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Missouri?s state and federal agencies, nongovernmental organizations and citizens have a partnership called the Grasslands Coalition. The Grasslands Coalition was established to help preserve remaining tallgrass prairie. This includes applying a management regime that enhances natural functions and interactions. The coalition is a state-based effort co-sponsored by the Missouri Prairie Foundation and the Missouri Department of Conservation. The long list of partners includes The Nature Conservancy, the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Pheasants Forever, National Audubon Society,...

Marine and upland habitats in western Washington and Oregon provide essential conditions for many wintering and migratory shorebird species along the Pacific Flyway. Known or potential threats to shorebirds include loss or degradation of habitat, invasion of exotic vegetation and invertebrates, environmental pollution, and human disturbance. Initial priority activities should focus on protecting, restoring, and enhancing shorebird habitats. Monitoring will be required to evaluate shorebird responses to management efforts. Implementation of the Northern Pacific Coast shorebird plan's key...

This paper reports on a process used to identify landscape-scale focus areas for the conservation of priority grassland, grass-shrubland, wetland and forest-woodland birds in the Central Hardwoods Bird Conservation Region (CHBCR). The areas were delineated by biologists and other technical staff of partner agencies and organizations in the CHBCR with the use of geospatial data layers that included land cover, maps of areas with large percentages of grass and forest cover, public lands, roads, state and county lines, surface water features, ecological land types, and The Nature Conservancy?s...

Tricolored Blackbirds (Agelaius tricolor) are largely endemic to California. Over 90 percent of the population occurs within the state. Surveys indicate that populations have declined by 37 percent from 1994 to 1997 and by 33 percent from 1997 to 2000. Tricolors are listed as a nongame bird of conservation concern by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a species of special concern by California Department of Fish and Game. Breeding tricolors are colonial, and form the largest colonies of any North American passerine bird. In the 1934 one colony was estimated to have 200,000 nests. Tricolors...

The Baja California peninsula has been categorized as an Endemic Bird Area of the world and it is an important wintering area for a number of aquatic, wading and migratory landbird species. It is an important area for conservation of bird diversity in northwestern México. In spite of this importance, only few, scattered studies have been done on the ecology and biology of bird species, and almost no studies exist for priority relevant species such as endemics, threatened and other key species. The diversity of habitats and climates permits the great resident landbird species richness...

The Northern Prairie and Parkland Region contain millions of wetland basins, which harbor large proportions of the populations of many North American waterbird species, several of which are of high conservation concern. However, knowledge of waterbirds in the region is limited, and there has been little direction for waterbird conservation planning or management. The Northern Prairie and Parkland Waterbird Conservation Plan is being developed to provide an overview of the status and current knowledge of waterbirds in the Region and outline strategies and priorities for monitoring, managemen...

Many international, regional, and local partner organizations have agreed in the need to establish long-term bird monitoring and research programs in the Americas. However, the challenge of developing national or international monitoring programs is difficult often because of the lack of qualified biologists or other resources in key regions. More fundamentally, locally-based organizations that may have personnel and resources that could be involved in monitoring programs often have their own goals and locally defined monitoring objectives. These objectives may vary among regions and...

More than 80 percent of San Francisco Bay's original tidal wetlands have been altered or displaced, reducing available habitat for a range of tidal marsh-dependent species, including the Federally listed California Clapper Rail (Rallus longirostris obsoletus) and three endemic Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) subspecies. In the South Bay, many tidal marshes were converted to commercial salt ponds, which have since become among the most important Pacific coast sites for shorebirds, waterfowl and other waterbirds. Recently, however, over 6,000 ha of commercial salt ponds were sold to...

Scientists and managers representing the continental bird conservation plans explored the status of conservation planning and implementation for birds along the Pacific coast of North America. The theme of the session, "using common currencies to advance bird conservation," emphasized the components of bird conservation shared among the major initiatives, such as Bird Conservation Region coordinators, species, habitats, partnerships, funding opportunities, and Adaptive Conservation Planning. A primary goal of the session was to develop a conservation action agenda, agreed to by all...

A conflict involving piscivorous birds and salmonids in the Pacific Northwest pits the conservation of protected migratory waterbirds against the restoration of Columbia Basin salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.) that are listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The Columbia River Avian Predation Project is a cooperative, collaborative research project designed to monitor populations of piscivorous colonial waterbirds on the lower Columbia River and their impact on the survival of juvenile salmonids from the Columbia River basin. The Project includes biologists from Oregon State University,...