important bird areas
The long-term conservation of birds and their habitats is a major goal of Montana Audubon. One facet of our science and conservation effort that is central to this goal is the Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program. The IBA Program is a global initiative to identify, monitor, and protect a network of sites that are critical for the conservation of birds. Since 1995, the National Audubon Society has taken the lead role in implementing the IBA Program in the United States, and Montana Audubon administers the program in our state.
IBAs help focus attention on habitats but are not legally binding. The concept is simple: identify and compile an inventory of areas that sustain healthy populations of birds (usually species of conservation concern; see below), and then focus attention on these sites so that they can be conserved through acquisitions or easements, voluntary management agreements, or other protective measures. By focusing attention on areas that are especially important for birds, the IBA Program is a valuable tool for helping set conservation priorities. Despite the simplicity and potential utility of the concept, however, achieving success is time consuming, expensive, and requires a generous helping of ingenuity.
A Closer Look: The IBA Program in Montana
In January 2002, the Montana IBA Committee voted to identify 26 IBAs from among nearly 60 sites submitted during the first round of nominations. These sites are fairly evenly spread across the state (see map) and range in size from 100 acres at Safe Harbor Marsh to more than one million acres at the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. Collectively, they encompass many of the premier tracts of bird habitat in the state, including Audubon’s Tier I (riparian deciduous forests, grasslands, wetlands) and Tier II (sagebrush steppe, burned forests, riparian shrubs) habitat types that merit the highest conservation priorities in Montana.
Most of the land area within these IBAs is under public ownership. Indeed, federal and state agencies are the primary land managers for all but two of our IBAs. Other stakeholders include the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, The Nature Conservancy, the Bureau of Reclamation, and a handful of private landowners. On balance, however, the current suite of IBAs is heavily weighted toward areas that were already receiving protection (e.g., national wildlife refuges and state wildlife management areas) before they became IBAs.
Building Momentum from a Great Start
With the formal identification of these 26 sites, we’re off to a great start with our IBA Program, but much crucial work remains to be done. For starters, 65% of the land area in Montana is privately owned, but private lands have not received serious consideration in the IBA nomination process. In addition, more than eight million acres in Montana, much of it in excellent ecological condition, occur within the boundaries of our seven tribal reservations. These lands also have received little attention in the IBA process. The net result is that millions of acres of habitat, significant portions of which are crucial for birds, are waiting to be evaluated for possible inclusion in the IBA Program. Once these evaluations have been conducted, the number of IBAs identified in the state will have grown considerably.
We have substantial work ahead of us to solicit and evaluate nominations, and to be certain that all of the best candidate sites are nominated. Thus, in many ways our program is in its infancy. But even after we have added a large number of sites to the program, our job is not over, because many IBAs will require monitoring and conservation planning after they have been added to the list. The challenge is to make each IBA as meaningful as possible for conservation.
Here again, we are off to a great start. Montana Audubon recently played a pivotal role in completing a Master Plan for the Owen Sowerwine IBA, the first site in our system to receive a formal conservation plan. Conservation plans are especially important for sites that are not already under some form of protection. As our program expands to include more IBAs that are not publicly owned, the need for detailed conservation plans will grow concomitantly.
New IBAs Identified in 2006
As a science-based means of helping set conservation priorities for birds, an IBA cannot be identified in the absence of sound data on (1) the occurrence of species of high conservation priority and/or (2) the occurrence of exceptionally high numbers of birds, or of a high diversity of bird species, in an area. Thus, acquiring baseline data on the presence and numbers of bird species of conservation priority (e.g., Threatened and Endangered species, Audubon WatchList species) will be a major focus of our efforts. Building on grants received in 2002, we submitted several new grants in 2003 and 2004 geared toward expanding the IBA Program in creative ways. In keeping with our Citizen Science objective, the proposed projects will make good use of members of our local Audubon chapters in the form of "AIM" Teams (Avian Inventory and Monitoring) that will help survey for target species of conservation priority.
We conducted three major field efforts from 2003 to 2005. In partnership with the Madison Valley Ranchlands Group, Luzenac Montana (a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Mining), and Sacajawea Audubon, we inventoried birds on private lands in cottonwood forests along the Madison River near Ennis. And along the Clark Fork River near Missoula, we surveyed riparian forests, Palouse grasslands, and wetlands used by migrating shorebirds in a collaborative project with Five Valleys Land Trust, Smurfit-Stone Container, and Five Valleys Audubon. Working with the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, we inventoried birds in cottonwood gallery forest along the Tongue River in southeastern Montana. Each of these efforts resulted in the formal identification of a new Important Bird Area: the Madison Valley IBA, the Clark Fork River-Grass Valley IBA, and the Tongue River IBA, respectively. In addition, the State Technical Committee recently accepted a nomination for the Hebgen Lake IBA, which supports large numbers of wintering Trumpeter Swans. We are very excited about the fact that the Clark Fork River-Grass Valley and Hebgen Lake sites qualify as IBAs of Continental Significance based on numbers of nesting Lewis's Woodpeckers and wintering Trumpeter Swans, respectively.
Species of Conservation Concern
The following species figure prominently in IBA nominations based on their conservation priority as stated in the Montana Bird Conservation Plan (Levels I & II) and/or by BirdLife International (Vulnerable or Near Threatened).
Level I priority: Common Loon, Trumpeter Swan, Harlequin Duck, Greater Sage-Grouse, Piping Plover, Mountain Plover, Least Tern, Flammulated Owl, Burrowing Owl, Black-backed Woodpecker, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Brown Creeper, Sprague's Pipit, Baird's Sparrow
Level II priority: Horned Grebe, White-faced Ibis, Barrow's Goldeneye, Hooded Merganser, Bald Eagle, Northern Goshawk, Ferruginous Hawk, Peregrine Falcon, Ruffed Grouse, Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse, Long-billed Curlew, Marbled Godwit, Franklin's Gull, Caspian Tern, Common Tern, Forster's Tern, Black Tern, Black-billed Cuckoo, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Black Swift, Vaux's Swift, Calliope Hummingbird, Lewis's Woodpecker, Red-headed Woodpecker, Red-naped Sapsucker, Williamson's Sapsucker, American Three-toed Woodpecker, Pileated Woodpecker, Willow Flycatcher, Hammond's Flycatcher, Cordilleran Flycatcher, Winter Wren, Veery, Loggerhead Shrike, Red-eyed Vireo, Lazuli Bunting, Brewer's Sparrow, Lark Bunting, Grasshopper Sparrow, McCown's Longspur, Chestnut-collared Longspur, Black Rosy-Finch
BirdLife International Vulnerable: Piping Plover, Mountain Plover, Pinyon Jay, Sprague's Pipit
BirdLife International Near Threatened: Ferruginous Hawk, Greater Sage-Grouse, Long-billed Curlew, Red-headed Woodpecker, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Chestnut-collared Longspur, Brewer's Sparrow, Cassin's Finch.