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Sip of Fresh Boba Read an in-depth restaurant review on newly-open Asisan bubble tea and poke chain Tai Chi. | Page 5
As of Sept. 2, Monkeypox vaccines are available in Tompkins County for high-risk individuals. The vaccine, which is taken in two doses, will be distributed at the Tompkins County Health Department.
Monkeypox, a viral disease which can cause flulike symptoms, rashes and sores and is contracted through direct contact with the bodily fluids, respiratory droplets, or clothing of an infected person or animal, was declared to be a global health emergency by the World Health Organization in July 2022. In response, the Biden administration has boosted vaccine supply.
The vaccine comes less than a month after three cases of monkeypox were reported in the county,
adding monkeypox to the list of pandemics students face this fall. As of Sept. 6, 3,326 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in New York State.
Because the vaccine is limited to high risk individuals, receiving it requires qualifying based on New York State-determined categories such as having recent exposure to a suspected or confirmed monkeypox case in the last 14 days, individuals at high risk for exposure (including LGBTQ+ identifying individuals, and men who have sex with men who have engaged in intimate or skin-to-skin contact in the last 14 days)
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Eli Pallrand can be reached at epallrand@cornellsun.com.
By CAMDEN WEHRLE Sun Staff Writer
Students walking through Willard Straight Hall recently may have noticed a familiar scent wafting up from the bottom floor — fresh popcorn from Cornell Cinema.
After several semesters of scaled back capacity and a closed concession stand, the Cinema, which screens films five to seven nights a week, is back in full operation for the fall semester. According to cinema manager and acting director Douglas McLaren ’05, the theatre’s operations are going strong, with nearly full, 340-seat screenings of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” on Labor Day weekend.
Tickets cost $7.50 for undergraduate students, and an All-Access Pass that allows admission to films for a full academic year is available for $30.
“It’s pretty much coming back to normal,” McLaren said. “Our screening schedule and staffing levels are pretty close to what we were doing pre-pandemic.”
This is despite the theatre being in a period of transition, according to head projectionist and technical supervisor Matthew Hidy. Internally, Mary Fessenden, director for 27 years, left the role in July and new director Molly Ryan will assume the position on Sept. 21.
From the small projection booth overlooking the theatre, Hidy manages the Cinema’s projectors. Two 35 millimeter projectors and a digital cinema projector sit inside the booth, while two 16 millimeter projectors are positioned on the balcony.
“As an archival venue that screens repertory films as well as first and second round cinema and
Global Bird Decline With approximately three billion birds gone since 1970, Cornell’s Ornithology lab tackles climate change. | Page 8
shortage | A TCAT bus
Students may now have to wait longer to catch the bus. Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit announced its bus service cut last month, and since then almost all bus routes have been reduced due to a driver shortage.
The reductions took effect on Aug. 22 and will last at least until Jan. 21, 2023, spanning the duration of the Fall 2022 semester and 2023 winter break.
In a special board meeting on Aug. 17, TCAT bus service’s Board of Directors voted to approve major reductions on routes 11, 13, 20 and 82, where services to distinct geographical areas have been reduced by 20 percent or more. Only two routes — 14S and 15 — remain unchanged in their frequency and scheduling.
TCAT General Manager Scot Vanderpool explained that TCAT considered many factors in evaluating how to cut specific routes. Their strategy was to reduce the frequency of the overall routes to avoid entirely eliminating any specific routes.
“We elected to cut some of the night routes at Cornell. … We looked at the data on certain routes, 90 and 92, that run through Cornell between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.,” Vanderpool said. “And we said, ‘we’d better not cut those because there’s a lot of people riding them.’ … So that’s one of the fac-
tors that we used [in our decision].” Vanderpool emphasized that, while unfortunate, the service cut is necessary to improve bus drivers’ working conditions and mitigate driver shortage.
“[Bus drivers] do have to work six days a week over and over and over again, and that would be a safety concern because everybody’s tired of one thing. That’s just not sustainable,” Vanderpool said.
