Announcement of the 2025 Passenger Pigeon Awards

By Wendy Schultz, WSO Awards Chair

SCIENCE has shown that being in nature (birdwatching) can help reduce anxiety and depression. If I could (and I just might) I would encourage the physicians I work with to regularly write prescriptions for their anxious patients, dosing them to a daily walk in the woods, or a date night with a bird club—just to connect them to the power of nature and what it can do with our worries. The value of nature and birds and conservation is immeasurable and we are ever so grateful for those people who work on their behalf.

The Wisconsin Society for Ornithology proudly and annually recognizes individuals and organizations that have made outstanding achievements in advancing bird conservation, promoting the field of ornithology and contributing to the Society. After receiving a number of worthy nominations, the Board of Directors met in January a

nd selected another incredible slate of WSO Passenger Pigeon recipients. These exceptional individuals will be recognized during the Awards Presentation at the upcoming WSO Annual Convention held this year at the Stoney Creek Inn in Onalaska on Friday, May 16^th. Please mark your calendars for this important occasion as registration OPENS March 1st, and there is no better way to meet the finest of our state’s birding champions. Hope to see you there!

We congratulate the following 2025 WSO Passenger Pigeon Award Recipients….

The BRONZE PASSENGER PIGEON AWARD is presented to individuals who have made outstanding contributions in their local communities or in the state to promote field of ornithology through conservation work or through organizational efforts. This year, a Bronze Award will go to Terrie Cooper and John Shillinglaw.

Terrie Cooper

Terrie Cooper recently retired from the Door County Land Trust after working there for 25 years, making an extensive impact on land protection in Door County. Terrie was involved in over 220 land projects that yielded over 8,800 protected acres. She also co-created 12 new DNR State Natural Areas in Door County. As the second employee of the land trust, she served as conservationist, mentor, educator and friend. Door County is recognized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and The Nature Conservancy to be of great significance for more than 170 species of both migratory and breeding birds, with a diversity of forest and wetland habitats necessary for birds to forage and nest. Terrie’s background as a knowledgeable birder has helped shape the land trust’s focus on preserving areas of greatest benefit to these birds. This nomination is meant to not only honor Terrie but to spotlight the significant contribution the state’s more than 40 land trusts -- along with Gathering Waters, Wisconsin's Alliance for Land Trusts -- make to bird conservation in Wisconsin. Door County Land Trust is a standout among them and Terrie has been a key player in its accomplishments.

John Shillinglaw

John Shillinglaw was born on the northeast Iowa prairies of New Hampton. He attended Cornell, then received an M.D. and practiced ophthalmology in Appleton, Wisconsin, until 2002. While in Appleton, John was a key element in the Fox River Valley Audubon Society and local bird club, and served as the Appleton CBC coordinator for many years. In 2013 John relocated to Madison, Wisconsin. While there he served on the board of directors of the Madison Audubon Society (now Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance) from 2017-2021. He was listed on the WSO Speakers Bureau for topics including prairie restoration, grassland birds, and Karner blue butterflies. He also volunteered as a guide and steward at the UW Arboretum. He spoke publicly on topics such as “Creating habitat for the health of our lakes, watersheds, and pollinators”. Inspired by the writings of Iowa native Aldo Leopold and his work at the University of Wisconsin, he acquired land in Waushara County and has been managing and restoring the land for five decades. In 2013, John received the Henry Greene Award for Innovative Approaches in Restoration, presented by the Aldo Leopold Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Arboretum. John hosted many Natural Resources Foundation (NRF) field trips at his Mecan Prairie, taking much pride in the Karner blues and the many grassland birds living there. In 2022 he established the Mecan River Watershed Fund with NRF and has arranged to protect this area for perpetuity with a land trust. While at Cornell, John was influenced by reading the Albert Camus novel, “The Plague”. His takeaway was even when things seem hopeless, it is important to act. John felt environmental activism might be seen in this light, and stated that “It is important for all of us to assume responsibility for the natural world”.

The NOEL J. CUTRIGHT AWARD (originally called the Green Passenger Pigeon Award) is presented to individuals/groups/organizations that work on behalf of endangered, threatened or common species, that promote the establishment, management and protection of bird habitat or that educate the public on bird conservation issues. This year a Noel J. Cutright Award will go to Craig Thompson, Mickey O’Connor, Tom Prestby and Randy Jurewicz.

Craig Thompson

Craig Thompson has worked for the DNR for over thirty years as a conservation biologist, dedicating much of his career to migratory bird conservation. He has chaired the International Committee of the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative. Presently he is Chief of Program Integration for the DNR's Natural Heritage Conservation Program, which promotes the establishment, protection and management of the state's Natural Areas. Craig also travels extensively to Central and South America to promote the protection of natural areas where many of Wisconsin's Neotropical migrants go to winter, leading multiple ecotour fundraising trips to these areas with the purpose of purchasing land for conservation. He is a wonderful speaker and has presented to many organizations though out the state promoting the importance of bird conservation. His passion and hard work have a huge impact on birds in Wisconsin.

Mickey O’Connor

Michelene (Mickey) O'Connor received her songbird banding permit in 2001 after training with Andy Larsen at Riveredge Nature Center and began a banding station at the Milwaukee County Zoo that year, where she is an Avian zookeeper. In 2013, Noel Cutright, citing lack of hummingbird data for Wisconsin, asked Mickey to train and be certified as a hummingbird bander. Off she went to West Virginia for intensive training with Bob Sargent, founder of the Hummer/Bird study Group. Mickey was the first and still only one of two permitted hummingbird banders in the state of Wisconsin. While Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are our most common hummer, there are instances of Anna's and Rufous Hummingbirds migrating through Wisconsin. When informed of a sighting, Mickey ventures around the state to band these rare visitors, contributing important data documenting their shifting patterns and adaptions to change. The abundant Ruby-throated Hummingbird data she's collected in successive years have demonstrated these birds' remarkable philopatry, with multiple recaptures at the same sites documented over years. In her position as Avian keeper at the Milwaukee County Zoo, Mickey has been instrumental in bird conservation and related education efforts at the Zoo. She has also developed numerous connections to bird conservation groups outside the U.S., leading trips to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Thailand, and Madagascar where participants learn about and provide funds for important projects that help birds, including habitat preservation for some of our migrating species. Mickey has also served as WSO treasurer for several years.

