![](media/image1.jpeg){width="0.875in"
height="0.7694444444444445in"}***The III Western Hemisphere Shorebird
Group Meeting (aka. Shorebird Science in the Western Hemisphere) will be
held in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico, March 9-13, 2009.***

***Symposia submissions are due by 15 December 2008.***

***Registration due by 15 January 2009 (early fee).***

***Abstract submission due by 15 January 2009.***

***Travel award application due by 10 January 2009.***

See below for details.

THE III BI-ANNUAL MEETING OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE SHOREBIRD GROUP will
be held in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico, on 9-13 March 2009 at the Hotel
Playa Mazatlán
(http://www.hotelplaya.net/index.html?gclid=COSngqW-qJcCFRg6awodODceiw).
All information about the meeting, including registration, call for
papers, workshop information, and travel awards, can be found at the
meeting website: http://www.fws.gov/shorebirdplan/ . There will be no
hard copy of this announcement sent out, so we encourage people to send
this announcement to interested parties and on regional list serves.

There will also be a 2-day POPULATION DEMOGRAPHIC MODELING WORKSHOP led
by Dr. Brett Sandercock on the 7 and 8 March and a 4-day INTERNATIONAL
COURSE ON AVIAN MOVEMENTS AND MIGRATION TECHNOLOGY sponsored by MIGRATE
(Migration Interest Group: Research Applied Toward Education) between
the 16 and 19 March 2009.

To date, we have lined up three of the four plenary speakers. These
include Dr. Pavel Tomkovich from Moscow State University, Dr. Nils
Warnock from the University of California Davis, and Dr. Eduardo
Palacios Castro from CICESE in Mexico. We plan to have a plenary first
thing on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings, followed by two
current sessions throughout the day. One session will be a symposium and
the other session will be scientific papers. Wednesday is designated as
a field trip day.

Please send any symposium proposals to Dr. Stephen Brown
(sbrown@manomet.org), the Scientific Program Chair, by 15 December 2008.
Please send a title, names of organizer(s) and potential participants,
tentative titles of presentations, and a brief statement of why it would
be of interest for this meeting. Symposia will include 20-min talks in
half-day sessions, scheduled concurrently with contributed paper
sessions.

Current submitted symposia include:

1\) Neotropical Shorebirds. Organized by Richard Johnston and Germán
García. Contact Richard Johnston at: <johnstongonzalez@gmail.com>.

2\) Tracking large-bodied shorebirds. Organized by Suzanne Fellows and
Alex Hartman. Contact Suzanne Fellows at: <Suzanne_Fellows@fws.gov>.

3\) WHSRN Species Conservation Plans: Implementation and next steps.
Organized by Meredith Gutowski. Contact Meredith Gutowski at
<mgutowski@manomet.org>.

4\) Human-mediated Landscape Change in the Arctic: Apparent and
Predicted Impacts on Shorebirds. Organized by Richard Lanctot and
Stephen Brown. Contact Rick Lanctot at <Richard_lanctot@fws.gov>.

5\) Conservation of Red Knots. Organized by Larry Niles and Humphrey
Sitters. Contact Larry Niles at <nilesl@comcast.net>

The deadline for abstracts and early registration is 15 January 2009.

Students and young professionals are welcomed and encouraged to attend
the meeting. Students may apply for travel awards and presentation
awards; the deadline is 10 January 2009 and information is available at
the meeting website.

Mazatlán is a beautiful location for ornithologists in March

(see <http://www.allaboutmazatlan.com/allaboutmazatlan.htm>). We have
also contracted with Sendero Mexico to guide four different field trips
for Wednesday (see
[www.senderomexico/senderobirding](http://www.senderomexico/senderobirding)).

Finally, the meeting will be in both English and Spanish!!!