View the collaborative report online at http://www.stateofthebirds.org/SOTB_2011-05-03-1200-WEB.pdf

Report highlights role of public lands in protecting birds(05/03/2011)
Phil Taylor, E&E News

U.S. public lands and waters could play a crucial role in halting or reversing the decline of many bird species, according to a report released today by federal and state wildlife agencies, universities and conservation groups.
The 2011 “State of the Birds” report highlights the important role 850 million acres of federal lands and 3.5 million square miles of ocean play in providing habitats for nesting, wintering and migratory stopovers for bird species in the United States.
The third annual report found that effective management of lands including national wildlife refuges, national parks, forests and Bureau of Land Management areas can help sustain or revive the roughly one-fourth of bird species that are either federally protected or at risk of decline.
More than 250 U.S. bird species are either federally threatened, endangered or of conservation concern.
“There is troubling news in the report,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said this morning at Washington, D.C.’s Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, where he attended a bird walk that featured gnat catchers, flycatchers, Canada geese, a great egret, tree swallows and red-winged blackbirds.
“This is also a call to action, because we know that a lot of our wildlife and bird species, as we know from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies, are in fact in danger,” he said.
The 48-page report relied on computer-generated bird distribution maps compiled using citizen-reported data and information from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The report highlights the important role federal land managers play in protecting birds: Publicly owned habitats support at least half of the entire U.S. distributions of more than 300 bird species, the report found.
The report also warns of areas where bird species are particularly at risk from threats including habitat fragmentation, urban development, agriculture and other ecosystem stressors.
For example, 39 percent of arid-land bird species are of “conservation concern” and more than 75 percent of species are declining, the report found. More than half of U.S. arid lands are publicly owned.
“Public agencies face the challenge of balancing our nation’s needs for resource extraction, energy development, recreation, and other land uses with the urgent need to ensure the conservation of birds and other wildlife in all habitats,” notes a summary of the report’s finding.
The report is designed to provide land managers with scientific data to identify the most significant conservation opportunities in habitats including arid lands, oceans and coasts, forests, arctic and alpine habitats, islands, wetlands and grasslands.
For example, BLM, which manages about 250 million acres of surface lands in the West, must actively monitor bird populations as it rolls out renewable energy projects, said Paul Schmidt, who recently retired as FWS’s assistant director for the Migratory Bird Program and now works for Ducks Unlimited.
“As they position renewable energy — which is a big effort, and we support it, of course — there are places on the landscape where it is in direct conflict with wildlife goals,” he said. “Improving monitoring to understand where and where not to site solar, wind, even geothermal, transmission lines — all those things we know can have huge impacts.”
The American Bird Conservancy, which helped develop the report, said the report’s findings underscore the importance of public lands policy and spending decisions under consideration by the Obama administration.
Those decisions include a comprehensive planning rule revision under development at the Forest Service that some have argued weakens existing wildlife protections. Other policy considerations include the release of a court-ordered final northern spotted owl recovery plan and state-by-state plans to ensure protections for the greater sage grouse, a species under threat from wind development that government scientists say is warranted for listing under the Endangered Species Act.
“The administration now has multiple opportunities to conserve bird populations by promoting bird-smart land management policies and prioritizing spending,” said Steve Holmer, senior policy adviser for the American Bird Conservancy, in a statement. “Protecting birds and their habitats also protects recreational opportunities, clean water supplies and many fundamental ecosystem services such as pest control and crop pollination that people often take for granted.”