Support The Institute for Bird Populations and the program that started it all- the Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) program. The MAPS program is a continent-wide collaborative effort among public agencies, non-governmental groups, and individuals to assist the conservation of birds and their habitats through standardized bird monitoring. MAPS bird banders collect data, such as feather age and molt, that can be used to age birds, allowing researchers to estimate key demographic parameters, such as productivity, recruitment, and survival of individual bird species. This information helps scientists understand which life-stages may be most important in driving population change. Since 1989, more than 1,200 MAPS stations spread across nearly every state and Canadian province have collected more than 2.5 million bird capture records. IBP manages the MAPS database and makes this resource freely available to researchers, students, and land managers. Your purchase supports the MAPS program and IBP's other work enabling science-based conservation of species and habitats by studying the abundance, demography, and ecology of birds and other wildlife.