EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This document has been prepared to stimulate and support a proactive approach to conservation of landbirds in coniferous forests of western Oregon and Washington. It represents the collective efforts of multiple agencies and organizations within the Oregon-Washington Chapter of Partners in Flight. Participants included biologists from Federal and State agencies, industry, private consulting firms, environmental organizations, and academia in order to ensure a full range of ideas, information flow, and practicalities.

Recommendations included in this document are intended to guide planning efforts and actions of land managers, direct expenditures of government and non-government organizations, and stimulate monitoring and research to support landbird conservation. The recommendations also are expected to be the foundation for developing detailed conservation strategies at multiple geographic scales to ensure functional ecosystems with healthy populations of landbirds.

Background

The temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest support the highest abundances of birds of any coniferous forest system in North America. Non-game landbirds comprise the largest portion of this bird community, but have been under-represented in resource management plans. Some of the habitat supporting these birds has been lost to permanent development, and most of that still available is regularly altered by land management oriented primarily toward timber production and harvest. Many bird species are experiencing population declines or instability, and many have unknown reactions to alterations of their habitat. In coniferous forests of western Oregon and Washington, 30 species have significant recent (1980-1996) and/or long-term (1966-1996) declining trends based on Breeding Bird Survey data, while only 14 species have significantly increasing trends.

Forest management practices over the last 50 years have included fire suppression, disease control, salvage logging, shorter rotations, clearcutting, slash burning, herbicide applications, and thinning. These practices have tended to reduce the range of variability present in natural forests, resulting in decreased structural diversity. Recent forest management practices have changed, particularly on federal lands, with an emphasis on "ecosystem management" in which maintaining ecological values and functions is integrated with sustainable commodity production. Management prescriptions that increase stand structural diversity are being implemented, including green tree and snag retention, enhancing late-successional characteristics in stands, and group selection cuts that create different sizes of patches and gaps. Implementation of these new management prescriptions coupled with long-term species declines emphasizes the need to develop conservation strategies for maintaining functional ecosystems for landbirds.

Conceptual Approach

The overall goal of Partners In Flight Bird Conservation Planning is to ensure long-term maintenance of healthy populations of native landbirds. This document is intended to facilitate that goal in coniferous forests of western Oregon and Washington by:

# identifying forest conditions and habitat attributes important to the landbird community,

# describing the desired forest landscape based on habitat relationships of a select group of species,

# providing interim management targets (i.e., biological objectives) to achieve desired conditions, and

# recommending management actions (i.e., conservation options) that can be implemented by various entities at multiple scales to achieve the biological objectives.

Implementation of parts or all of the strategy should help prevent reactionary approaches typically needed to address listed species issues. When this ecosystem-driven conservation strategy is fully implemented at large geographic scales, the aggregated effect will be the creation of landscapes that should function to conserve landbird communities.

Conservation Strategy

Our strategy for achieving functioning ecosystems for landbirds is described through the habitat requirements of 20 "focal species". By managing for a group of species representative of important components in a functioning coniferous forest ecosystem, many other species and elements of biodiversity also will be conserved. The following focal species were selected based on their conservation need, and/or degree of association with important habitat attributes in coniferous forests of western Oregon and Washington:

Forest Condition	Habitat Attribute	Focal Species
Old-growth	Large snags	Vaux's swift**
Old-growth/Mature	Large trees	Brown creeper*
Old-growth/Mature	Conifer cones	Red crossbill
Mature	Large snags	Pileated woodpecker
Mature	Mid-story tree layers	Varied thrush**
Mature/Young	Closed canopy	Hermit warbler
Mature/Young	Deciduous canopy trees	Pacific-slope flycatcher*
Mature/Young	Open mid-story	Hammond's flycatcher
Mature/Young	Deciduous understory	Wilson's warbler*
Mature/Young	Forest floor complexity	Winter wren*
Young/Pole	Deciduous canopy trees	Black-throated gray warbler
Pole	Deciduous subcanopy/understory	Hutton's vireo
Early-seral	Residual canopy trees	Olive-sided flycatcher**
Early-seral	Snags	Western bluebird*
Early-seral	Deciduous vegetation	Orange-crowned warbler*
Early-seral	Nectar-producing plants	Rufous hummingbird**
Unique	Mineral springs	Band-tailed pigeon*
Unique	Alpine	American pipit
Unique	Waterfalls	Black swift
Unique	Montane wet meadows	Lincoln's sparrow

