Tracy Aviary hosting bilingual Christmas Bird Count event in outreach effort to Latino community

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Tracy Aviary is hosting a bilingual bird count in South Salt Lake on Sunday.
The event, part of Christmas Bird Count activities around the country, is meant to help inventory the population of birds.
Tracy Aviary will have a Spanish-speaking rep at Sunday's event in a bid to encourage participation among the Latino and Spanish-speaking community.

SOUTH SALT LAKE — As the Christmas Bird Count nears an end, a Utah nature center is making a concerted effort to involve the Latino and Spanish-speaking community in the initiative.

Tracy Aviary will hold a bilingual bird count on Sunday, Jan. 4, at its Nature Center at Pia Okwai along the Jordan River at 3310 S. 1000 West in South Salt Lake. It runs from noon to 2 p.m. and is one of several planned around Utah and the rest of the country as part of the annual bird-counting initiative, which started on Dec. 14 and goes until Jan. 5.

All are welcome, but for the first time, Tracy Aviary officials will have a Spanish-speaking guide at the Christmastime event in a bid to encourage increased participation by the Latino community. Latino Conservation Week, typically held each September, aims to inspire participation by Latinos in outdoor activities, and turning the Christmas Bird Count into a bilingual event is meant to expand on that.

"There hasn't been that entry point that nature and the outdoors is for everyone," said Jacki Ortiz, who handles social media and marketing for the Tracy Aviary. Some in the Latino community, she said, regard outdoor activity as more akin to work, and events like Sunday's bird count aim to dispel that viewpoint, to demonstrate that the outdoors can also be associated with recreation and leisure. Participants of all birding experience levels are welcome.

The Christmas Bird Count is the brainchild of the National Audubon Society, an environmental organization, and dates to 1900. It aims to help inventory the population of birds around the country. Participants will traverse a given area, taking note of the birds they encounter.

"Ultimately, this data helps wildlife managers and conservation organizations make informed decisions on species management," Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Northeastern Region outreach manager Tonya Kieffer-Selby said in a statement. "Recent studies have shown that over 3 billion birds have been lost in North America in the last 50 years, which is why these efforts are so important. We use the collected data to assess the overall health of bird populations and to implement any conservation actions that may be needed for species survival."

Many of the other Christmas Bird Count activities in Utah, though not all of them, have already occurred.

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