Impoundment and High Marsh Mapping Projects Will Help Identify New Black Rail Habitat Opportunities Close up of Black Rail habitat. Craig Watson Black Rails require specific habitat conditions that include very shallow water and dense vegetation. These conditions are found in the highest and driest portion of the salt marsh (‘high marsh’) and [...]
ACJV Workshop Charts a Path Forward for Black Rails Black Rail. Sergio Bitran In late October, partners from across the Joint Venture convened in Charleston, South Carolina, to begin developing the first components of the ACJV Black Rail Conservation Action Plan. The Plan will lay out a series of high-priority actions needed to [...]
BLRA Pilot Projects Black Rail. Bob Gress Hiding deep in the marsh, inaccessible to even the most dedicated birders and researchers, Black Rails have kept much of their ecology a secret for centuries. Now the species is facing alarming declines and solutions are urgently needed to stabilize the population. Given how little is [...]
Black Rail Adaptive Management Project The ACJV, in partnership with USGS, recently secured a 3-year grant to develop an Adaptive Management (AM) Framework for Black Rail. This project was born out of the urgent need to learn quickly about which management strategies work better than others at creating suitable habitat for Black Rail. Through the [...]
Habitat Tool Prioritizes Saltmarsh Sparrow Habitat The ACJV has adopted a long-term population objective of sustaining 25,000 breeding Saltmarsh Sparrows. To achieve this objective, we must first identify where the highest-priority habitat exists to support the population. To this end, the Saltmarsh Sparrow Working Group has developed a Habitat Prioritization Tool to identify the most [...]
Black Duck Decision Support Tool Helps Target Conservation Action The American Black Duck was once the most abundant dabbling duck in eastern North America. Black duck populations began declining steadily in the 1950s and reached an all-time low by the 1980s, having lost more than half of their historical population. Populations have stabilized since then, [...]
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Includes Black Duck Priorities in Chesapeake Bay Strategic Plan The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) partnered with the ACJV to identify restoration and enhancement priorities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed that meet both water quality and American Black Duck habitat goals. Through the Black Duck Decision Support Tool, the [...]
Salt Marsh Bird Conservation Business Plan for the Atlantic Coast At a 2014 Partners in Flight meeting in Virginia Beach, a group of bird conservation partners from the Atlantic and Gulf coast began to develop a conservation business plan for tidal marsh birds. That planning process identified a suite of highest-priority bird species, which included [...]
Eastern Black Rail Listing Update In October, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) announced their proposal to list the Eastern Black Rail subspecies as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). After a review of the best available information, the Service determined the subspecies meets the definition of threatened because it is likely to [...]
Saltmarsh Sparrow in the New York Times Saltmarsh Sparrows nest in high marsh grasses just above the mean high tide line. They have naturally adapted to occasional flooding events; eggs can survive short periods of inundation and young birds often climb to safety in the grass above the nest. However, more than a foot of [...]