Better Tools, Stronger Bonds: Updates from Our Ridgway's Hawk Program

The Ridgway's Hawk field season is well underway in the Dominican Republic, and we can't wait to share updates from the field once the breeding season wraps up. In the meantime, here are two developments that have our team energized heading into the busiest months of the year, working to conserve this Critically Endangered hawk.

Conserving Ridgway's Hawks often means getting up close to nests, which frequently means climbing tall palm trees. For the second year in a row, we partnered with the U.S. Forest Service to bring four expert tree climbing safety trainers to the Dominican Republic in January. Over the course of a week, ten climbers and three additional team members worked through an intensive course covering knot systems, anchor techniques, equipment care, rescue procedures, and more. It's the kind of rigorous, hands-on training that makes a real difference—not just for safety on the job, but for building skills our team members carry with them for life.

With training complete, our teams in Punta Cana and in Aniana Vargas and Los Haitises National Parks hit the ground running. Across dozens of monitored pairs, the season is well underway—some birds are still incubating eggs, others are caring for nestlings, while several have already successfully fledged young who are on the cusp of dispersing from their parents’ territories. Every nest monitored is a step forward for the species.

This year also brought exciting progress through our ongoing partnership with MIT D-Lab, an initiative founded in 2001 that pairs MIT students with communities around the world to design practical, people-centered solutions to real problems. The collaboration traces back to 2023, when our Hispaniola Program Director Marta Curti struck up a conversation on a birding trip in Panama that led—through a fortunate chain of connections—to D-Lab Associate Director Libby Hsu, a bird lover who immediately saw the potential for collaboration. After Libby's first visit to the Dominican Republic in 2024, it has been growing ever since.

This past January, a small group of MIT students spent two weeks in Los Limones running co-design workshops with local community members. They also held a workshop with children—a first for MIT D-Lab—including a lively egg drop challenge that got kids thinking creatively and problem-solving in new ways. On the technical side, students worked on two projects with direct conservation impact: lightweight, durable transport boxes for moving young hawks between Los Haitises and Aniana Vargas National Park as part of our reintroduction program, and an improved design for the pole our team uses to apply insecticide nest treatments. Students also continued work on chicken coop designs and community trash collection solutions, because protecting Ridgway's Hawks means investing in the people who share their habitat.

None of this happens without a team that refuses to give up—and without supporters who believe these birds are worth fighting for. Thank you for being part of it.