Tampa-- participants had gathered to present posters describing bird and habitat programs from their states at a Tampa conference center and hotel. The event had a poster session describing current programs and the funding for these state and national efforts.
A day was devoted for birding together. Some participants had not birded Florida before. "Nice birds, but it's not like in the prairie. Wait till you see our snow buntings, longspurs and horned larks next year." The meeting will be in the Black Hills next year. Some East coast birders were not particularly impressed by this list. "They are not really interesting. They just scrape the ground for seeds."
On the third day, awards were presented for posters and the funds were announced for the most promising habitat work. Neither prairies or forests won this year. The money went to wetland preservation in two states. At this point all hell broke loose and the participants losing funding for the first time (Organizers blamed an election year in 2016 for loss of funding. People were not interested in donating to "all kinds of things."). The winning poster was knocked over at the presentation and they apparently trashed the common area in the hotel.
The local Fox station did a short piece on it, concluding that "we did not know people could be so passionate about rather useless public land and its conservation."
