-
·
Regional Shorebird Surveys Provide a Look at Changing Habitat Around the West
Guest Article by Max Malmquist, Saline Lakes Outreach Associate, National Audubon Society, and Blake Barbaree, Senior Waterbird Ecologist, Point Blue Conservation Science This past August, hundreds of volunteers, non-profit biologists, and state and federal agency staff grabbed their binoculars, spotting scopes, and bird identification guides to do something that hadn’t been done in almost…
-
·
Sagebrush Conservation Design Released
September 22, 2022 This week the U.S. Geological Survey and other federal agencies released a report showing a staggering 1.3 million acres of sagebrush habitat are being lost annually. Called “A Sagebrush Conservation Design Framework to Proactively Restore America’s Sagebrush Biome,” this new body of science uses some of the latest mapping tools to identify…
-
·
Intermountain Insights: Wetland Loss in the Pacific Flyway
A study from the Intermountain West Joint Venture and partners, Functional wetland loss drives emerging risks to waterbird migration networks, identified trends of severe wetland drying in the Southern Oregon Northeastern California (SONEC) region and California’s Central Valley, two of the most significant sites for migratory waterbirds in the Pacific Flyway. The good news? Managers can…
-
·
The Solution Seekers: Conservation in the Middle Rio Grande
The water crisis in New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande Valley is a microcosm of long-term drought playing out across the West. So, too, are the ways in which people are coming together to meet conservation challenges head-on. Climate change means New Mexico and much of the West face a drier and hotter future. Increasingly scarce…
-
·
Intermountain Insights: White-Faced Ibis and Water in the West
This Intermountain Insights takes a look at a fascinating study on white-faced ibis and its implications for the conservation of wetlands in the Intermountain West. Researchers from the University of Montana and the Intermountain West Joint Venture conducted the first-ever long-term monitoring of white-faced ibis breeding habitat. Using satellite imagery, they estimated seasonal flooding across…
-
·
Science to Action: Takeaways from IWJV’s “Storing Carbon in Sagebrush Rangelands” Report
Carbon sequestration is a topic circulating widely throughout the conservation community. Rangelands are coming into the carbon spotlight due to their sweeping extent and because they store relatively more carbon in soils than forests. The importance of keeping carbon out of the atmosphere is widely understood, but breaking down knowledge on how to protect carbon already stored…
-
·
Conifer Removal Restores Human and Wildlife Community Health
Shane Boren is a farmer and rancher in east-central Nevada from a small community near the town of Ely. He works for the region’s power company, volunteers with the area’s conservation district, and recently retired from the county game board after 20 years. He guided hunters and does some trapping. On top of that, he…
-
·
Intermountain Insights: The Call of the Cranes
Greater sandhill cranes rely on wetland habitat on private and public land throughout the West as they migrate to and from wintering and breeding grounds each fall and spring. New science from the Intermountain West Joint Venture (IWJV) identifies the landscapes and wetland sites most important to sustaining these seasonal migrations. The paper, Migration efficiency…
-
·
Protecting Carbon Stored in Western Rangelands
Western rangelands and grasslands are being recognized for their ability to protect stored carbon long into the future. Rangelands are vast and store over 25% of carbon found in western ecosystems. As the climate warms and the west experiences more extreme weather events like drought and fire, as well as landscape-scale changes like conifer expansion…
-
·
Community Partnerships in Action: Southwest Montana
Collaboration in Sagebrush Country This story is by Sean Claffey, Southwest Montana Sagebrush Conservation Partnership Coordinator, and is part of a series highlighting local success stories and what made them possible. The Place The sagebrush steppe is a sometimes forgotten part of Montana when spectacular alpine peaks and deep forests dominate the skyline. Fortunately, the Southwest…
