Council for the Conservation of Migratory Birds AWARD

Council for the Conservation of Migratory Birds
2013 Presidential Migratory Bird Stewardship Award Announcement

The Department of Defense (DoD) is this year’s recipient of the Presidential Migratory Bird Federal Stewardship Award. The award, presented at the Environment for the Americas International Migratory Bird Day event at the Embassy of Canada in Washington D.C., recognizes DoDs multi-year Migratory Linkages of Burrowing Owls on Department of Defense Installations and Adjacent Lands project.

The Presidential Migratory Bird Stewardship Award annually recognizes a single project or action conducted by or in partnership with a Federal agency that meets the intent and spirit of the Executive Order 13186 (Responsibilities of Federal Agencies to Protect Migratory Birds) by focusing on migratory bird conservation. The project or action may involve reducing existing or potential adverse impacts to migratory birds and their habitats, restoring or enhancing migratory bird habitat, and incorporating conservation of migratory birds and their habitat into agency plans, guidance, or other activities. The action demonstrates leadership in inspiring others to further migratory bird conservation. This can include developing and implementing best-management practices, a policy action, or research.

See http://www.denix.osd.mil/nr/upload/2009-DoD-project-factsheet_3.pdf for more information about the project.

Press Release

Nominations for the 2013 Presidential Migratory Bird Federal Stewardship Award!

The Presidential Migratory Bird Federal Stewardship Award (Award) annually recognizes a single project or action conducted by or in partnership with a Federal agency that meets the intent and spirit of Executive Order 13186 by focusing on migratory bird conservation. 

Actions may involve reducing existing or potential adverse impacts to migratory birds and their habitats, restoring or enhancing migratory bird habitat, and incorporating conservation of migratory birds and their habitat into agency plans, guidance, or other activities.  The action should demonstrate leadership in inspiring others to further migratory bird conservation.  This could include developing and implementing best-management practices, a policy action, or research.

Migratory Bird Conservation on Cocos Island
Lead Agency: USDA-APHIS

Hollow Mine Marker Removal
Lead Agency: Bureau of Land Management-Nevada

Roseate Tern Nesting Box Building and Piping Plover Habitat Enhancement
Lead Agency: U.S. Coast Guard Academy

Migratory Linkages of Burrowing Owls on Department of Defense Installations and Adjacent Lands
Lead Agency: Department of Defense

Pantex Plant Migratory Bird Program
Lead Agency: The Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration

Migratory Bird Conservation on Cocos Island
Lead Agency: USDA-APHIS

Habitat degradation and predation by invasive vertebrates have left many of Guam’s native birds extinct or extirpated in the wild.  Following intensive planning and habitat preparation, Cocos Island, a 34-ha island south of Guam, represents a successful conservation partnership that is benefiting both native wildlife and conservation organizations.  A broad group of partners developed and implemented project actions, which included biosecurity efforts, forest restoration, rodent eradication, and endangered species introductions.  Following the successful eradication of rodents from the island, endangered Guam rails (Gallirallus owstoni) were released on Cocos Island and are now successfully breeding.  Resident seabird species including white tern (Gygis alba), black noddy (Anous minutus), and brown noddy (A. stolidus) also are thriving on the tropical island.  Today, island residents and visitors have an opportunity to experience Guam’s native forests and wildlife in a protected environment—something that could not be done prior to this project.  The Cocos Island conservation project provides a wealth of knowledge and experience to biologists, tourists, and school groups.  This project has helped APHIS build international collaboration and participation in global and regional conservation organizations, where the technology used to make this project a success can be shared with broader island conservation communities.  The Cocos Island project represents a major step forward in wildlife management capabilities in the tropical western Pacific region and represents a significant accomplishment for APHIS and project partners in furthering migratory bird conservation.

Hollow Mine Marker Removal
Lead Agency: Bureau of Land Management-Nevada.

