Every spring, the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) teems with duck calls and wings splashing on water. Shallow ponds glisten amidst rolling grasslands and farmlands, filled with waterfowl returning from the south to nest and raise their young. Spanning Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, and southern Canada, the PPR is often called the cradle of North [...]
In Southwest Colorado, fuels specialists and researchers have come together to experimentally evaluate different silvicultural treatments for enhancing pinyon-juniper ecosystem health and reducing fire risk. This interdisciplinary team has implemented replicated silvicultural treatments that vary in spatial complexity and amount of thinning in pinyon-juniper woodlands spanning an elevational gradient. A major goal of this effort [...]
In southeast New Mexico, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is working to preserve grassland habitat and improve rangeland health on public lands by treating and removing invasive mesquite. This is part of a larger effort through Restore New Mexico to remove mesquite on both public and private lands. Since 2005, the partnership has treated [...]
The Sonoran Joint Venture has been supporting long-term ecological monitoring for decades. This spring we partnered with the Tucson Audubon Society (TAS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to revive a Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) bird banding station in the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area in southeast Arizona. This station was previously [...]
While “Motus” may seem like the latest bird conservation buzzword, the Motus Wildlife Tracking System (Motus) is a program of Birds Canada that was launched in 2014. It has continued to gain popularity as a tool to study the ecology and conservation of migratory animals. Radio telemetry has been used since the 1960’s to track [...]
The State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement (SAFE) practice within the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is an innovative approach which allows state fish and wildlife agencies, along with their federal and NGO partners, to define priority species and landscapes for practice delivery. North Dakota has several designated SAFE projects, but among the most relevant to the [...]
A key aspect to successful conservation delivery is listening to the needs of partners and shaping strategy around those conversations. That is what Playa Lakes Joint Venture (PLJV) is doing with two recently funded projects that address declining aquifer levels in Kansas. Groundwater Recharge and Sustainability Project This past year, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service [...]
As an “all bird” Joint Venture, the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture (PPJV) is committed to addressing the conservation needs of all avian species that use the region. This is a daunting task given the diversity of bird species, landscapes, and variability in our understanding of limiting factors for many species. However, grassland and wetland habitat [...]
Flood irrigation on private rangelands maintains many wetland systems, which were historically dependent on natural flooding. Flood irrigation sustains valuable wildlife habitat on working lands such as foraging habitat for migrating and breeding waterbirds and late summer brood-rearing habitat for sage grouse. In this "Intermountain Insights" we distill the science behind how ranchers describe the [...]
In the fall of 2018, the North Olympic Land Trust added a few more acres to the 3,300 it had already conserved on Washington’s North Olympic Peninsula. A 34.5 acre parcel was donated to the Land Trust and includes footage along the Calawah River where it runs through Forks, Washington. The Olympic Peninsula is within [...]