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The U.S. National Fire Danger Rating System currently uses a moisture diffusion model developed by Fosberg to predict fine fuel moisture in woody fuels. Nelson recently developed a fuel moisture model that includes functions for both heat and moisture transfer. Fuel moisture samples were collected in Hawaii hourly for up to 96 h for three litter, one herbaceous, and eight grass fuels at sites ranging from near sea level to 2200 m.Weather data were collected every 5 min. Observed fuel moistures were compared to predictions from three models—a simplified form of Fosberg’s equation (Simple),...

Prescribed burning in chaparral, currently used to manage wildland fuels and reduce wildfire hazard, is often conducted under marginal burning conditions. The relative importance of the fuel and environmental variables that determine fire spread success in chaparral fuels is not quantitatively understood. Based on extensive experimental study, a two-dimensional numerical model for vegetation fire spread was developed to simulate laboratory-scale fires. This model is based on a detailed description of the complex heat transfer processes and a simple combustion mechanism contributing to the...

Safety of birds is paramount to our efforts in monitoring birds. I describe a method that has the potential of greatly increasing the speed and safety of extracting birds from mist nets. This method involves removing the feet last, as opposed to the more traditional 'feet first' method. The "body grasp" method involves slipping the fingers around the body of the bird, underneath the encumbering net, and then lifting the bird out of the enfolding layers of netting, focusing on the bird's body, not on the tangle of netting that its feet have made. In instructing many people in this method, I...

This paper describes a long-term habitat restoration project in the Blue Mountains ecoregion, northeast Oregon, that we initiated in May 2000. We focused our restoration activities on two habitats previously identified as being high priority for birds: quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa). In the interior West, these two habitats have become heavily degraded as a result of ungulate herbivory, fire exclusion, and logging associated with Euro-American settlement. To begin to restore these important habitats, we established 12 permanent study sites,...

The Shorebird Sister Schools Program (SSSP) is an internet-based environmental education program that provides a forum for students, biologists, and shorebird enthusiasts to track shorebird migration and share observations along flyways. The program?s vision is to engage public participation in the conservation of shorebirds and their wetland, grassland, and shoreline ecosystems along flyways. The target audiences are students and educators. However, facilitating interaction between biologists, students, and educators is an essential component of the program. In addition, numerous volunteer...

The Nature Conservancy has adopted a framework for mission success called Conservation by Design. We plan at the ecoregional level to define conservation targets and the portfolio of sites needed to protect them. We consider threats and strategies for abating them at these key sites, and we define measures of success to hold ourselves accountable. Migratory birds stretch our methods, crossing multiple ecoregions and requiring differing habitats temporally. Their viability is hard to assess, and population data are fragmentary at best. The Conservancy's new Gulf Wings initiative is a...

In 1999, the Management Board of the Atlantic Coast Joint Venture (ACJV) embraced the vision and framework of the then newly emerging North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI). Traditionally a Joint Venture focused on the conservation of waterfowl and wetlands habitat, the ACJV expanded its role throughout the Atlantic Flyway to all resident and migratory birds. As a first step, the ACJV launched the South Atlantic Migratory Bird Initiative (SAMBI) in the Southeastern Coastal Plain Bird Conservation Region. Biologists, land managers, and planners, representing non-governmental...

Land managers are often concerned with providing habitat that affords the "best habitat for songbirds." However, unless management simply is directed at rare species, it may not be clear which habitats or management options are best. A standard, quantifiable measure to compare the significance of different tracts of land or competing management techniques for avian conservation would benefit managers in decision making. I propose a standard measure that is based on the relative density of each species within a finite area and their respective regional Partners in Flight concern scores. I...

The Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act (NMBCA; Public Law 106-247), passed by the U.S. Congress in 2000, establishes a matching grants program to fund projects that promote the conservation of migratory birds in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. During its deliberations, the U.S. Congress recognized that migratory birds provide significant and diverse benefits across the United States and the Western Hemisphere and that many migratory bird species populations have dramatically declined, often because of habitat loss or degradation. Congress also recognized that...

The Bayou Meto Agricultural Irrigation Project, in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, is currently being studied by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in eastern Arkansas. As part of the planning process the Arkansas Field Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission wrote a migratory bird management plan for the Bayou Meto project area. This plan addressed the needs of four bird groups: forest breeding birds, shorebirds, waterfowl, and wading and marsh birds. For the first three bird groups the plan applies the recommendations of the Mississippi...