Dr. Nina Schoch and a Legacy of Loons
Dr. Nina Schoch paddling on Little Clear Lake in 2005.
Dr. Nina Schoch didn’t know loons would become her life’s work.
“I thought loons were beautiful and unique birds,” Dr. Schoch said, “but I never planned to study them for my career. I think I ended up being the right person at the right time.”
Now, 26 years into working with loons, she is changing her role from founder and Executive Director of the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation (ACLC) to ACLC’s Director of Conservation and Science, and looking back on the winding path that led her here.
Early in her career, Dr. Schoch knew she was interested in wildlife health and conservation. She earned both a veterinary degree and a graduate degree in wildlife health and conservation, and then moved to the Adirondacks in 1991. At the time, she didn’t see a straightforward path into wildlife conservation, and she had some pesky education loans to pay off, so she began working as a veterinarian at private practices, eventually finding herself working under the mentorship of Dr. Cogar at High Peaks Animal Hospital in Ray Brook.
By 1995, Dr. Schoch, by then married to NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) fisheries biologist Bill Schoch and committed to making a life in the Adirondacks, knew private practice wasn’t going to fulfill her long-term. She began looking for other opportunities in wildlife medicine and health. She volunteered and then worked part-time with the Adirondack Nature Conservancy, helping to initiate the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program with Bill Brown.
While attending conferences, Dr. Schoch met Dr. Mark Pokras, currently an associate professor emeritus at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and widely regarded as an expert in environmental pathology and toxicology, including lead toxicosis in common loons, so she reached out to him for advice about a next career move. “He suggested I go to ‘this loon meeting’ at DEC’s office in Albany,” Dr. Schoch remembered.
Dr. Nina Schoch holds a loon captured for banding in 2005.
At the meeting, she met Dr. David Evers from Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) and learned about the nationwide loon-mercury study. BRI made a request to include loons from New York to spatially evaluate loon mercury levels across the US. The initial plan was to capture, band and sample loons in the Adirondacks for two weeks a year for three years.
Like a loon to the lake, Dr. Schoch took to the loon-mercury project, immersing herself in work groups and committees to learn more.
“BRI and the other members of the Northeast Loon Study Working Group (NELSWG) were monitoring the banded loons to determine their reproductive success in relation to the mercury levels in the birds,” Dr. Schoch said. “The data was used to assess the impact of environmental mercury pollution on aquatic ecosystems using loons as indicator species. I learned more about the environmental impacts of airborne pollutants acid deposition and the work that was being done to monitor and better regulate them.”
It all felt very exciting.
Dr. Schoch volunteered during the first year of loon banding in New York, and then coordinated the loon banding fieldwork the next two years. After the initial three years of fieldwork ended in 2000, there were around 100 banded loons in the Adirondacks. Even though the funding was only for those three years, Dr. Schoch thought the work should continue: “It was an opportunity to continue following these banded birds to determine their survival and reproductive success, so I approached DEC and BRI with the idea of forming a partnership.”
By the spring of 2001, a partnership comprised of BRI, DEC, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Audubon International and the Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks (NHMA - now the Wild Center) formed the Adirondack Cooperative Loon Program. Dr. Schoch was hired on a contract basis to work part-time, while she continued to work part-time at the vet clinic and DEC. Her role in the Cooperative Loon Program was to coordinate the loon banding and monitoring field work, as well as to oversee the loon monitoring staff of seven SUNY ESF Adirondack Ecological Center staff and students.
Dr. Schoch removes fishing line from a rescued loon in 2015.
By 2002, Dr. Schoch had left her other part-time jobs to focus full-time on the loon work. What followed was a period of 14 years of learning the ins and outs of maintaining a robust research-based initiative: from submitting grant proposals to keep the work going to networking with other environmentally-focused organizations that came and went and changed over time to analyzing data, fundraising, writing scientific papers, creating budgets and attending conferences and workshops. A significant turn came in 2009, when Dr. Schoch became a full-time employee of BRI.