“We’re going to lose more people because they want to spend time with their families as well.”
Scot Vanderpool
“We’re going to lose more people because they want to spend time with their families as well.”
TCAT drivers are mandated to work six days a week, normally for 10 to 14 hours a day. According to Vanderpool and a local press release, the organization had 84 drivers before the COVID-19 pandemic. This past February, the number dropped to 66. Now TCAT employs about 70 full-time drivers.
In TCAT’s Aug. 15 public
Virology Journal Club
9 a.m., Centennial Room
Retirement and Beyond: Contract College Employees
10 a.m., Virtual Event
Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases Journal Club 10:10 a.m., Comstock Hall 2123
Peer Review With Feedback Fruits 11 a.m., Virtual Event
Built to Fail: How Bureaucratic and Institutional Origins Undermined State Building in Afghanistan 11:25 a.m., Virtual Event
Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences Fall 2022 Colloquium Series 3:30 p.m., Space Sciences Building 105
Job Offer Considerations and Negotiations 3:30 p.m., Virtual Event
Autism Social Group 4 p.m., Virtual Event
Medicine in the Talmud: Natural and Supernatural Remedies Between Magic and Science 4 p.m., Olin Library 107
Tomorrow
Small Forms: Aesthetics, Media, Modernity 9:30 a.m., A.D. White House 110
Distinguished Lecture in Cancer Biology: Dr. Elaine Mardis Noon, Schurman Hall, Lecture Hall 4
Yiddish Conversation Hour Noon, Virtual Event
“Responsibility Without a Self”: A Talk by Monima Chadha Noon, Rockefeller Hall 374
Composers Forum: Sarah Hennies 1:30 p.m., Lincoln Hall 316
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hearing on the proposed service cut, members of FreeCat Campaign, a political initiative under the Ithaca Democratic Socialists of America, called for improving TCAT drivers’ working conditions.
John Monkovic, a community liaison and one of the campaign’s main organizers, explained that the campaign focuses on fair fees and bus service expansion.
Monkovic explained that the campaign is also seeking to negotiate with Cornell — 75 percent of TCAT ridership is Cornell-affiliated, and Cornell is on TCAT’s board of directors and benefits disproportionately from its bus service, but has not negotiated in good faith.
“They refuse to adjust their bulk payment to account for inflation. Negotiators representing Cornell [are] playing hardball and withdrawing funds from the TCAT budget,” Monkovic said.
TCAT has also been hurt by issues surrounding bus driver retention. Monkovic said that other career paths with similar skill requirements and higher salaries than bus driving are pulling away drivers and exacerbating TCAT’s staffing shortage.
“In order to drive a TCAT [bus], you need a CDL — a commercial driver’s license — and then once you have the commercial driving license, you will find that there are much more lucrative opportunities,” Monkovic said. “You can be a truck driver and make significantly more money. It’s just an example of one decision that many drivers will opt to make, which makes retention very difficult.”
TCAT is currently negotiating with United Auto Workers over driver working conditions and pay. Vanderpool said that he hoped the negotiation would close by the end of October and that TCAT would be able to resume parts of its original service by January 2023 — the next driver sign-on period.
“We’ve got an October class already started with drivers that are applying and [training],” Vanderpool said. “Once negotiations are over, the driver rate is obviously going to go up, and [it’s important] to have these negotiations to get to a better place and be competitive as well.”
Although the changes to bus routes had been confirmed, many students had difficulty navigating the new bus routes during the first week of classes. Coco Wen ’26 used Google Maps — which often lists
inaccurate times — to track buses and found herself waiting for much longer than expected.
“[This year] is my first time taking the bus. Because [Tuesday] was my first day of internship, I decided to wake up early and wait at the bus stop early at 9:40 [a.m.], just in case there was a delay or anything happened,” Wen said. “Ten minutes before my internship, [the bus] still didn’t arrive, so I just decided to take an Uber there.”
