Assessing Microtopography with Drones Understanding the microtopography of Black Rail habitat is critical to the design and creation of new habitat for the species; a difference in just a few centimeters of water can determine whether a Black Rail will use a certain area or avoid it completely. Field work to characterize microtopography and [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
The ACJV Management Board has made a strong commitment toward moving the needle on conservation for coastal marsh birds and their habitat. To demonstrate this commitment, they have developed and approved the first ever ACJV funding instrument to support high-priority ACJV projects. This instrument allows JV staff to bring projects before the Board for funding [...]
Craig Watson, ACJV Assistant Coordinator and Piping Plover Finder! For the second winter Craig Watson, ACJV Assistant Coordinator and Caleb Spiegel USFWS Region 5 Division of Migratory Birds, coordinated and carried out extensive surveys for Piping Plover and other shorebirds in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI). Craig and Caleb partnered with [...]
The ACJV and partners (Black Duck Joint Venture [BDJV], Ducks Unlimited [DU] and University of Massachusetts) with funding from the Chesapeake Bay Trust recently completed a Decision Support Tool (DST) to help guide conservation efforts for Black Duck. The DST identifies watersheds that do not have enough food energy to support population goals of Black [...]
ACJV Boosts Staff Capacity with USFWS Fellows Over the summer of 2016, the ACJV took advantage of the relatively new “Directorate Fellows Program” (DFP), which offers students a paid internship with the USFWS for eleven weeks to work on specific projects. Melissa Althouse, a graduate student at SUNY-ESF who was about to finish her [...]
Working with Ducks Unlimited, the Black Duck Joint Venture, universities, and state wildlife agencies, the ACJV has mapped the best places to protect, restore, and enhance habitat to support Black Duck population goals in Chesapeake Bay. Read the full report.
Researchers from the University of Maine Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology and the USGS Cooperative Wildlife Research Units at the University of Maine and the West Virginia University recently finished the field work on an investigation of bird distributions in the Northern Forest region of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The Northeast Region [...]
Flight. Photo courtesy of SCBI For decades, South Carolina was a homestead for vibrant populations of bobwhite quail. Most baby boomers remember hearing the telltale whistle in rural patches of land and seeing coveys flush from roadsides and fence rows on every outing. Changes in land use, however, diminished these once healthy populations [...]