BLM Utah Migratory Bird Monitoring Project

Background: Monitoring is an essential component of wildlife management and conservation science (Witmer 2005, Marsh and Trenham 2008). Common goals of migratory bird population monitoring are to estimate the population status of target species and to detect changes in populations over time (Thompson et al. 1998, Sauer and Knutson 2008). Effective monitoring programs can identify species that are at-risk due to small or declining bird populations (Dreitz et al. 2006); provide an understanding of how management actions such as vegetation treatments and changes in land management (disturbance patterns) affect populations (Alexander et al. 2008, Lyons et al. 2008); evaluate population responses to landscape alteration and climate change (Baron et al. 2008, Lindenmayer and Likens 2009); provide basic information on species distributions; and act as a data source for addressing management questions. Additional information about bird populations would be valuable to the BLM in order to integrate bird monitoring into land management and conservation practices. Bird monitoring practices would greatly be enhanced by coordination of monitoring across organizations or agencies and integration across spacial scales because migratory birds do not have a high fidelity to the same site from year-to-year and populations of different species use large landscapes for their lifecycle. This would increase the value of the monitoring information; however, there needs to be a concerted effort to improve the statistical design and maintain the monitoring information in a modern data management system so that all information is accessible and updated into the future. Having a complete statewide data set would be valuable to assist the BLM as it enters into discussions with sister agencies such as the US Fish and Wildlife Services about how to best protect these species and their habitats. Objectives: The BLM is looking to work with a partner that can assist in providing additional information about bird populations by working towards a standardized statewide monitoring approach for migratory birds. A standardized monitoring approach will improve the BLMâ¿¿s understanding of migratory birds within Utah by setting up a long term monitoring system for species to provide data that could assist the BLM in making land management decisions. This would be achieved by providing long-term monitoring data to be used across the region. Data obtained from this monitoring would assist land management agencies in furthering their understanding of how vegetation treatments are impacting the landscape and their impact on migratory bird species to help provide information for mitigation efforts. Public Benefit: The public benefit of this project is to provide a long-term look at migratory birds and use them as an indicator as to how the rest of the ecosystem is responding to a host of outside pressures including climate change, vegetation treatments associated with greater sage-grouse conservation, and land management decisions. Birds can also serve as an ecosystem indicator for managers and the general public. Data from this project would help the BLM make land management decisions that are in the best interest of protecting the migratory bird species and habitats.