Wen also expressed concern that the reduction of night service would impact her traveling to and from night classes.
“I have night classes that end around 10:30 p.m., and [it would] be late and inconvenient if there aren’t night buses coming in,” Wen said. “I will probably have to walk for around 20 to 30 minutes to get back to my dorm, and it’s unsafe [to walk alone] at night .”
Ribo Li ’24 said he thought that the night service cut would also affect students returning to Ithaca on the bus, which drops students off in the Commons.
“[The last bus] departs from New York City at about 6:40 p.m. and arrives in Ithaca at about 10:30 p.m.,’ Li said. “[If] they reduce night shifts, and if there are potential delays for the NYC bus, I will have to call an Uber at night [to get back to Cornell]. ... I find it especially hard to call Uber in downtown Ithaca at night.”
Despite service cuts and scheduling issues, Wen and Li expressed appreciation for TCAT’s drivers, whom they find friendly and empathetic.
“There was one time I didn’t have a mask, and they gave me a mask,” Wen said. “Sometimes students ask for an earlier stop for some reason, and [the drivers] are really happy to do so.”
Vanderpool encouraged students to communicate any schedule disruptions to TCAT,.
“I’m hearing that [schedule issues] are going to be corrected one way or the other — whether it corrects itself, or we’re a part of contacting Google and making sure that gets corrected,” Vanderpool said. “We are very good about getting back to people and gathering information to determine what the problem is. So, my message would be [to] please communicate with us, and we’ll do our best to get this fixed.”
Roman LaHaye ’23 contributed reporting.
experimental film, we try to accommodate every single format that can come our way,” Hidy said.
Hidy also described the quick operation that goes into projecting films at the theatre. Due to the projection setup, 35mm reels can only hold 20 minutes of runtime, so a projectionist must change over from one projector to the other multiple times during one film, cleaning and threading the projector that’s not currently playing the film while making sure that the movie stays in focus on the screen.
“It’s definitely an active process,” Hidy said. “It’s kind of a dance going back and forth.”
To McLaren, one of the most exciting upcoming films this semester is the documentary film “The Janes,” which covers a group of women who facilitate illegal abortions in Chicago prior to the Roe v. Wade ruling. The documentary, which will be shown on Oct. 13, will also feature a panel discussion with directors Tia Lessin ’86 and Emma Pildes.
The Cinema frequently brings in filmmakers to discuss their work — which can be a challenge to manage.
“Every night is its own special thing,” McLaren said. “And when you throw in bringing in a filmmaker, coordinating their travel…when you expand that out to 12 different guests over the course of the semester, it gets pretty busy on top of nightly screenings.”
Early planning for the spring semester has already begun, owing to the length of time it takes to coordinate the film and visitor schedule. Next semester, McLaren hopes to host experimental filmmakers Christopher Harris and Courtney Stephens, show an Iranian cinema series and present the works of French filmmaker Jean Eustache.
“We’re looking at what films are working here, who’s responding to the films that we’ve programmed,” McLaren said. “It takes several months to put things together.”
The process of obtaining films to be played is bolstered by the Cinema’s positive relationship with film archives and studios, according to Hidy. It has had the privilege of being lent films from the likes of the Academy Film Archive and the Museum of Modern Art.
“It’s a very long process of developing a relationship with these lending institutions,” Hidy said. “It’s by the process of keeping a projection booth that’s clean and safe to bring rare materials into, as well as having very carefully calibrated machinery.”
Hidy stated that one of the films he’s most looking forward to showing is the original print of the Dutch film “A Question of Silence” on Oct. 14, noting that viewing an original print is a unique and satisfying experience.
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By LUCAS SANTIAGO-KERMANI Sun Staff Writer
Collegetown residents are having caffeine withdrawals following the closure of a Collegetown staple — the local Starbucks.
The Starbucks in Collegetown served Cornell students and Ithaca residents for more than 15 years until its closure on June 10. Starbucks has been met with local and national criticism due to the decision to close its store occurring just two months after the unionization efforts of all three Ithaca locations in April.
