At the Site Partners Meeting in McAllen in February, we welcomed Frontera Audubon as the newest member of the Site Partner Network.  Frontera Audubon, located in Hidalgo County, has the mission to preserve the environments of the Rio Grande Valley.  Their 12 acre site in downtown Weslaco provides important stopover habitat to migrants in an urban setting and has also been host to several Valley specialty birds.  Overall, 195 bird species have been documented in Frontera's "Thicket".  Frontera represents one tract of restored habitat in an area known as the South Texas Plains which has been identified by Texas Parks and Wildlife as a Tier I High Priority Ecoregion.  We look forward to working with Frontera Audubon to save habitat for migrants!

In late 1998, GCBO received it's first gift of permanent funds from member Craig Damuth, thus establishing the Land Acquisition Fund (LAF). As contributions to the fund have grown, our policy has been to carefully invest all of the principal and use only the proceeds to make contributions toward the purchase of critical bird habitat in and around the Gulf of Mexico. Our LAF is slowly growing but this year we have a new opportunity that will serve to grow this fund substantially. The Malcolm C. Damuth Foundation has awarded the GCBO a Challenge Grant of $25,000 a year for the next three years. Of course, this means we need to raise $25,000 per year to match the grant. So if land acquisition is your passion, there is no better time than now to make a contribution as we can double your investment! Our first challenge deadline is October 31, 2008. Contact Cecilia (criley@gcbo.org) for details or questions.