Phoenix, Ariz. - Mary Anne McLeod, Environmental Resources Specialist in SWCA’s Flagstaff office, has been selected as the Lawrence S. Semo Scientific Achievement Award winner for the second quarter of 2017.
Mary Anne is an expert on the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher population along the lower Colorado River (LCR) and its tributaries, and on the effects of tamarisk beetles on flycatchers. For 15 years, she has led our efforts on behalf of the Bureau of Reclamation for the LCR MSCP, Nevada Department of Wildlife, and Southern Nevada Water Authority. These efforts have included annual studies, data collection, data analysis, responding to changing client needs, guiding restoration efforts, and identifying additional aspects of studies that would aid in flycatcher management.
Mary Anne has given presentations at various conferences and to the Department of the Interior at a briefing in Washington, D.C. in 2010. She also served on the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher Technical Advisory Committee for the Tamarisk Coalition. She has published a methods paper on portable trap types for use in brown-headed cowbird population control in occupied flycatcher habitat, and has been a co-author on several additional papers involving flycatcher population structure and biology along the LCR.
The quarterly Lawrence S. Semo Scientific Achievement Award rewards individuals for demonstrating passion, creativity, and scientific excellence in a manner that advances SWCA’s purpose, mission, vision, and values. The award is in honor of Larry Semo, who began working as a biologist for SWCA in Austin in 1993 and transferred to Denver in 1999. A respected and widely published ornithologist and all-around naturalist, Larry had an insatiable desire to learn and a great love for the outdoors until his untimely passing in 2011.