The coffee shop chain claimed that the decision was made following an internal assessment of the safety and sanitation conditions of the location. More specifically, Starbucks stated that the failure of a grease trap made the location too hazardous to continue its operations.
In response, several unionized workers alleged Starbucks of retaliation against unionization, leading to numerous, city-wide public gatherings and protests.
Customers have been heavily affected by Starbucks’ on-going conflicts with its workers and have formed mixed feelings about the store closure. In particular, Cornell students who frequented the store have been forced to turn to alternative options to satisfy their cravings for caffeine, food and public study spaces.
Rachel Green ’24, prior to her move to Collegetown, used to make a long walk from North Campus to the Collegetown to
STARBUCKS
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morning coffees at Starbucks. She voiced that the on-campus coffee choices pale in comparison.
“[Starbucks] had a variety of different coldbrews and drinks, moreso than the [locations] on campus,” Green said.
Green has opted to buy her coffee at Collegetown Bagels, as well as other campus stores. She noted that she has seen somewhat longer lines at other coffee locations in the area.
Daniel Newman ’25 was less distraught about the Starbucks closing. He currently works at a separate Cornell coffee shop and assured
that his experience as a coffee shop employee made the issue of fair labor conditions personal to him.
“We need to make sure employees are being 100 percent respected [and are] given all the benefits that they deserve,” Newman said.
Newman voiced that the consequences of Starbucks closing is visible at other coffee stores, including the store he works for. According to Green, having less options makes alternative stores suffer longer lines and become more crowded.
Mateo Pesa ’25 was more straightforward in his assessment of the store’s closure and the emergence of new options, saying that CTB coffee was definitely “worse” than
Starbucks. However, he maintained that he “supports the workers,” and that his opinions on the dip in quality were not drastic enough to sway his opinions on unionization.
Coffee proved not to be the only loss after the store’s closure. Cole Kay ’25 explained how he would occasionally study at the shop, and that it was a popular place overall for students to do their schoolwork.
“People are pretty upset [about Starbucks’ closure…], but I think people are also happy that [the workers] unionized and that they are now protected,” Kay said.
Lucas Santiago-Kermani can be reached at las476@cornell.edu.
Community event to be held on Commons
By GABRIELLA PACITTO and ANGELA BUNAY Sun Assistant Sports Editor and Sun Managing Editor
After a two-year hiatus, C.U. Downtown, a cultural staple of the University, is returning to welcome new and returning students into Ithaca this Saturday, Sept. 10 from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
C.U. Downtown started in 2016 to bridge Cornell’s campus and the city of Ithaca. This event gives freshmen the ability to experience the Commons for the first time and feel more connected with the community, however,
Freedom and Free Societies Presents
The Great Separation: Why American Politics is Coming Apar t at the Seams
Megan McArdle
Jour nalist at The Washington Post and author of The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well is the Key to Success
Co-sponsor : De par tment of Histor y
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Wednesday, September 14, 5:30-7:00 PM
Free and Open to the Public
the event has transcended that idea to now make students of all years feel connected to the city.
In years past, C.U. Downtown has included various performances from groups such as Cornell Big Red Raas, C.U. Jazz Voices, Yamatai and local Ithaca bands. This year’s performances will take place at the Bernie Milton Pavilion downtown.
“This seems like a really important event for freshmen to engage with the local community outside of Cornell.”
Ella Bormet
’24
In 2019, C.U. Downtown drew a crowd of professors, students and community members for an experience to further familiarize themselves with downtown Ithaca. Many students who attended at the time said they felt “belongingness.” In 2017, the event garnered an estimated 3,400 people, and that number only rose each year.
“I am super excited,” Laura Lee ’24 said. “It sounds like such a fun way to get involved in the greater Ithaca community.”
C.U. Downtown is partnering with local businesses to host in-store activities while also providing product, food samples and special shopping deals.
