MOSES LAKE - Mark your calendar: Friday, Feb. 17 through Monday, Feb. 20. These are the dates of the 15th annual Great Backyard Bird Count. The event is a joint effort lead by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. Other partners include Bird Studies Canada and Wild

Birds Unlimited.

Folks this is a splendid event for young families and senior citizens. The count is easy, yet educational; fun, yet provides valuable informational on a national scale.

What is involved? Well, participants count birds, record the results and report the results to national headquarters. Sounds simple and it is simple. Here is how this particular bird count works.

Say we have a family of four, with the children being 6 and 10 years old. The family needs to plan on counting for at least 15 minutes on at least one day. So they decide to count on Saturday, Feb. 18 from 1 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.

During this time period, the family counted one group of 50 English sparrows, 10 junkos and 5 house finches. However, after the first group sparrows flew off, another group of English sparrows appeared 10 minutes later.

The number to record is the greatest number of individuals of each species seen together at any one time. If three groups of junkos were seen during the 15 minutes, one of 10, a group of seven and a group of three, only the group of 10 should be counted. Do not add the numbers together.

The numbers and types of birds can be recorded on any piece of paper, but participants are able to print a data form from the Great Backyard Bird Count website.

This family of four had so much fun during the 15 minutes, they decide to continue the count for another two hours. The next day, they decide to count for three hours beginning at 9 a.m.

 Per the rules of the event, counts can take place in as many places and on as many days as the participants want, one day or all four days. The event is called the backyard-bird count, because counters are able to count birds in their backyard from inside the house. But the backyard is not a limit for the count.

Our family of four climbs into the vehicle and heads for the city park and conduct a count of 30 minutes from inside the Jeep. Next they travel to the south end of Moses Lake and count for another 30 minutes.

Participants need to submit a separate checklist for each day and, also, a separate checklist for each location visited where a count was conducted.

The various counts are to be submitted on the bird count website after the count has begun, after 7 a.m. on Feb. 17, plus they may be submitted for a few days after the count has concluded.

This should also be a great exercise for school biology classes.

The most frequent bird species counted in 2011 was the northern cardinal, with the mourning dove coming in second. Total checklists submitted were 92,218; total species observed was 594 and the number of individual birds counted was 11,471,949.

The website for the Great Backyard Bird Count is: www.birdsource.org/gbbc/

March meeting

Mark your calendars: The March 9 and 10 Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting mentioned above is scheduled to take place in Moses Lake. Attending meetings is most distasteful, but this one may be interesting. At least it will be close to home.

Legislation to make federal duck stamps easier to obtain

A U.S. House of Representatives vote recently could mean permanent easy access for hunters looking to buy their federal duck stamps online. The e-Duck Stamp program, started four years ago on a trial basis, allows hunters 16 and older to purchase temporary duck stamps online until their physical stamps arrive in the mail. 

Prior to this pilot program, waterfowl hunters were required to buy federal migratory bird hunting and conservation stamps, or duck stamps, at post offices and sporting goods stores. The trouble came when suppliers ran out of stamps early in the season or small rural post offices didn't carry the stamps at all.

Originally enacted in 1934, the Federal Duck Stamp was created as a federal waterfowl hunting license and a means to conserve waterfowl habitat. The program has generated more than $800 million to protect more than six million acres of waterfowl habitat in the United States, land now part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuge System. The stamps now cost $15 per year, with 98 percent of revenue going straight to land purchases, easements and leases.

Now that the House has responded positively to this push for the program, with a 373-1 vote, Ducks Unlimited is asking the Senate to do the same. If the Senate vote is successful, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would have the authority to make the program permanent and extend it to all states.

Ducks Unlimited is the world's largest nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving North America's continually disappearing waterfowl habitats. Established in 1937, DU is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, with special events, projects and promotions across the continent. Ducks Unlimited has conserved more than 12 million acres thanks to contributions from more than a million supporters across the continent. Guided by science and dedicated to program efficiency, DU works toward the vision of wetlands sufficient to fill the skies with waterfowl today, tomorrow and forever.

Sturgeon decline means catch reduction

Washington and Oregon Fish and Wildlife directors have agreed to reduce the catch of white sturgeon on the lower Columbia River, where the species has declined in abundance in recent years.

Under the new agreement, the total allowable harvest of white sturgeon below Bonneville Dam will be reduced from 22.5 percent of the legal-size fish to 16 percent in 2012.

The new harvest rate will hold the combined catch by sport and commercial fisheries to 9,600 sturgeon measuring 38 to 54 inches long. Last year's guideline for those waters was 15,640 fish, although only 14,488 were actually harvested.

This year's agreement will reduce the sturgeon harvest in the lower Columbia River by 38 percent, following a 30 percent reduction in 2011 and a 40 percent reduction the previous year.

The abundance of legal-size sturgeon has declined nearly 50 percent since 2007, according to surveys by both states. Factors often cited for the decline include increased predation by sea lions and a drop in the abundance of smelt and lamprey, which contribute to sturgeons' diet.

Concerned by these trends, the fish and wildlife commissions charged with setting policy for each state called for significant catch reductions in 2012 during separate meetings last week. The responsibility for negotiating a common catch rate fell to the fish and wildlife directors of each state.

Fishery managers from Washington and Oregon will meet Jan. 26 in Portland to set this year's fishing seasons for sturgeon and spring chinook salmon on the lower Columbia River. Later in the year, the states' plan to begin a public process involving fishermen to fully review current sturgeon management strategies on the Columbia and Willamette rivers prior to the 2013 fishing season.