This project will determine state level responsibility for the conservation of tidal marsh bird species and provide the baseline for long-term monitoring of the entire tidal marsh bird community along the Atlantic coastline from Virginia to Maine (Bird Conservation Region 30). This unique biological community is important on a global scale, is under imminent threat of loss or severe degradation, and its unique characteristics present management challenges necessitating large-scale, collaborative conservation action. The eastern North American shoreline possesses the highest level of vertebrate biodiversity and endemism of any tidal marsh region worldwide. This project focuses on the tidal marshes from New Jersey to Virginia and complements existing and ongoing surveys and research being conducted from NY – ME. Tidal marshes are key habitat for Species of Greatest Conservation Need in State Wildlife Action Plans and surveys to identify focal areas within each state are a priority conservation need. To address these information needs, the primary objectives of this project are to identify regional population centers for tidal marsh birds within BCR 30 and provide all states in BCR 30 with a detailed description of their regional responsibility for tidal marsh bird species. This will require new tidal marsh bird surveys in areas that lack extensive survey work (NJ – VA) which will be combined with existing data from NY – ME to provide region-wide products that can be used to identify the relative importance of each state for the conservation of tidal marsh breeding birds.  For more information about tidal marsh bird research, visit the Saltmarsh Habitat and Avian Research Program (SHARP).

UPDATE (February 2012)

We designed, organized, and implemented the first field season of the BCR 30 / USFWS Region 5 tidal marsh bird surveys.  This included hiring a graduate student to oversee the survey effort, hiring and training field survey technicians, working in partnership with co-collaborators from SHARP, drafting field protocols, and implementing the survey.  From January – April we met with state, federal, and NGO partners to introduce the project, discuss logistics, and identify where effort or equipment could be shared.  We also completed the design of the sampling framework that is based on a two-stage cluster sample with the National Secretive Marsh Bird Monitoring hexagons as the primary sampling units (PSU) and points randomly located within each PSU.  We generated field maps for each selected hexagon and presented these maps along with a complete explanation of the design to all state, federal, and NGO partners.  We initiated field surveys in VA on 15 April 2011 and from MD north on 1 May 2011.  Collectively, the SHARP technicians and partners survey 1,347 sampling locations from ME – VA.  Presently, we are organizing and QA/QCing the data from both the survey effort and the demographic studies.  We were invited to participate on the steering committee of the North American Marsh Bird Conservation and Management workshop in December, 2011. Here we gave a presentation on SHARP and chaired two breakout groups.  The products of the meeting will include a business plan with a detailed prospectus for the most urgent conservation needs of marsh birds. We submitted an abstract for the Northeast Fish and Wildlife Conference in April 2012.