Ella Bormet ’24 expressed enthusiasm and joy about the return of this Cornell tradition.
Bormet believes C.U. Downtown is a great way for the local Ithaca businesses to receive exposure through inclusion in the University tradition.
Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit will continue to partner with C.U. Downtown this year to provide free bus shuttles running from North Campus to the commons continuing throughout the afternoon. Residential halls will also help students find their way to the commons, either through walking or bus groups.
The first 1,000 attendees will receive free apple cider and donuts.
“I think it’s so sick that there are free apple cider and donuts for the first 1,000 attendees,” Bormet said. “This seems like a really important event for freshmen to engage with the local community outside of Cornell.”
The event is co-sponsored by the Tatkon Center for New Students, Ithaca Downtown Alliance, TCAT, Campus Activities and Off-Campus living. Students will be able to explore Ithaca and see student performances starting at 1 p.m.
Sofia Rubinson ’24 contributed reporting.
Gabriella Pacitto can be reached at gpacitto@cornellsun.com. Angela Bunay can be reached at abunay@cornellsun.com.
By GRACE KIM Sun Dining Editor
Tai Chi is a newly opened Asian restaurant that serves a variety of dishes ranging from poke burritos to Japanese ramen. Even better, they offer a plethora of boba options such as fruit tea and milk tea. This new establishment is located in the shopping plaza that includes Trader Joe’s and Panera Bread.
After hearing about this new restaurant in Ithaca,
I knew I had to go and taste-test their boba and poke bowls. I was excited to try some of my favorite food, and knowing that Tai Chi was a chain restaurant, I was thrilled.
Upon arrival at the shop, I was amazed at the interior design of Tai Chi. In a wide open space, there is plenty of room and seating to eat and chat. Additionally, there are charging outlets lined against the wall, which makes it a great place to come study with friends while enjoying good food.
When it came time to order, I was given two options: I could either walk straight to the cashier and verbally tell them my order, or I could pick up a menu slip and check the boxes for which dishes and ingredients I wanted.
This efficient system caught me by surprise and made it easier for me to look at all the options I could choose from. Ultimately, I settled with getting a salmon poke bowl with additional toppings and a matcha milk tea with boba.
After a few minutes of chatting, my food and drink were ready. The presentation was beautiful and filled
The presentation was beautiful and filled with color.Ieagerlyduginto
with color. I eagerly dug into my poke bowl and was not disappointed.
Although the salmon was a bit hard, the rice and complementing sauces and toppings made up for it. However, the matcha milk tea was a bit too sweet for my taste and left me craving a stronger matcha flavor. Overall, Tai Chi is a great place to come with friends to study or to just hangout. The welcoming and warm environment makes it easy to focus and be productive. Their food wasn’t as satisfying as I had hoped, but I definitely do want to come back to try more of their rice bowls and other flavored teas.
Grace Kim is a junior in the Nolan School of Hotel Administration. She currently serves as Dining Editor on the 140th Editorial Board. She can be reached at gmk73@cornell.edu.
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Adam Senzon ‘26 (he/him) is a freshman at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He can be reached at ars424@cornell.edu. My Two Sen-ts runs every other Tuesday this semester.
Transitioning into a new environment can be largely overwhelming — it’s a time when everyone is navigating an entirely new chapter of life. As a freshman at Cornell, I’ve made it my goal to effortlessly transition into this new chapter. I can confidently say that the transition has been anything but smooth.
’24
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I’ve mentally viewed this transition through three overarching categories: academics, work life and friendships. Learning how to overcome roadblocks can seem nearly impossible, especially when those around you seem to have figured it out almost instantaneously. It’s all an illusion. The first semester, even for upperclassmen, will continue to be an adjustment period. Revisiting an academic environment after spending a summer filled with excitement, travels and unending happiness is overwhelming for anyone, especially freshmen.
