New Birding App Supports Hatian Relief Efforts

As the rebuilding continues in Haiti following the January 12th, 2010 earthquake that took the lives of an estimated 230,000 people, injured hundreds of thousands more, and destroyed the vast majority of that country’s already precariously existing infrastructure, well-meaning people from around the world have created a variety of innovative ways to keep public attention focused upon and donations continuing to flow to that devastated Carribean island nation. Now, to the ever-expanding range of opportunities through which a relief effort donation can be made has recently been added a new birding field-guide-related application for the Apple iPhone / iPod Touch devices: The Birds of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Featuring fifty-eight of the bird species and subspecies that are unique or endemic to the island of Hispaniola, the new Birds of Haiti and the Dominican Republic offers users detailed species information accompanied by vibrant illustrations and a collection of songs and calls from the sound libraries of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, one of the cooperative partners behind the creation of the application.

Indeed, the number of people, institutions, organizations, and companies who all came together to produce this application is a veritable who’s who in the  worlds of natural history, publishing, and digital media:

• Vermont Center for Ecostudies
• Green Mountain Digital
• Brisk Mobile
• National Aviary
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Princeton University Press
• United States Fish and Wildlife Service
• Wildlife Without Borders Program
• Barry Kent MacKay

As might be expected, all proceeds from the sale of The Birds of Haiti and the Dominican Republic application are stated as being donated to relief efforts in Haiti led by Partners in Health and Habitat for Humanity.