Author: Elva Manquera

The Population and habitat objectives for landbirds in prairie, oak, and riparian habitats of western Oregon and Washington plan are intended to complement the goals, objectives, and strategies in several other planning and conservation processes and initiatives by filling a niche that is usually absent in those efforts: quantitative, prescriptive recommendations for habitat conditions most suitable for individual and suites of landbird species at several geographic scales (e.g., regional, subregional, site). The use and implementation of these recommendations can be done independently for landbird-specific conservation, or complementarily within the context of broader conservation goals to support and strengthen other plans.

Examples of other efforts that apply to multiple ecoregions within this document include:

• Partners in Flight North American Landbird Conservation Plan (Rich et al. 2004) and the updated Partners in Flight Landbird Conservation Plan (Rosenberg et al. 2016).
• PIF landbird conservation plans for Washington and Oregon that use focal species to emphasize conservation of important components of the habitat type (e.g., Altman 2000).
• The Nature Conservancy’s Willamette Valley, Puget Trough, and Georgia Basin Ecoregional Assessment (Floberg et al. 2004) and Klamath Mountains Ecoregional Conservation Assessment (Vander Schaaf et al. 2004), which established biological objectives for imperiled species, communities, and ecological systems. It also provides a portfolio of finer-scaled, spatially explicit priority conservation areas, although for broader conservation goals than landbirds alone.
• Species prioritization in various plans and strategies of partners in bird conservation including USFWS Birds of Conservation Concern (USFWS 2021), and state wildlife agencies’ Species of Greatest Conservation Need (WDFW 2015, ODFW 2016).
  • Oregon Conservation Strategy
  • Washington Conservation Strategy
• A more spatially explicit aspect of landbird conservation has been partially addressed by the Important Bird Areas program of State Audubon chapters
  • Washington: audubon.org/conservation/important-bird-areas
• The Land Manager’s Guide to Bird Habitat and Populations in Oak Ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest (Altman and Stephens 2012) is intended to provide land managers with information on oak-associated bird species’ population status, distribution, density, habitat needs, and potential responses to restoration actions, in order to facilitate sound decisions to support oak bird conservation.
• OakBirdPop serves as an interactive supplement to the above guide (Altman et al. 2017b). It is an online tool to inform the planning and implementation of oak habitat management and restoration actions and to help assess the projected population response of 31 oak-associated bird species to oak habitat changes.
• Prairie, Oaks, and People: a conservation business plan to revitalize the prairie-oak habitats of the Pacific Northwest (Altman et al. 2017a) seeks to create the economic, social, and political climate to fund and support the interventions necessary to preserve and enhance prairie-oak habitat and the species that rely on it throughout the Pacific Northwest for the use and enjoyment of future generations. With this overarching strategic framework, the business plan presents the case for a 10- to 15-year investment strategy for prairie-oak conservation.
• S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s draft Recovery Plan for the Streaked Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris strigata) includes specific goals, objectives, and criteria that should be met to remove the species from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife (USFWS 2019).

Puget Lowlands Ecoregion Specific:

• Habitat and population objectives for landbirds in priority upland and riparian habitats in the Puget Lowlands ecoregion (Altman 2010) provide quantitative habitat and population objectives for this geography.

Willamette Valley Ecoregion Specific:

• The Willamette Valley Conservation Study: Strategic Habitat Conservation in Oregon’s Willamette Valley (USFWS 2017), in which the USFWS under the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative is identifying spatially explicit Priority Conservation Areas using data from birds and other taxa to meet regional population objectives for imperiled wildlife.
• The Willamette Valley Oak and Prairie Cooperative Strategic Action Plan (WVOPC 2020) describes steps to achieve a long-term vision to conserve and maintain prairie and oak habitats within the Willamette Valley ecoregion through a regionally-focused, collaborative, and sustainable program.
• The Intertwine Alliance Oak and Prairie Working Group Strategic Action Plan (Intertwine Alliance 2018) serves as a guide to address the need for better science, stewardship, restoration, and education to improve the ecological future of oak and prairie habitats in the greater Portland-Vancouver, WA, region.

Klamath Mountain Ecoregion:

• Restoring Oak Habitats in Southern Oregon and Northern California: A Guide for Private Landowners aims to provide easily digestible guidelines for landowners to apply best conservation practices for oak habitats on their private lands, and to direct conservation-minded landowners to supplemental resources (KBO and LRP 2020).
• The Klamath Siskiyou Oak Network Strategic Conservation Action Plan serves as a road map for achieving continued and accelerated oak woodland conservation on private and public lands in southern Oregon and northern California for the benefit of all native species associated with deciduous oak ecosystems (Alexander et al. 2020). There is a companion summary available that introduces the fundamentals of the plan and describes and summarizes the major components, identifying how the plan can be used to implement oak woodland conservation strategies in an adaptive management framework.
• The Riparian Bird Conservation Plan: A strategy for reversing the decline of riparian-associated birds in California is focused on California, but many elements are also applicable to the Klamath Mountains ecoregion (RHJV 2004).