The prospect of being a freshman has always irritated me. To be a freshman implies that you’re likely to have eyes on you. Any challenge faced, a mistake made or roadblock endured becomes inevitable, and yet, they’re all unwelcomed in the eyes of the upperclassmen who’ve done it all before. Challenges keep you thinking critically and in-depth about what your values are and the goals you’re working toward.
I’ve always wondered why people view mistakes as an inherently negative prospect when they’re integral in navigating this adjustment period. How else will growth be experienced if mistakes aren’t a variable to consider in the equation? I believe mistakes should be encouraged in this time of life. Mistakes are when we learn new things about ourselves, and learning to accept this is one of the best ways to transition into the first semester. Roadblocks encourage vulnerability. Vulnerability allows us to acknowledge how we’re feeling and adjust as necessary.
Cornell’s academic standard is commonly known to be challenging and implies a heavy workload. The academic experience at Cornell varies among the different colleges, majors and professors. That being said, from my perspective, learning to find routine within this new academic standard can quickly become fiercely unforgiving.
My first week of classes was quite manageable at first — nothing more than a few syllabi to review and office hours to input into my calendar. The second week vaguely mirrored the first, but with the added factor of new assignments and readings I needed to complete by the end of the week. It became a daily struggle to complete consecutive readings and prepare for my introductory exams.
Though this experience is overwhelming for me and my peers undergoing this transition for the very first time — I encourage you to understand that this unfamiliarity is temporary. Soon enough,
we will have all built and established a routine tailored to our responsibilities and workload.
The best part of this new academic environment is the content I’m learning day-to-day. In one of my classes, my professor has a huge emphasis on living with a growth mindset. This has been one of the most valuable learning lessons I’ve had thus far. Exploring a plethora of student-run organizations and opportunities to delve further into your passions is one of the many ways to find your space within a college campus.
Having a growth mindset and understanding that failure may take place along the way primes you for the knowledge that there will always be a second chance, or perhaps an unanticipated detour to pursue. With a growth mindset, balancing academics and work life can be much more digestible and allows for the two to go hand-in-hand. Many concepts you may learn in an academic environment can be applied to the knowledge you share within student-run organizations.
Finally, the hardest part of navigating student life as a freshman is undoubtedly the social aspects of being a college student. There is an immense amount of pressure for new students to find their go-to group of friends — and while there’s nothing wrong with having a shoulder to lean on, this pressure can often become counterproductive. Finding a group or set of individual friends will happen naturally as the year progresses.
Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations to make those friends can be equally effective in building relationships, but I believe it dilutes the idea of self-reliance. One of the most significant
With a growth mindset, balancing academics and work life can be much more
and allows for the two to go hand-in-hand.
parts of the college experience is learning how to navigate this environment both on your own and with others. To build strong, core relationships, you need to have a foundation established autonomously first.
To the freshmen who are learning to find their place in this new environment, and to the upperclassmen who are doing it once again — good luck. Embrace the unknowns of this experience and approach everything with an open mind.
Fill in the empty cells, one number in each, so that each column, row, and region contains the numbers 1-9 exactly once. Each number in the solution therefore occurs only once in each of the three “directions,” hence the “single numbers” implied by the puzzle’s name. (Rules from wikipedia.org/wiki/ Sudoku)
By
In a 2022 study, Prof. Bryan Danforth, entomology, and Mark Buckner grad demonstrated that climate change is predicted to alter the geographic distribution of the solitary bee species M. nuda, pushing the species northward. As climate change forces a migration of pollinator species, their futures are unknown.
With research on this solitary bee species being scarce, this study is a catalyst for future research regarding bees and ecological threats.
Solitary bees, which live independently from colonies, play an important role in pollination. Solitary species even provide more effective pollination in fruit crops such as apples than their more well-known relatives, the honey bees. They also play a key role in maintaining ecosystem stability in the wild.
M. nuda is a Macropis species of solitary bee that relies on oil from its host plant L. Ciliata to feed their larvae and build nests.
“Protecting species like M. nuda is part of safeguarding bee biodiversity and ecosystem resilience as the climate changes,” Buckner said. “Our predictions are useful hypotheses about how a species may respond to the changing environment.”