* significantly declining population trends in Southern Pacific Rainforest or Cascade Mountains physiographic areas

** significantly declining population trends in Southern Pacific Rainforest and Cascade Mountains physiographic areas

Based on the habitat relationships of these species, biological objectives are recommended and management actions (i.e., conservation options) to achieve them are identified. Simply stated, biological objectives are "what we think the birds need." They are not regulatory, nor do they represent the policies of any agency or organization. Biological objectives provide a management target for planning and implementation, and a benchmark for measuring success. Because data are limited for many species, biological objectives often are based on some assumptions. These are stated as such, and are considered to be testable hypotheses for research.

Biological objectives may include stand- and/or landscape-level habitat objectives, and population objectives for trends, density, or distribution of focal species. Habitat objectives are derived from current knowledge and professional judgement about bird-habitat relationships (see Table 5 for a summary). Population objectives are primarily trend and abundance objectives for declining focal species, and density or distribution objectives for a few species. Additionally, forest condition habitat objectives are included for physiographic subprovinces.

The document emphasizes conservation efforts in areas where each species' abundance is greatest and presumably habitat is most suitable. To facilitate this at a regional scale, recommended management is prioritized for focal species and their associated habitat attributes by forest type, physiographic province, and elevation where appropriate (see Table 4 for a summary). Highest priorities include two forest types and three coastal physiographic regions:

High Priority Forest Types

# low elevation Western Hemlock/Western Redcedar

# mixed-conifer forest in southwestern Oregon

High Priority Physiographic Regions

# Klamath Mountains

# Oregon Coast Range

# Olympic Peninsula

Implementation

Maintaining healthy landbird populations in coniferous forests of western Oregon and Washington will require conservation actions that are:

# designed to meet habitat requirements of multiple species,

# implemented at several geographic and ecological levels, and

# coordinated among various landowners and land management agencies to ensure that sufficient amounts and conditions of different habitats are maintained across the landscape.

Implementation will require careful consideration of options to maximize conservation efforts, and the integration of diverse values and goals of land owners/managers with that of bird conservation. Implementation also will require a broad range of partnerships, extensive cooperation, and considerable financial resources. To be successful, participation will not only include land owners and managers, but also increased public awareness, commitment, and political support.

This conservation strategy has been designed for participation at any level. This includes directing management actions for small landowners to provide habitat for a single species (e.g., managing for deciduous canopy trees and black-throated gray warblers in small stands), and as the foundation for comprehensive, integrated complex multi-agency/organization, multi-species conservation within large-scale management units (e.g., watersheds, land management districts, physiographic regions). At smaller scales, management actions should be based on site-specific conditions, and fit into the context of conservation across the landscape or region. At larger scales, management should emphasize functioning ecosystems with adequate representation of appropriate habitat attributes to support the entire landbird community.

The strategy has broad applicability to many other conservation planning efforts. Information presented in this document can be used in development of site-specific conservation plans such as State and private Habitat Conservation Plans, agency and inter-agency Management Plans, and local land-use planning strategies. Conversely, areas designated for conservation or management in other land management plans (e.g., Northwest Forest Plan) should be evaluated for potential support of landbird conservation as recommended in this document.

Adaptive Management

All conservation actions implemented on the basis of recommendations described in this document should include a monitoring and/or research component. This will be necessary not only to test the effectiveness of management actions, but also to evaluate assumptions upon which many of the biological objectives are based. The direct outgrowth of monitoring and research conducted as part of this strategy will be adaptive management. Monitoring and research are an integral part of the adaptive management component of this document, and will function to increase our knowledge base and provide scientific data to revise biological objectives as necessary.

The Future

This document is the first version of what is intended to be a "dynamic" process with continual revisions and expansions as new information becomes available. Future versions will likely include an expansion of the number of species addressed, and additional habitat and population objectives. Ultimately, we envision designated Landbird Conservation Areas identified on the regional landscape where integrated conservation for multiple species is being implemented as part of ecosystem management.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to extend appreciation and thanks to the many individuals who contributed their time and expertise in the development of this plan. I especially thank members of the Management Committee of the Oregon-Washington Partners in Flight chapter who directed and provided oversight for all aspects of plan development. Funding was provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon State Office and Regional Office in Portland, and by the American Bird Conservancy through a grant from the Packard Foundation. Jenny Valdivia prepared the artwork.