Early in 2025, the School of the Environment awarded Investment Initiative grants to 12 Boise State faculty members. Julie Heath, professor of biological sciences and director of the Raptor Research Center, received one of these grants to support collaboration efforts outside the university.
The Investment Initiative helped establish BRIDGE (Biodiversity Research and International Development for Global Exchange), a program that connects Boise State’s Raptor Research Center with non-profit partners — like The Peregrine Fund and Hawkwatch International — and global partners in the United Arab Emirates. These collaborations help bring together an international community to address the science and conservation of raptors.
Our region is especially fruitful for raptor research because of the high concentration of birds of prey here. The Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey area is home to hundreds of hawks, owls, eagles and falcons, who take advantage of the craggy terrain to nest there each spring. But birds rarely stay in one place for very long, and the BRIDGE partnerships will help researchers at Boise State extend their reach.
“The UAE is a migration route for birds from Asia and Eastern Europe, bird migration routes link the whole eastern hemisphere,” Heath said. “And the same can be said in the western hemisphere, where birds travel back and forth between North American, Central America and South America.”
Heath recalls one anecdote that drives home the importance of raptor research collaboration that extends beyond state or national boundaries. She was in Costa Rica with other Boise State students and alumni when a migrating group of thousands of North American hawks and falcons and vultures passed overhead.
“It was moving to be in a different part of the world and witness birds that we know from home, Idaho, migrating overhead,” Heath said. “Birds unite us across a lot of different places.”
International collaboration is critical because birds of prey face similar problems all around the globe. Challenges like accidental bird shootings or landing on electrical infrastructure affect raptors all around the world, and global collaboration can put the worlds’ minds to work on problems that affect everyone.
BRIDGE will also help Boise State students launch their careers studying birds of prey. Master’s degree candidates in Boise State’s one-of-a-kind raptor biology program dedicate their academic work to these remarkable creatures. They will have an opportunity to present to researchers from all around the world later this year.
The Raptor Research Center will host a delegation from the United Arab Emirates in October 2026, thanks to support from the School of the Environment and matching funds from The Peregrine Fund, Hawkwatch International and the United Arab Emirates Embassy.
The School of the Environment has issued a renewed call for proposals for a second round of Investment Initiative projects. Applications are due April 3, 2026 and funding will be distributed at the start of the 2027 fiscal year.