Hollow mine markers (markers), death traps for cavity nesting birds; have recently made national news due to the removal efforts put forth by BLM-Nevada, Nevada Division of Wildlife (NDOW), Audubon Society, Nevada Conservation Corps (NCC), Student Conservation Association (SCA), Barrick Mine and Newmont Mine.  The removal project started November 1, 2011 when a Nevada state law was passed allowing anyone to knock down the markers from public lands in Nevada. Currently, there are over 200,000 active mine claims and approximately 800,000 abandoned claims on BLM managed lands in NV.   
Since November 1, 2011, the combined effort of BLM, NDOW, NCC, SCA and Audubon has knocked down more than 12,914 markers across more than one million acres in Nevada.  This effort recovered more than 6,760 dead birds which is a rate of 0.52 birds per marker.  We have found that the rate of birds/marker in Southern Nevada is much higher (1.25) than the overall rate. By the end of the project, partners are anticipated to have saved the lives of more than 1.5 million birds based on calculations of  400,000 mining claims with hollow mine markers; four  markers at each claim, and each bird producing two offspring per year.  
There are still many more markers to knock down, and the project partners will not stop until every last marker is down.  We are continuously looking for new funding and new partners to remove every one of these markers in Nevada.

Roseate Tern Nesting Box Building and Piping Plover Habitat Enhancement
Lead Agency: U.S. Coast Guard Academy

Protecting our precious natural resources is espoused and recognized by the U.S. Coast Guard as an essential component of preserving maritime tradition. Cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy are future Coast Guard Officers that, one day, will have a mission or position that may involve migratory birds. After Hurricane Irene, cadets from the Academy Sustainability Club learned that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) lost all of its ground nesting boxes specifically designed to protect for Connecticut’s only endangered bird species, the Roseate Tern (Sterna dougallii). Cadets leveraged non-federal partner support and organized a “Tern Box Building Day” event where 200 nesting boxes were built in one day. The new nesting boxes, a portion for use and the rest for future activities, are expected to increase the survival rate of the Roseate Tern chicks to about 80%. 15 of the nesting boxes fledged approximately 16 Roseate Tern chicks, equating to a productivity of >1 chick per nesting pair.
The building event began a partnership project between the Academy Sustainability Club and the NWR staff - in conjunction with Connecticut College Environmental Club, Audubon Connecticut, and others - to focus on enhancing and restoring habitat along the coast of Connecticut for federally endangered and threatened species, as well as other migratory bird species such as herons and egrets.
Falkner Island is a component of the NWR. It is part of the Atlantic flyway, and is the nesting site of the third-largest Roseate Tern colony in the northeastern United States. Working with NWR staff, cadets organized Falkner Island habitat management volunteer days as a follow-up to the building event. USCGA Sustainability Club cadets, staff, Connecticut College students, and a Boy Scout troop travelled out to Falkner Island on various occasions to conduct habitat management activities for the Roseate and common terns that breed on the island, as well as to set-up the nest boxes for the season’s nesting pairs.
Cadets and their non-federal partners also worked with NWR staff to enhance habitat for the federally threatened Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus). Predation and habitat loss are affecting populations of this species. Cadets and partners addressed these factors by cleaning up the habitat at the NWR Milford Point Unit in order to discourage predators and human activity. NWR staff predicts that, with new overwash habitat created by recent storms, the unit may support between 2-6 breeding pairs this year and may also attract other migratory species like Least Tern (Sterna antillarum).
U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadets and their non-federal partners are invested in NWR. Within a year, they have volunteered the time equivalent of 95 full-time workdays at no cost to the government. They will continue to volunteer and follow up with Falkner Island and Milford.

Migratory Linkages of Burrowing Owls on Department of Defense Installations and Adjacent Lands
Lead Agency: Department of Defense

