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Praire Birds in Peril: Nature Conservancy launches major effort to protect prairie bird habitat
 Mountain plovers are on the decline in MT |
The Nature Conservancy today announced the creation of Prairie Wings, a major initiative to protect the imperiled grassland birds of the central United States, south central Canada and north-central Mexico.
Grassland birds have shown steeper, more consistent and more geographically widespread declines than any other group of vertebrate animals in North America.
Of the species surveyed, nearly 70 percent are in decline, and an "Unlucky 13" were
named by The Nature Conservancy as targets for this new conservation program.
The "Unlucky 13" include nine species that are found in Montana's grasslands: mountain plover, long-billed curlew, burrowing owl, lark bunting, Baird's sparrow, Sprague's pipit, McCown's longspur, chestnut-collared longspur and ferruginous hawk.
Of these species, the mountain plover has shown the most precipitous decline in Montana, according to scientists who study the bird.
These prairie birds are in a "state of peril," said Bob McCready, director of Prairie Wings. "The declining populations of prairie birds are a direct result of the declining quantity and quality of prairie habitat."
Approximately 80 percent of the continent's shortgrass prairie and more than 60 percent of the mixed-grass prairie has been lost to cropland and urban and industrial development, said Brian Martin, director of stewardship and Great Plains project manager for the Nature Conservancy of Montana. These prairies are home to 330 species of breeding birds, nearly three quarters of the breeding bird species in the United States.
In Montana, the loss of prairie habitat has been significant. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1.1 million acres of Montana grasslands have been converted to other uses since 1982.
Fortunately, Montana still retains some of the largest expanses of mixed-grass prairie in North America, thanks to some of the many ranching families who have kept vast areas of native grasslands intact, said Martin.
An important way to conserve Montana prairies is to help good ranching stewards stay on the land, said Jamie Williams, state director of the Conservancy in Montana. "Our goal is to learn how to develop conservation strategies that support the needs of working ranching families," he said.
To this end, the Conservancy purchased the 60,000-acre Matador Ranch in Phillips County in partnership with an eastern Montana ranching family. The dual goals at the ranch, said Williams, are to manage an economically productive livestock operation and maintain prairie habitat.
The ranch provides short vegetation habitat for a variety of prairie species, including mountain plovers, burrowing owls, ferruginous hawks, Sprague's pipits, chestnut-collared and McCown's longspurs, and long-billed curlews. Historically prairie dogs and bison helped create this habitat. Ironically, efforts to improve grassland production through reduced grazing and prairie dog control have reduced habitat for many of these bird species, said Martin.
Blaine and Phillips counties, which still have populations of prairie dogs, are main areas of habitat for mountain plovers, said Craig Knowles, a wildlife consultant who has conducted annual surveys of mountain plovers around the state since 1991. In the 1990s, when plague decimated the populations of black-tailed prairie dogs, the plovers showed a proportional decline, he said.
"Mountain plovers are definitely in decline in Montana. I'm very discouraged," said Knowles.
In central Montana, said Knowles, the plover's decline has been gradual and directly related to the conversion of grasslands to croplands, a process encouraged by the Conservation Reserve Program and other federal farm programs. He said about 13 percent of the study area has been cultivated since 1991. "A lot of those sites were formerly used by mountain plovers. Once the sites were cultivated, the plovers abandoned them," he said.
In southwestern Montana, there are remnant populations of mountain plovers, generally in grasslands in flat valley bottoms where the vegetation is sparse. But the prairie dogs are gone in most places, so mountain plovers "are not a viable species there," said Knowles.
On a positive note, Montana's populations of ferruginous hawks and long-billed curlews may be stable. Knowles said he sees lots curlews and ferruginous hawks in eastern Montana. But while the number of curlews seems to be constant in his survey areas, his survey of ferruginous hawks found fewer nests in 1998 than the number reported in 1990.
Elsewhere in the Great Plains, however, these species have been on the decline for decades.
The Baird's sparrow and Sprague's pipit, also on the list, are on a long-term decline in Montana, said Martin. These and other species that prefer tall- and mixed-grass prairie are the focus of conservation work at the Conservancy's 1,130-acre Comertown Prairie Preserve, northeast of Plentywood, where wetlands and prairie offer abundant mixed-grass habitat.
Nationally, the decline of Baird's sparrow habitat is estimated to be greater than 90 percent, primarily due to conversion of native prairie to cropland and degradation of habitat, said Martin.
Prairie Wings will work to identify, protect, manage and restore prairie bird habitat across their entire range. The program, part of the Conservancy's Wings of the Americas initiative, will focus its efforts on the threatened habitats of those birds listed as the "Unlucky 13."
The Conservancy selected the 13 species not only based on their conservation status, but also for their role as indicators of overall prairie health.
"We need to keep these and other birds on the radar screen," said Martin.
Protecting the future of these birds in Montana requires "that we work with ranchers to develop habitat management and conservation strategies that are compatible with agriculture," said Martin.
