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West Virginia University researchers have been leading the flock in trying to find a better way to figure out the ages of birds. Now, a doctoral student has earned national recognition for her contribution to the project.

Crissa Cooey, a Ph.D. student in Wildlife and Fisheries Resources, received top honors from the Wildlife Society for her poster presentation at the organization’s recent annual meeting in Monterey, Calif. Cooey studied a minimally invasive method of taking a sample of from live birds to determine their age. Pentosidine is an end product of glycation, a process associated with aging in birds and mammals. It accumulates in body tissues over time and is easily measured in a laboratory setting.

“It’s notoriously difficult to determine a bird’s age,” said Hillar Klandorf, a professor of animal physiology in the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design and one of Cooey’s collaborators. “The traditional method of determining the age of birds is through banding, and that’s very labor intensive.”

Cooey found that the least intrusive means of obtaining a usable sample was to take it from the patagium, a fold of skin that makes up the leading edge of a bird’s wing. She then closed the wound using a special tissue glue. Recovery time was shorter for these birds than other methods, and the samples offered accurate information on their ages.

To learn more, visit WVU Today.