Partners In Flight
Implementation Committee
14-15 March 2005
Patuxent Research Refuge, Laurel MD
MONDAY, 14 March
Welcome to National Wildlife Visitor Center / Patuxent Research Refuge – Brad Knudsen, Refuge Manager
· Patuxent Research Refuge and National Wildlife Visitor Center is the largest environmental education center in Dept of Interior, and supports USGS research.
· Interactive exhibits within the Visitor Center focus on global environmental issues, migratory bird routes, wildlife habitats, and endangered species recovery efforts. Surrounding forests, lakes and trails provide opportunities for wildlife-orientated recreation, educational programs and group tours.
· The Refuge was established in 1936 with 2300 acres. Current size of 12,750 acres is an artifact of transfers from other federal agencies. In conjunction with Ft. Meade and the USDA Research Center, a total of 25,000 acres make up open and green space within the heart of the Baltimore-Washington corridor, called the corridor’s green “hearts and lungs” by Sen. Paul Sarbanes (MD).
· Refuge staff is comprised of 20 to 24 people.
Mesoamerican PIF Network – José Manuel Zolotoff-Pallais
· José Manuel outlined the Bird Conservation needs of PIF Mesoamerica (Compañeros en Vuelo Mesoamérica).
· This working group is made up of a number of partners throughout Mesoamerica. These include non-governmental organizations, universities, and government agencies, such as Fundación Cocibolca, Fundación Amigos del Rio San Juan (FUNDAR), Asociación Ornithológica de Costa Rica (AOCR), Alianza para las Areas Silvestres (ALAS), El Centro de Estudios y Acción Social Panameño (CEASPA), Fundación Ecologica de el Salvador (SalvaNATURA), Sociedad Audubon de Panamá, Sociedad Guatemalteca de Ornithológica (SGO), Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (MARENA), Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de Honduras (UNAH), and others.
· A meeting, “Strengthening the Partners in Flight Mesoamerica Group”, was held in Managua, Nicaragua, November 17, 2004, in conjunction with the Congreso de la Sociedad Mesoamericana para la Biología y la Conservación.
· The general objectives of PIF Mesoamerica are to contribute to the conservation of Mesoamerican avifauna through the different activities of the Mesoamerican member and to establish a bridge of mutual cooperation with the different institutions in North America. Specifically the group wishes to establish a regional working network through the formation of national groups to open a North-South channel of communication for the dissemination of technology and knowledge of birds and activities related to their conservation. Design a training program directed at strengthening current efforts in bird conservation. Promote the development of bi-national and/or regional bird conservation projects.
· José Manuel serves as the PIF Mesoamerican Regional Coordinator and each country has a national coordinator. Belize recently lost its coordinator, but TNC has picked up this role. Costa Rica is interested in joining the group. Working since 1999, list by country after achievements slide. All work and participation is on a voluntary basis and that sometimes makes it difficult to achieve results.
· Regional needs—each national group in communication with their NGOs and other groups within their own country developed lists of regional and national needs.
o Need to secure continued funding for La Tangara (www.latangara.org).
§ Usage: more than 1300 subscribers spanning 22 countries in America and Europe.
§ Costs about $10,000 US to produce each year and until last year it was funded by NFWF. Currently submitted a proposal submitted to Neotrop Act. Park Flight is currently supporting maintenance of the web page.
§ List of groups supporting this: NFWF, ABC, USFS, USAID, Fundación Cocibolca
o MoSI program (Monitoreo de Sobrevivencia Invernal – Monitoring Overwintering Survival) -- wintering ground processes and survival rates appear to be the primary driving force for population declines of Nearctic-neotropical migratory birds. Paper in press linking MAPS, MoSI, and BBS data by Dave DeSante, Danielle Kaschube, and James Saracco.
§ On-going funding for station operation is a problem, not consistent, and the majority of stations are operated by volunteers.
§ Stations are in six regions throughout Mesoamerica: Pacific Lowland Mexico, Highland and Interior Mexico, Atlantic Lowland Mexico (including Atlantic lowlands of northern Central America), Lowland Central America (including Pacfic slope of Chiapas), Highland Central America, and the Caribbean.
§ Cost: $2,000-$8000 per station needed to keep monitoring stations operational. This year only received $300 USD per station.
o Important Bird Areas within each country are being planned and established with limited funding.
