Kick the new year off with us at our first quarterly community potluck & presentation of 2025: Harlequin Ducks with UM master’s student Holli Holmes
Swan Valley Community Hall, Hwy 83, mm 42.5, Condon
5:30 pm - Doors Open • 6:00 pm - Potluck Dinner • 6:30 pm - Presentation
Harlequin Ducks (HADU) may be one of the toughest species out there.
Wintering along rocky coastal shorelines up into the artic and breeding in whitewater streams in the mountains, studies have shown they have more broken bones than any other species, and adults often live with multiple healed fractures. However, despite being incredibly tough, biologists and land managers across the HADU breeding range in the Northern Rockies (Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alberta) have struggled to understand the state and trends in breeding populations and are concerned about their status.
For her master’s research, Holli Holmes worked with land managers and biologists across the N. Rockies to identify two main research needs:
are there better ways to detect HADU?
where might they be that we are not looking but may potentially be important?
Holli evaluated non-invasive sampling techniques, which included ground-based foot surveys, environmental DNA, and game cameras. She is now working on building a predictive occupancy model of HADU in the region as a tool for identifying potentially important breeding streams. Holli’s work is focused on laying the foundation for improving a monitoring program for HADU across the Northern Rockies that aims to identify and address the drivers of population declines of this iconic mountain species.
About the presenter:
Holli Holmes is currently a master’s student at the University of Montana. Holli grew up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado where she first found her passion for the outdoors and for wildlife conservation. She graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology in 2019. Eager to gain different experiences, she worked for 4 years doing various wildlife jobs for different federal agencies in the intermountain west, although a majority of that time was spent in Glacier National Park.
Her experiences and education impassioned a strong ethic for community-based conservation, and this passion has led her to working collaboratively with biologists across the state of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Alberta, also leading her to her master's research on HADU.