This past year was a challenging one for many. Despite the struggles environmental organizations faced this year, our team managed to celebrate anniversaries, expand our programs, conserve more raptors, and educate more learners than ever before. As we close out 2025, we hope you’ll take a minute to celebrate all the success we’ve shared together this year.
Expanded the Eagle Vehicle Strike Program
We secured substantial wind energy-related mitigation funding to expand the Eagle Vehicle Strike program to four states—making it our biggest field season yet! We safely relocated 862 carcasses away from roadsides last winter, protecting scavenging eagles from potential collisions with vehicles. This equates to nearly 8 eagles saved, just from big game carcasses alone!
Grew our research at the Gunsight Mountain HawkWatch
Thanks to support from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, we doubled the size of our Gunsight Mountain HawkWatch crew, allowing us to conduct dual counts simultaneously. This development will better inform past data and estimate detection rates, which will be used to improve our yearly count estimates at the northernmost HawkWatch in the world!
Celebrated five years of the Global Raptor Research & Conservation Grant
Since its founding in 2021, we’ve awarded 20 grants to recipients around the world studying some of the most at-risk, understudied, and keystone species. For the most recent cycle, we are excited to support four grantees studying Serendib Scops-Owl, Pallas’s Fish-Eagle, Rüppell’s Vulture, and Hooded Vulture.
Co-authored our first paper with a Global Raptor Research and Conservation Grant recipient
We first learned of Abiola Chaffra’s work back in 2023, when we awarded him a grant to support his research on the illegal trade of the Critically Endangered Hooded Vulture in fetish markets across Benin. After seeing the astounding numbers from his surveys—over 500 vultures sold in just a four-month period—we decided to bring Abiola on as one of our Partner Programs, where we continued to provide financial support and mentorship. Together with HWI’s Dr. Meg Murgatroyd, we collaborated on our first paper with a grant recipient, detailing the findings of this essential work.
Completed our first year tracking the Flores Hawk-Eagle
One year ago, we put out the first transmitter ever on the Endangered Flores Hawk-Eagle. Thanks to one year of tracking data, we learned more about their species’ habitat use and needs. We discovered that their annual home range is 21.8 km², much larger than previous estimates from observations. Although more tracking is needed, these findings suggest that the decline in the forest habitat these eagles rely on may be the culprit behind their decline, and that protecting forests may be the solution.
Welcomed Liggy to the team
Our Raptor Ambassador team grew by one this year wth the addition of Liggy, the female American Kestrel. Liggy is an imprint, likely due to humans keeping her as a pet in their home before bringing her to a rehab. Her name is in honor of Jerry Liguori, our late friend, raptor conservationist, photographer, and former educator at HawkWatch International.
Celebrated 40 years of the Manzano Mountains HawkWatch
The Manzano Mountains HawkWatch is the second-longest-running site in our long-term migration network. In our four decades of monitoring the fall migration of raptors, we’ve counted over 200,000 raptors migrating by. To celebrate, we hosted Birds, Brunch, and Bingo at Santa Fe Brewing Co. in Albuquerque, New Mexico, welcoming past Migration Crew Members, staff, and longtime visitors and supporters.
Brought our Raptor Ambassadors to Arizona and Texas for the first time
HawkWatch International’s education programs focus on bringing birds to people so we can close the gaps between them and nature. Thanks to support from our local partners and people like you, we expanded our home range this year and brought high-quality raptor education programs to learners in Arizona and Texas. Each program is tailored to meet the unique needs of learners, from curriculum-driven lessons in schools to free programs at local community centers and our annual migration festivals.
Led our first-ever multi-day birding tour
We asked what you wanted to see more of in 2025, and you said field trips! What better place to host our first multi-day tour than the Birdiest City in America—Corpus Christi, TX? In partnership with Swarovski, we took a group out to see not only the staggering migration of hundreds of thousands of Broad-winged Hawks at the HawkWatch platform, but also the many other resident and migrating bird species in the surrounding area.
Became the first to trap and track a breeding pair of Secretarybirds
We are closing out 2025 with a bang, ending this year’s Secretarybird field season successfully administering all our transmitters! We put out the first transmitter ever on an adult Secretarybird, AND on the first breeding pair in history. We can’t wait to share more about this season in our blog next week.
We feel so grateful that during this difficult year, we were able to do so much for raptors. We’ve got even bigger plans in 2026, including something that will lay the foundation for the future of raptor conservation at HWI and beyond. Renew your support for raptor conservation and be a part of HWI history: https://hawkwatch.org/renew/
This blog was written by Sammy Riccio, HWI’s Communications Manager. You can learn more about Sammy here.
