sparrows introduce a new disease to wild birds? The birds couldn’t be released without greater confidence that the risk of spreading disease to an already troubled wild population was acceptably low.

Enter CPSG. In 2018, CPSG accepted an invitation to lead a workshop in which disease experts and sparrow biologists carefully evaluated threats to both wild and captive birds, discussed alternative release scenarios, and weighed the risks and benefits of these scenarios. With spirited debate, workshop participants gave state and Federal wildlife management authorities the information they needed to confidently move ahead with designing an effective release and monitoring protocol for birds returned to the wild. 

In the days after their release, the newly wild birds flew, foraged, and explored on their own. Those tracking the released birds reported them to be behaving normally as of July. But, we’ll have to wait and see if the released birds fully join the wild population and help to increase their numbers by breeding.