Tom Prestby

Tom Prestby lives his life very much in line with WSO’s mission “to promote the enjoyment, study and conservation of Wisconsin’s birds.” He began his career working for the Wisconsin DNR and on MANY projects. He helped pilot Marshland Surveys and trained volunteer observers. He was a crew leader for Boreal Bird Surveys and conducted old growth forest point counts. He also mapped land cover in field and GIS to inform Grassland Bird Conservation Area mapping. He volunteers for the DNR’s Kirtland’s Warbler Survey, Owl Monitoring Survey, and Nightjar Survey. During grad school at UW Green Bay Tom focused on the shorebirds found in Lower Green Bay, gathering baseline data for shorebirds and terns at the Cat Island Restoration Project, discovering the first recorded successfully breeding Piping Plovers on Lower Green Bay. Tom worked for GEI Consultants from 2017 to 2021 as the Threatened/Endangered Species expert, helping clients avoid impacts on rare bird species in Wisconsin. He is currently working as the Conservation Manager for Great Lakes Audubon. He manages large wetland restoration projects in Allouez Bay and the west shore of Green Bay to restore habitat targeting marsh birds including rails, bitterns and Pied-billed Grebes. He also oversees “Audubon Conservation Ranching” in Wisconsin, working with beef producers to implement bird-friendly grassland management practices on their lands. Tom chairs the Important Bird Area (IBA) Committee for the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Partnership (WBCP), helping deliver bird conservation projects to priority IBAs. He coordinates Piping Plover monitoring of Lower Green Bay population with USFWS, managing a team of 20+ crew/volunteers who monitor this species April-August each year. Tom is a major contributor to the Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas II and a Wisconsin eBird administrator since eBird’s inception in 2007. He’s been a team captain for the Great Wisconsin Birdathon, raising more than $15,000 for the NRF Bird Protection Fund and a field trip leader for NRF, raising additional funds for conservation. He is a current member of the Northeastern Wisconsin Bird Alliance Board of Directors and a former member of the Lake Michigan Bird Observatory Board of Directors. Additionally, Tom has served on the WSO Records Committee for 14 years, conducts three Breeding Bird Surveys for the U.S.Geological Survey (USGS) and at least four Christmas Bird Counts for National Audubon.

Randy Jurewicz

Randle (“Randy”) Jurewicz served as the foundational leader of the most significant endangered and threatened bird conservation success stories in Wisconsin. Beginning in 1978, Randy embarked on a 32-year career as the WDNR’s first “conservation biologist” within what was originally called the Office of Endangered and Nongame Species, then in 1982 as the first Section Chief of the WDNR’s Bureau of Endangered Resources (now Bureau of Natural Heritage Conservation). In 1983, he experienced another first—the Wisconsin Legislature’s passing of the Endangered Resources Tax Checkoff (Endangered Resources Fund), adeptly utilizing key funds from the tax checkoff over the ensuing decades to oversee state recovery plans and programs, working with private, institutional, business, and governmental partners, focusing on the recovery and conservation of the Bald Eagle, Osprey, Peregrine Falcon, Cooper’s Hawk, Double-crested Cormorant, Trumpeter Swan, Piping Plover, and Common Tern. He also directed staff to write and undertake recovery or management plans for, and support research on the Red-shouldered Hawk, Great Egret, Forster’s Tern, Black Tern, Caspian Tern, Loggerhead Shrike, and Barn Owl, provide next boxes for the Prothonotary Warbler, and support the International Crane Foundation in Sandhill Crane and Whooping Crane monitoring and restoration initiatives. Perhaps most notable among his achievements was the very public recovery and delisting of the Bald Eagle, Osprey, Cooper’s Hawk, Double-crested Cormorant, and Trumpeter Swan. Randy spearheaded the successful Osprey and Eagle management efforts, as well as Cooper’s Hawk and Double-crested Cormorant. Commonly observed by the public year-round, the Bald Eagle’s recovery is celebrated annually during the second week of January by an event Randy first organized in 1983 with the Ferry Bluff Eagle Council – Bald Eagle Watching Days. Perhaps the crème de la crème of Randy’s endangered and threatened bird recovery/restoration achievements was the masterful oversight of the Wisconsin Trumpeter Swan Recovery Program, beginning in 1987. Working with a national, state, and tribal team that included the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, Michigan and Minnesota DNRs, WDNR wildlife managers and technicians, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Milwaukee County Zoo, Zoological Society of Milwaukee County, Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, The Trumpeter Swan Society, Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, Society for Tympanuchus Cupido Pinnatus, General Electric Medical Systems, BP Naperville Research Center, and the Windway Capital Corporation and the late Terry and Mary Kohler—who flew Randy and WDNR staff to Alaska to collect 385 Alaskan swan eggs during 1989-1997—and several other private groups, businesses, and organizations, the restored population flourished and the bird was delisted in 2009. In 2024, the Wisconsin Trumpeter Swan Population estimate stood at 14,781 individuals—a far distant cry from the state’s recovery goal of at least 20 breeding and migratory pairs, and one of the greatest bird conservation success stories in the state’s history.