North American Banding Council awards are intended to acknowledge outstanding service and contributions to NABC and its mission.

The three awards are:

Glen Woolfenden Award

Eligible: Outgoing NABC Council Member

In recognition of outstanding service and contribution to the Council

Paul Bartsch Award

Eligible: Current NABC Council Member

In recognition of outstanding service and contribution to the Council for 10 years or more

James Henry Fleming Award

Eligible: NABC Trainer

In recognition of outstanding service and contribution to NABC’s mission

Hereafter referred to as the Woolfenden, Bartsch, and Fleming awards, the NABC Awards Committee shall solicit, accept, and consider nominations for each of the awards and provide recommendations to the Council in motions at the Annual Meeting.  The Fleming shall be awarded annually, and the Woolfenden and Bartsch awarded as appropriate. The Awards Committee Chair will gladly accept recommendations at any time.

Award Background:

Glen Woolfenden Award

Eligible: Outgoing NABC Council Member

In recognition of outstanding service and contribution to the Council

Glen Everett Woolfenden, PhD., long-time AOU representative to the NABC, was one of the original supporters of the NABC and was important in garnering support from the ornithological community for this endeavor.  He served on the publications committee from its inception and chaired that committee for several years.  The NABC publications benefited greatly from his superb editing skills.  Those of us who worked with Glen will miss his humor, professionalism, and attention to detail.

Dr. Glen Woolfenden, (born January 23, 1930; died June 19, 2007), was a renowned ornithologist and evolutionary biologist, and internationally known as the world’s expert on Florida Scrub-Jays.  Since 1969, he had maintained a continuous, intensive study of these endangered birds at Archbold Biological Station near Lake Placid, Florida.  This project has been hailed among the world’s most famous long-term studies of a bird population.

Dr. Woolfenden was a meticulous field biologist.  His scrub-jay research involved color-banding every jay, locating every nest, mapping every territory, and exhaustively censusing every surviving jay each month at Archbold Biological Station since 1971. Through scores of technical and popular articles, he was the first to show that Florida Scrub-Jays live in cooperative, extended-family groups in which young birds remain in the home territory and help their parents rear the offspring of subsequent years.  He documented the Florida Scrub-Jays’ strict dependence on stunted, fire-maintained oak scrub, a habitat unique to Florida and now mostly eliminated through agricultural, residential, and commercial development.  His work established the biological basis for the Florida Scrub-Jay being listed on the federal Endangered Species List, and also helped elevate public awareness of the need to protect remnant tracts of oak scrub habitat.  One of the original 60 faculty members at University of South Florida when it opened in 1960, Dr. Woolfenden taught with the same demanding but caring approach that defined his career as an ornithologist, as testified by his former students and colleagues.  Together with John Fitzpatrick, his research collaborator for 35 years, Dr. Woolfenden received the 1985 William Brewster Award, the highest research honor bestowed by the American Ornithologists’ Union, a professional society for which he served as President from 1988 to 1990.  He also won prestigious awards from the International Ornithological Congress, Animal Behavior Society, German Ornithological Society, Cooper Ornithological Society, Wilson Ornithological Society, and Florida Ornithological Society.

Paul Bartsch Award

Eligible: Current NABC Council Member

In recognition of outstanding service and contribution to the Council for 10 years or more

Dr. Paul Bartsch, a well-known and accomplished conchologist whose hobby was the study of birds, then of the Smithsonian Institution initiated systematic, scientific bird banding in North America in 1902.  He banded 23 Black-crowned Night-herons at Washington, DC using serially numbered leg bands with the year and a “Return to Smithsonian Institution” address inscribed on them.  Dr. Barsch had his first band recovery in September, 1902 and he published his work in 1904.  Said Dr. Bartsch at the time, “There are still many unsolved problems about bird life, among which are the age that birds attain, the exact time at which some birds acquire their adult dress, and the changes which occur in this with years.  Little, too, is known about the laws and routes of bird migration, and much less about the final disposition of the untold thousands which are annually produced.”  In 1901, Bartsch became lecturer on histology at the Medical School of Howard University.  His workload became heavier as the next year he was promoted to professor on Histology and became director of the histology laboratory. The next year he became Director of the Physiology Laboratory and Lecturer in Medical Zoology, in which capacity he continued for 37 years.  In 1956 he retired from the Smithsonian Institution after more than fifty years of service.

James Henry Fleming Award

Eligible: NABC Trainer

In recognition of outstanding service and contribution to NABC’s mission

In 1905, James Henry Fleming banded the first bird in Canada, an American Robin at his home at Toronto, Ontario.  His bands were inscribed with the address “Notify The Auk. N.Y.””  James Henry Fleming (born on July 5, 1872; died June 27, 1940) was a Canadian ornithologist.  J. H. Fleming became interested in birds at age 12.  He was an associate member of the Royal Canadian Institute at 16.  In 1916 he became a fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU) and by 21 was an associate member of the AOU.  He eventually worked his way up to becoming President of the AOU, holding the post from 1932-1935.  Fleming’s standing as an ornithologist was recognized in many ways.  The National Museum of Canada made him Honorary Curator of ornithology in 1913.  He was elected British Empire Member of the British Ornithological Union; Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society of London; and Member d’Honneur Etranger Societe Ornithologique et Mammalogique de France.  He was an Honorary (but active) Member of the Brodie Club; an Honorary Member of the Toronto Ornithological Club; Honorary Vice-President of the Toronto Field Naturalists’ Club; and in 1927, he was made Honorary Curator of the Royal Ontario Museum of Zoology.  Over his life he amassed a vast collection of specimens, numbering over 32,000 and a large ornitological library considered to be one of the largest and most representative private collections at the time.  This research collection went to The Royal Ontario Museum upon Fleming’s death.