· National needs—each country completed a survey to determine needs by country. A general overview was presented and for a more detailed list with descriptions of needs and costs email José Manuel (zolotoff@ibw.com.ni). General categories include: monitoring/research, environmental education, technology development (database), community outreach, land acquisition, and national inquire (Important Bird Area assessment). Each country has divided needs by percentage into these categories. Majority of the countries had largest percentage of needs for monitoring/research.
· Continue to expand the PIF Mesoamerica working group to include all countries and organizations. “What is PIF Mesoamerica” draft document has been created but needs to be revised, and is under current review by the group (not yet available for general distribution). Need to move voluntary positions to permanent as a real need exists to cover these people’s expenses. Many grant sources are available to submit proposals for potential funding.
· There would be value in having another Partners in Flight Mesoamerica meeting at the next Congreso de la Sociedad Mesoamericana para la Biología y la Conservación, tentatively scheduled for late Nov/Dec 2005, in Honduras .
· Working to get efforts in Mexico aligned with Mesoamerica efforts; this could act as a bridge to the tri-national efforts.
· José Manuel will receive a PIF award for public awareness during the North American, for his editorship of La Tangara.
Adopt a MoSI site in Nicaragua – Tom Will
· Monitoreo de Sobreviviencia Invernal (MoSI), initiated by the Institute for Bird Populations (IBP), is a cooperative effort among agencies, organizations, and individual bird-banders in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean to operate a network of mist-netting stations to monitor habitat-specific overwintering survival rates for both migratory and resident land birds.
· Stations began operation in December 2002 and the network was expanded under a Neotropcial Migratory Bird Conservation Grant to IBP in 2003-2004. The grant was not renewed for 2004-2005, and many of the stations are struggling to stay operational.
· The objective of the presentation we saw today is to spread the word to local bird groups and other groups within the US to support/adopt a MoSI station. The presentation will be available for anyone to use and will have notes with each slide that can be tailored to the group you wish to present to.
· Will work best if a local group takes care of the within-country logistics and forms the direct link to the MoSI station—wish to avoid the complications of a formal network above the local-local contact so that funding for a station can be sustained independently of budget cycles of national groups.
· This presentation focuses on Bosawás, Nicaragua but 63 other stations exist throughout Mesoamerica. Nicaragua is a good place to start, largest extant of rainforest remaining in the Central America corridor.
o Currently 7 stations in place. Often associated with NGO’s with developed programs.
o New station planned for the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve. A river system, takes some effort to get there and set-up. Need a group to adopt, with the cost about $4-6,000 per year initially for this new station.
· Adoption idea (core of presentation): network is a key component, stations linked to one another and linked to North America.
o Idea to build personal friendships, no longer trap of annual grants.
o Trends to foster community outreach and education as well as practical scientific value and management actions.
o Opportunity for visits and encourages ecotourism infrastructure.
· Cost for a single station is approximately $2-3000 US. This amount pays for equipment, transportation, food, lodging, but does not cover salaries (3 ornithologists and 3 volunteers). Currently IBP is conducting all analysis but this should also be occurring in country.
· IBP has prioritized habitats where more stations are needed.
· Central American biologists are also interested in their own resident species, and many MoSI stations are already discussing how to expand coverage year-round rather than just focusing on the required 5 pulses during the long-distance migrant non-breeding season.
· Action: Tom to develop a one-page handout and refined presentation to be distributed widely. Include a sample budget, so groups know what they are funding.
State partnerships with Central America and Mexico – Brad Jacobs
The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) is looking into ways to partner internationally with Central American, Mexican, Caribbean and Canadian governments and organizations to develop a funding mechanism for Neotropical bird conservation projects. We propose to organize following the model of the Manitoba Prairie Parklands Program, where, project area partners are delivery agents for International and national partners who contribute funds that are matched up to four times before being allocated to the project area. We hope that other states will contribute funding to this broad collaborative effort, leveraging matching funds several times through the partnership. These funds would be targeted to projects that are matched to areas of linkage for breeding and non breeding ground by states or regions. States will be able to execute conservation actions during the eight months of the year when many migrant birds are not in the state where they raised their young.
