important bird areas
- IBA Program in Montana
- Featured Montana IBAs:
- Species of Special Concern
clark fork river - grass valley iba
Montana Audubon, Five Valleys Audubon, and Five Valleys Land Trust have teamed up to protect lands west of Missoula by focusing attention on birds that use riparian cottonwoods and associated wetlands and grasslands along the Clark Fork River. The Clark Fork River-Grass Valley Important Bird Area encompasses city, state, federal, and private lands including lands protected by conservation easements. Read more about how efforts of the Five Valleys Audubon Society, who have adopted this IBA, and partners have resulted in successful habitat conservation and landowner outreach and support HERE >>.
A portion of this IBA is owned by Smurfit-Stone, the mill that closed it's doors in early January 2010. Retired Smurfit-Stone employee Larry Weeks has been instrumental in working with the company for access and restoration in the IBA. You can read an article from the Missoulian that features Larry and his htoughts on possible implications HERE >>
For a new 2009 brochure (PDF) of this Important Bird Area click HERE >>
Here is a map of this IBA:
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Download a more detailed map HERE >>
The Concern About Bird Habitat
The Missoula valley in western Montana is a place where native plants and animals are a vital part of the living landscape. Wildlife and wildlands are never far from our door, enriching the lives of all. Now, in the face of rapid growth and development, these precious wildlife habitats are disappearing and those that remain are increasingly threatened.
Riparian areas and wetlands occupy less than 4% of Montana’s land area, yet they are used by more than 80% of the bird species found in the state during all or part of the year. Cottonwood riparian forests are especially important because they support a higher diversity of breeding birds than other western habitats, and many species that breed in other habitats forage in cottonwoods during migration. It is also a habitat under threat from a variety of sources. For example, interruption of natural flooding regimes from dams can inhibit the recruitment of young cottonwoods, as can overgrazing by livestock, deer, and elk. Invasion of exotic trees and grasses that out compete cottonwood seedlings is also a problem in some areas. Not surprisingly, riparian cottonwoods and wetlands have been identified as “Tier I” priority habitats by Montana Audubon and as “Community Types of Greatest Conservation Need” by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The high use of these habitats by birds, their natural scarcity, and the threats to their existence make riparian cottonwoods and wetlands critical components in the conservation of native birds in Montana and elsewhere in the West.
Bird Surveys Find Important Species
Beginning in 2002, Five Valleys Audubon volunteers have monitored breeding birds in this Important Bird Area. These data are essential for nomination of an area as an official IBA (see IBA overview). Recent surveys, plus information collected inform
ally by Five Valleys Audubon volunteers over the last 20 years, showed that the Missoula Valley is a special place for birds. Volunteers documented the occurrence of 230 species of birds in the area, more than half of the bird species recorded for the entire state of Montana! Thirteeen of these are species of conservation priority nesting in the study area, including 6 pairs of Bald Eagles and high numbers of Lewis’s Woodpeckers, Red-naped Sapsuckers, Willow Flycatchers, and Red-eyed Vireos. They also documented that the settling ponds at the Smurfit-Stone Container mill are used by 27 species of migratory shorebirds and more than a thousand shorebirds can be found there on a good day during the peak of southward migration.
In 2009 this IBA was awarded status as "continentally significant" because of the numbers of nesting Lewis's Woodpeckers (pictured above).
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