Coastal habitat in Delaware. Photo courtesy of Kevin Kalasz Twenty-three North American Wetland Conservation Act grants and eleven National Coastal Wetland Conservation Grants were awarded in the ACJV in fiscal year 2015. Partners were awarded nearly $23 million grant dollars, matched by over $32.3 million dollars helping to protect, restore, and enhance 43,000 [...]
Wayne MacCallum, Director of Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife, retired in February. Wayne served on the ACJV Management Board since it's inception in 1988 and has been a strong advocate for the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA). He served as chairperson of the NAWCA council, which has been responsible for millions of dollars [...]
Mark Spinks, a natural resource technician with the SCDNR Coastal Seabird and Shorebird Program, builds barn owl nests to attract the species to the area. Photo courtesy of SCDNR Because one S.C. Department of Natural Resources (DNR) employee decided to invest his time and talent, barn owls on the South Carolina coast are [...]
Great Blue Heron are just one of many species that benefit from the IWMM program. Photo courtesy of William Majoros Integrated Waterbird Management and Monitoring (IWMM) is a unique approach designed to help individuals and organizations that manage habitats for waterbirds. This cross-programmatic effort provides a standardized protocol and database for monitoring waterbirds [...]
Black Rail is the smallest and rarest of the North American rails. Photo courtesy of Mike Legare/USFWS The Black Rail is the smallest and rarest of the North American rails. This elusive species has a striking appearance with its dark body and bright red iris, and of the five subspecies of Black Rail, [...]
South Carolina Department of Natural resources is celebrating a successful nesting season for seabirds and shorebirds. The beaches that are critical for these nesting seabirds are also places were people enjoy recreational activities. To allow the birds to nest and raise their chicks undisturbed, portions of several of the islands were closed temporarily to provide [...]
Birds face many threats related to humans, including predation by petcats, and collisions with buildings, towers and automobiles. Experts estimate that the greatest source of mortality in human-dominated landscapes is bird-window collisions (BWCs). Sheet glass placed in the exterior walls of buildings represents an invisible barrier to bird flight, and collisions occur as birds attempt [...]
The Swallow-tailed Kite (STKI) Alliance met in mid-September to discuss priorities for management and conservation of STKIs and the tentative results of a recent range-wide survey in the United States. Topics discussed included: habitat modeling; predation; best management practices; conservation partnerships and the importance of private lands to the conservation efforts for STKI; managing kites [...]
The Joint Northeast/Southeast Partners in Flight conference was October 6-9 in Virginia Beach and provided a valuable forum for bird conservationists, managers, and researchers across the Eastern U.S. to gather in person, share information, and develop collaborative strategies for addressing high priority threats. The conference was attended by over 150 people, representing almost 60 different [...]
Beaches, along with the accompanying dunes and shoreface environments were established after stabilization of sea level less than 7,000 years ago. The coastal dunes behind beaches and the shoreface regime seaward of the beach are tied together as a beach system with each of these features having unique differences. However, the exchange of sand between [...]