Joe Barnes

Joe is a raptor specialist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Migratory Bird Program in Nevada. He carried over several long-term raptor studies while working for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. He grew up in Ohio, where he received a B.S. in biology from Baldwin Wallace University. After completing his undergraduate studies, he worked for several years as a high-seas fisheries biologist in Alaska, Hawaii, and Japan. 

 

He moved to Nevada in 2004, where he began a long-term monitoring project looking at migration trends of aquatic birds and a seven year field study of Peregrine Falcons breeding near Lake Mead. His work with peregrines led to a M.S. degree with an emphasis in ecology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2011. For his thesis, he studied a resident breeding population of peregrines while conducting prey and habitat-use analyses, and developed a new call-broadcast survey approach. After finishing his graduate studies, he worked on several targeted research projects looking at Golden Eagle habitat-use in relation to renewable energy projects throughout the southwest U.S. and Mexico. Ongoing projects in Nevada include focused population and habitat use studies of Golden Eagles and Ferruginous Hawks, statewide work with Peregrine Falcons, movement studies of American Goshawks and Common Ravens, and mercury contaminant work on several raptor species.

 

Joe has assisted for many years on a long-term study of migrating Peregrine Falcons on Padre Island, Texas and also led a population assessment of peregrines on the Channel Islands, California. He has several years of experience working with raptors in far-flung locations such as Gyrfalcons in northwest Alaska, Golden Eagles in the Canadian Arctic, Red-shouldered Hawks in Wisconsin, and Swainson's Hawks in northern California.