Treesearch

National Forests provide a major proportion of the habitats in which elk grow, reproduce, and exist as elements of biological diversity. Forests also provide the basis upon which State management programs depend and provide sites for the public to hunt, view, and otherwise enjoy the elk resource. Individual National Forests can creatively address elk management through habitat effectiveness and elk vulnerability, and yet retain more consistent and cohesive approaches within regional and State boundaries. Emphasis in this report has been placed on process, content, and implementation of new...

A conceptual framework is given for a broad-scale survey of forest health that accomplishes three objectives: generate descriptive statistics; detect changes in such statistics; and simplify analytical inferences that identify, and possibly establish cause-effect relationships. Our paper discusses the development of sampling schemes to satisfy these three objectives, but without any design restrictions implied by existing sample surveys. A general vision of a desirable future system will increase chances that short-term decisions will lead to better environmental monitoring systems in the...

In this paper, we evaluate the reasons for gaps in communication between researchers and natural resource managers and identify methods to close these gaps. Gaps originate from differing patterns of language use, disparities in organizational culture and values, generation of knowledge that is too narrowly-focused to solve complex problems, failure by managers to relay informational needs, and failure by researchers to synthesize and package knowledge in useable forms. Information-sharing procedures that can stimulate communication among individuals in different organizations, geographical...

Because most land, including forest land, in the United States is privately owned, it is clear the private sector should be a major cooperator in "Partners in Flight" efforts to conserve neotropical migratory birds. The "private sector" is more than forest landowners, whether corporate or noncorporate; it includes agricultural landowners, mining interests, housing and commercial land developers, and others. The private sector also includes the general public as users of products generated from private lands and as stockholders in corporate landowners. Private landowners are extremely...

Choosing between the apparent plethora of methods for monitoring bird populations is a dilemma for a person contemplating beginning a monitoring program. Cooperrider et al. (1986) and Koskimies and Vaisanen (1991) describe many methods. In the Americas, three methods have been suggested as standard (Butcher 1992). They are: point counts for determining habitat relationships, population size, and population trends; and two demographic methods, constant effort mist netting and nest searching. Below, I discuss the process of choosing methods and suggest priorities. Then, for point counts, I...

Birders are the primary user-group of neotropical migratory birds. In the United States, birders number in the tens of millions and spend upwards of $20 billion dollars per year on bird seed, travel, and birding paraphernalia. Average yearly spending by active birders averages between $1,500 and $3,400, with travel being the major expenditure. Research needs include studies of birder demographics and birding economics at the national and state levels, as well as at specific birding sites. In addition, we must learn more about birder knowledge of how wildlife programs are funded and their...

New initiatives in wildlife management have come from the realization that birds can be used as indicators of ecosystem health. Conceptually, biological diversity includes processes working at all scales in biological hierarchies that compose the natural world. Recent advances in the understanding of ecological systems suggest they are nonequilibrium systems, and must be managed as such. In a practical sense, biological diversity must be managed by devising indicators of ecosystem integrity and health. Ecological integrity, although there are difficulties in defining criteria for its...

Understanding where in their annual cycle Neotropical-Nearctic migrant bird populations are limited is essential for developing effective management and conservation policies. A review of currently available information indicates that these long-distance migrant species may be limited by events and circumstances in both summer and winter, and possibly on migration as well. This has broad implications for management, which must take into account both the quantity and quality of habitat for these species at various times of year. Thus, the maintenance of viable populations of long-distance...

We briefly review concepts in landscape ecology and discuss their relevance to the conservation and management of neotropical migrant landbirds. We then integrate a landscape perspective into a spatially-hierarchical framework for conservation and management planning for neotropical migrant landbirds (and other biota). The framework outlines a comprehensive approach by which managers can develop plans based on (1) assessing the composition and interspersion of habitats important to species of current or future concern at a variety of spatial and temporal scales by generating and using data...

Neotropical migratory bird monitoring programs can contribute greatly to a more holistic and proactive management approach for state agencies. It is, however, imperative that these monitoring programs be scientifically designed and clearly communicated to managers. Information from monitoring programs can be used to develop multiple-species habitat management strategies, and declining populations can be detected before threatened and endangered species management is required.