“Migratory linkages of Burrowing Owls on Department of Defense (DoD) installations and adjacent lands” was a collaboration of Kirtland Air Force Base (Ms. Carol Finley) and the University of Arizona/USGS Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit (Dr. Courtney Conway). This multi-year project, funded by the DoD Legacy Resource Management Program, was initiated to locate Burrowing Owls (Athene cunicularia) on DoD installations in the western U.S., and to use stable isotopes, molecular genetics, radio telemetry, and light-level geolocators to quantify the importance of DoD lands to Burrowing Owl populations, identify where owls breed and spend the winter, and quantify land-use of migrating and wintering owls in the region.  This project was designed to investigate possible causes of population declines that had not previously been researched and/or where large gaps in the data existed.  A partner-oriented, full life-cycle project spanning the entire range of the Western Burrowing Owl was unprecedented prior to this project.
Forty-three partners from Canada (12), the United States (25) and Mexico (6), plus 26 individual biologists and 39 additional DoD installations, participated in the project. These partners, representing state and federal agencies, universities, and non-governmental organizations, contributed more than $3.5 million in monetary and in-kind support. The project spanned 11 Bird Conservation Regions and included 40 DoD installations and 20 non-DoD locations in 10 western states, plus at least 14 sites in Canada and Mexico.  The international flavor of Burrowing Owls and this project was demonstrated by a female owl with an active nest banded on a military base in southern Arizona. The nest was predated one night and the adult owl was missing. Amazingly, the bird re-sighted less than a month later in southern Alberta, Canada, and was again on an active nest. Owl movements of this magnitude within the breeding season were a previously unknown occurrence.
The information collected through this study has led to several published documents, including Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard protocols and a Management Plan for the Western Burrowing Owl on at least one Air Force base.  Some results of this study were published in the book Raptors of New Mexico by Jean Luc Catron.  In addition, the information gathered from this study has been used to generate Burrowing Owl survey and mitigation practices for the states of Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.
The project has resulted in 16 peer reviewed publications,  4 graduate theses, 19 technical reports, 15 technical products to DoD, 8 popular articles and press, 57 technical presentations, 17 awards given to graduate students working on the project and at least 40 biologists trained and 21 sub-permitted to band Burrowing Owls.  The Desert Southwest Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit classified this project as a Flagship Project due to its geographic scope, the full life-cycle focus and the number of participants and partners.

Photo: Burrowing Owl on Kirtland AFB. Photo by Envirological Services, Inc.

Pantex Plant Migratory Bird Program
Lead Agency: The Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration

The Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant and co-applicant initiated, and continue to build, a migratory bird program at the Pantex Plant located in the Texas Panhandle.  The components of this program include research, management, and outreach, and represent a significant pattern and effort for defining a migratory bird program and elevating it to a level beyond agency mandates.  Program accomplishments represent a renewed site leadership commitment in the realm of migratory bird conservation.  The work demonstrates the Pantex Plant’s initiative and credibility pertaining to the conservation of migratory birds and habitat.  The research and protection projects are the result of program initiatives and are in the forefront of regional conservation efforts.

Research
Migratory bird research has included work on purple martins, effects of wind turbines on migratory birds, and on burrowing owls and other birds that utilize prairie dog colonies.  Findings have been incorporated into management plans, specifically, the pretreatment surveys for wintering and nesting owls prior to control of prairie dog towns as prescribed in the Management Plan for Prairie Dogs and Western Burrowing Owls.  Since 2001, approximately 9,000 nestling purple martins have been banded, furthering the information base on the western periphery of their range.  Finally, a comprehensive literature review of the impacts of wind energy on wildlife has been developed and shared with Federal and state natural resource agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’s Region Two Office.

Management

A significant accomplishment under the NEPA review process involved the installation of raptor protection on new utility poles at the Pantex Plant.  In 2008, protective devices were installed on approximately 500 new electric poles.  The devices, which are made of plastic, provide a perch of protective insulation on one of two closely situated electric lines on the new poles.  Approximately 20 miles of lines now have these protective devices.  To ensure that any grassland or habitat restoration truly qualifies as prairie restoration for maximum benefit to grassland migratory birds, grass seeding procedures were reviewed and revised in 2008. Now, when grasses are planted, the Plant’s native prairie restoration program uses appropriate prairie seeding mixtures for the specific soil type at the site.

The Department of Defense 2013 recipient of the Presidential Migratory Bird Federal Stewardship Award Migratory Linkages of Burrowing Owls on Department of Defense Installations and Adjacent Lands project

Burrowing Owl on Kirtland AFB.
Photo by Envirological Services

Bureau of Land Management Receives 2012 Presidential Migratory Bird Federal Stewardship Award Restore New Mexico

Mike J Johnson presents Presidential Award to Mike Pool (Deputy Director BLM) photo credit Raymond King

2011 Presidential Migratory Bird Federal Stewardship Award presented to Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement for their leadership in forming the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative.