Welcome to ThrasherQuest 2025
Great Basin Bird Observatory (GBBO) has been researching and monitoring desert thrashers since 2015. LeConte’s Thrasher and Bendire’s Thrasher have lost more than half of their populations in the last few decades, and face great threats from habitat loss and fragmentation due to human development. GBBO has identified Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Clark Co., NV as one of two population strongholds for Bendire’s Thrasher within the state. In 2024, GBBO conducted a LeConte’s and Bendire’s Thrasher research and monitoring project within Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. This project is no longer funded, and we are not certain we will be able to continue our desert thrasher research as previously funded. However, we have not lost our commitment, and we hope to continue our desert thrasher research efforts with ThrasherQuest 2025! ThrasherQuest kicked off on April 25th during the 2025 Spring Bioblitz at Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. This event was so much fun, and we are grateful we could partner with Friends of Avi Kwa Ame.
What is ThrasherQuest?
ThrasherQuest is a community science initiative where volunteers can help continue this important research to help GBBO develop a better understanding of the species’ habits. For example, beginning to understand how frequently Bendire’s Thrashers return to the same territories from year to year. In our 2024 study, we identified more than 30 occupied desert thrasher territories within the borders of the monument. In addition to the territories identified in this study, we mapped previously identified Bendire’s Thrasher locations on this map. Avi Kwa Ame appears to be a critically important area for these desert thrashers in Nevada. We believe that developing a finer-grained understanding of the distribution of desert thrashers within the national monument could prove imperative to the continued existence of these species within Nevada.
How to participate:
Its easy to participate in ThrasherQuest! Your task is to visit as many of these territories as possible and determine if they are being used by Bendire’s Thrasher this year. All you have to do is navigate to one of the mapped locations and submit a record using a free app, called Survey123. You can download Survey123 from the App Store or Google Play. Click here for instructions on how to submit data.
Step 1: Download the map (clicking the link will download a .KMZ file) Iphone users have to save the map download to their files, and use the “send” option to open with Google Earth.
Step 2: Use Google Earth to navigate to previously identified Bendire’s Thrasher territories! Tip: once opened in Google Earth, the map will be added to “Your maps” and can be accessed from Google Maps.
Step 3: Submit your results using the free app, Survey123.
