important bird areas
- IBA Program in Montana
- Featured Montana IBAs:
- Species of Conservation Concern
The IBA Program
The long-term conservation of birds and their habitats is a major goal of Montana Audubon, and 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 critical for the conservation of birds. Since 1995, the National Audubon Society has taken the lead in implementing the IBA Program in the US (see NAS IBA), and we administer the program in Montana.
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), 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
As of November 2009, the Montana IBA Committee has approved 39 Important Bird Areas in our state, including the recent addition of the North Shore of Flathead Lake and the Sun Ranch in the Madison Valley. Additionally we now have five IBAs specifically deliniated for the protection of the Greater Sage-Grouse and sage-steppe associated species.
National Audubon Society has confirmed that 11 of our IBAs are "globally significant" and deserver conservation prioritization (see below).
The map below depicts these 39 IBAs (salmon color). Our newest -- the Sun Ranch IBA in the Madison Valley has yet to be mapped.
- For a detailed map (pdf), click HERE >>.
- To download individual maps (pdf) of each IBA, go HERE >>.
- To view in google earth (free program required), click HERE >>.
note: to view names or locate individual IBAs, click on + by "IBAs_all" under "places" at right and the menu will be display. - For the GIS shape files (updated May 2009), download this zip file.
Above map: 39 Montana IBAs as of November 2009:
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Globally Significant IBAs
In Montana, we now have 11 IBAs given globally significant priority designation from National Audubon. these include the following (including A1 trigger species):
- Glaciated Prairie Sage-steppe - Greater-Sage Grouse
- Mussellshell Sage-steppe - Greater-Sage Grouse
- Bridger Sage-steppe - Greater-Sage Grouse
- Powder/Carter Sage-steppe - Greater-Sage Grouse
- Beaverhead Sage-steppe - Greater-Sage Grouse
- Hebgen Lake – Trumpeter Swan
- Little Beaver Creek – Mountain Plovers
- North Valley Grasslands – Chestnut-collared Longspur, Sprague’s Pipit
- Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge - Greater-Sage Grouse, Mountain Plover,
Chestnut-collared Longspur, Sprague’s Pipit - Westby Prairie-Wetland Complex – Piping Plover, Sprague’s Pipit, Chestnut-collared Longspurs
- Glacier National Park - Olive-sided Flycatcher
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IBA HISTORY
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.
Above map: Original 26 Montana IBAs
Most of the land area within these origianl 26 IBAs is under public ownership. Indeed, federal and state agencies are the primary land managers for all but two of these 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, this initial suite of IBAs was 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 our sites, we’re off to a great start with our IBA Program, but much crucial work remains to be done. 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 2008
These include our new sage-steppe IBAs, details of which can be found HERE >>
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.
For more information contact: Amy Cilimburg, Director of Bird Conservation, at 406-465-1141 or amy@mtaudubon.org