To predict M. nuda’s response to climate change, Buckner and Danforth used species distribution models of the bees and its host plant L. ciliata to further observe and evaluate possible future distributions of M. nuda.
“Models help us balance tradeoffs and make more informed and confident decisions about where to prioritize conservation or how to facilitate species movement as their habitats shift,” Buckner said.
M. nuda and L. ciliata were predicted to have similar northward shifts as a result of climate change, maintaining similar environmental habitats. However, habitat suitability was predicted to decline overall by 2090 due to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
While this provides new insight into the future of M. nuda, there is more to learn about the future of bees under a changing climate. According to Buckner, researchers are now collaborating to better understand the impact of climate change on bee populations. The programs being developed are key to predicting the future of species, as well as maintaining bee biodiversity.
Although the distribution of the host plant plays a role in the projected distribution of M. nuda, no other living factors, such
as competition, were considered. This suggests that M. nuda may face additional barriers in new habitats.
Regardless, the species distribution models provided new information for targeted collections, conservation efforts and distribution predictions. These projections can aid conservationists in supporting M. nuda and similar species, as the land between current and predicted future habitats can be preserved
to aid in the ease of M. nuda dispersal.
“It is vital to preserve diverse and resilient landscapes, ensure access to abundant and diverse native plant species, control invasive plant and bee species and reduce pesticide use,” Buckner said. Conservationists are not the only ones who can help support pollinators like M. nuda. Buckner said that planting diverse native flowering plants
and keeping trimmed stems in a garden is one step people can take.
“Even without a garden, you can protect pollinators by limiting your pesticide use or getting involved,” Buckner said. “Taking part in pollinator conservation can be as simple as spreading the word about wild bee conservation.”
By DANIELLA GARCIA-LOOS ALMEIDA Sun Staff Writer
More people and fewer birds mean dire consequences for both local and global ecosystems. With rising bird declines, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is tackling the global issue through research and conservation techniques.
An October 2022 study conducted by the Lab featuring scientists from multiple institutions, including Cornell, found that almost half of known bird species are declining worldwide.
An earlier study in 2019 found that nearly three billion birds have disappeared from breeding populations in North America
alone. Most of these losses have been seen in common bird species, such as the Eastern Meadowlark and the Loggerhead Shrike.
According to the 2019 study, these staggering declines are a direct result of climate change. Habitat loss or degradation, such as the disappearance of grasslands from agricultural runoff,
makes it harder for bird populations to thrive.
“Birds are highly visible and sensitive indicators of environmental health,” said retired conservation scientist Ken Rosenberg of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in a University press release. “We know their loss signals a much wider loss of biodiversity and threats to human health and well-being.”
The Cornell community is doing its part to become involved in bird conservation efforts. Students, like Grace Guo ’25, are participating in research to prevent global bird declines. This past summer, Guo and other students took part in Common and Roseate Tern research at the Shoals Marine Lab in New Hampshire.
The research focuses on the long-term study on the diets of terns and shifting populations of fish species.
This helps inform conservation and fishery practices of what prey items are important to sustaining seabird populations, as well as how terns are being affected by the movement of fish caused by warming oceans.
“Being surrounded by a community of scientists and people who care about
the environment and wildlife expanded my view of the different research that’s being done to advance bird conservation efforts,” Guo said. “This has made me feel more determined to pursue a career in wildlife biology that will help protect birds.”
In addition to conducting research on bird conservation, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology hosts outreach events, such as their upcoming Migration Celebration on Sept. 17, where the Lab aims to educate the public about how they can help birds on their long migratory journeys.
The Lab of Ornithology has recommended a few ways the public can help protect birds, such as keeping cats indoors, planting native plant species in your backyard and turning off bright lights at night. With increased conservation efforts, some birds, such as raptors and ducks, have seen a rise in population. With the help of researchers and the public, the Lab says that more of these success stories will become possible.