In 2016, after more than a decade of working out of her living room and more than a few changes to project’s official title, Dr. Schoch partnered with Hamlets to Huts to share storefront space in downtown Saranac Lake. That same year, BRI had to make some significant financial decisions, and she was given six months’ notice. “I thought long and hard about finding a veterinary wildlife health position,” Dr. Schoch said of that time, “but I had put so much into developing our work that I wanted it to continue. I had thoughts of developing a wildlife hospital, so I decided to set up a nonprofit to continue the loon research, conservation, and education programs, with hopes of expanding to establish the hospital.”
Establishing an official nonprofit was a lot of work. “It was a steep learning curve,” Dr. Schoch admitted, “especially the accounting and board management.” She did a lot of reading, attended conferences and workshops, and leaned on her mentors for guidance.
By May of 2017, the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation was an official, independent nonprofit with a board of directors. In July of that year, the new organization moved into a storefront on Broadway Street in Saranac Lake.
In 2021, still growing, ACLC again relocated to its current space at 75 Main Street in Saranac Lake, which once again opened up new opportunities for increasing outreach through exhibits, children’s programs and presentations. Today, ACLC has a staff of five full-time employees and continues to grow with the addition of new Executive Director Dorothy Waldt.
Dr. Schoch places a loon into a secure bin after an ice rescue in 2016.
Sliding into the role of Director of Conservation and Science, Dr. Schoch will be able to leave the paperwork and administrative tasks to the new ED and focus on expanding ACLC’s research and conservation goals, including the establishment of the Adirondack Wildlife Health Institute in partnership with SUNY ESF in Newcomb, NY.
She also plans to continue promoting environmental stewardship. “I hope we can establish a well-coordinated community stewardship program in all Adirondack communities to implement conservation projects to protect loons and all other wildlife and their habitats,” she said. “The loon is an example of a species people can relate to, an ambassador of why wild spaces matter.”
In terms of the future of loons in the Adirondacks, Dr. Schoch has concerns: “We are at a very interesting time right now, as the Adirondack loon population has recovered from low numbers and appears, at a glance, to be stable. However, since they live so long (30 - 40 years), the fact that their reproductive success has dropped substantially in the last decade or so means they may not be able to maintain their population over time as older birds die off.”
Monitoring banded loons continues to yield important information about the population itself, as well as providing insights into overall lake ecosystem health and implications for human health. Beyond monitoring loons for mercury impacts, ACLC also now submits loon blood and feather samples to partnering organizations to learn about the effects of PFAS (forever chemicals) and is observing the effects of climate change on the loon population. The results of long-term monitoring inform policy that serves to better protect wildlife and habitats.
In the coming years, climate change will continue to be a major concern for the future of common loons in the Adirondacks, as well as all other species on the planet. Dr. Schoch is concerned about emerging diseases, increased levels of environmental toxins, and other direct human impacts on wildlife populations.
Dr. Schoch passes along her knowledge to ACLC Research Biologist Griffin Archambault and ACLC wildlife technician Brendan Gruber while banding a rescued loon in 2024.
The best part of the whole journey so far has been knowing that the work makes a difference for both loons and people, and spending time in the presence of loons. “Seeing the loons in the light during banding is magical,” Dr. Schoch said, “and watching them swim underwater in the light is amazing. It’s so rewarding when we successfully rescue a loon and release it, and then document years later that it’s still doing well, often raising chicks.”
She added: “Thinking back on it, I’ve overseen the banding of hundreds of loons over the years, and dozens of rescues. That’s pretty cool!”
The work isn’t done yet — Dr. Schoch may be changing roles in the organization she founded, but she’s looking back on what she’s built while looking forward to all there is yet to do.
“Things rarely work out the way they were planned,” she said, “but they often work out for the best in the long run.” With her legacy of loons, it looks like it’s working out pretty great for Dr. Schoch.
Words by Denise Silfee, ACLC Director of Education & Communication