Currently MDC is using local match dollars to solicit grant funding through the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act for project activities in both Mexico and Missouri. We are promoting the concept that local and state match generated in any part of a project area, which may be very large including both breeding and non breeding grounds, will go a long way to facilitate state involvement in bird conservation throughout the annual cycle. With the wintering ranges for the majority of long distance migrants being from Mexico to Colombia and the Caribbean, a region that is about one-eighth the size of the breeding ground, states, in concert with partners throughout North America and Latin America, can become more effective with scarce dollars. States can avail themselves of the organization and collaboration by bird conservationists in their countries to help focus on high priority projects that are equally important to migrant birds that will be returning to the breeding ground states.
We hope to present these concepts during the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies meeting in September 2005 and seek endorsement of the concept and assistance with developing the effort. We already have a preliminary list of projects for Central American countries as presented by Jose Zolotoff Pallais earlier in this meeting. With the initial project area needs by country available we can see where our state might want to partner on projects. With the help of Peter Blanchard of Ontario Canada, we will have maps of bird range linkages to help assess where we should focus our efforts that would be most meaningful to each state or perhaps Bird Conservation Region.
I am in the process of building a power point presentation that will hopefully better define the intent and direction we propose to take. We know this is not easy and strong justification is needed for state participation. We believe the efficacy of this approach will stand up with positive population and habitat conservation results.
· Action: Brad to present concept to IAFWA in September; needs to be made from a state, focus on the concept/idea and maps, prototype. Need a strategic document to outline what needs to be done and funding needs.
· Maps show where “our” birds are in the winter—a great tool and challenge to states as a prototype to follow.
· Potential action for the Science Committee: Pete’s maps for each state linking the state’s breeding species to the countries where they winter.
· Need to add the number of species flying south; comparison with duck funding.
· Shift thinking about what a state resource is; not just on the breeding grounds of your state. Have to think about the entire resource and where it winters.
· For the duck model, important to note that an infrastructure already exists where states give up control of funding with funds transferred to Ducks Unlimited. It matches NAWCA.
· Need to partner with bird conservation funding collation.
Brief Updates
Asilomar – Terry
- Asilomar proceedings are at the printer!!! Two volumes. Everyone who attended the conference will receive a copy.
- Next PIF Conference - perhaps 2008 so not to conflict with the 2006 NOC. Possibly back in Estes Park, pending local support.
Posting C-Plan and Final Draft Strategic Plan to Web – Terry, Ken, and Janet
- Broke plan into 4 parts, each section repeats cover and citation pages. Each chapter produced a low and high-resolution version. USFS funded production of the pdf’s, with overall money fronted by Cornell.
- Cover page has been translated into Spanish, but PDF’s will not be translated.
- Hard copies are still available. Contact Ken, kvr2@cornell.edu.
FWS Nongame Bird Coordinator’s Meeting: Implications for PIF – Tom
- Tom facilitated, in February in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Representatives from all 7 FWS Regions, FWS Washington Office and the three national initiative coordinators (Terry, Brad Andres, Jennifer Wheeler).
- The overall objectives of the meeting were to evaluate the performance of the regional nongame program offices (Nongame) with respect to the Migratory Birds Strategic Plan, to develop a process for more effective leadership and communication among regions, and to identify cross-regional priorities (both programmatic and functional).
- Several pages of outcomes were generated. Most important points for PIF were:
- There were big differences among the Regions in how Nongame interacted with Refuges, JVs, other partners, and the initiatives (including PIF). Need to examine alternative organizational structures.
- Commitment to clarify responsibilities of Nongame with respect to the initiatives, JVs, and other partners (within and outside FWS) for the conservation roles on the continuum from planning to implementation.
- Commitment to raise the visibility and viability of Nongame program within FWS.
- Commitment to work together in the best possible way, to more proactive coordination, and to annual face-to-face meetings.
Budget for FY05 – Terry
· Thank you to USGS, USFS, EPA and TNC for contributing.
· Database: Some funding at the end of the year was contributed by USFS. This is still an issue as the Western challenge and letter went late to associations and was received after they had meet. Need a nonfederal match and states cannot use SWG funding.
o How do we need to fix the issue of requesting funding on a yearly basis? Need to do a better job at communicating the importance of the database; why there is a need to maintain and update the database.
o States being hit for funding of many/new databases; how to integrate all of these things.
· Council Action: Council directed the National Coordinator to discuss this issue further, particularly with the Federal Agency Committee, and to make any reasonable additions to the annual budget.
Proposal for new plan(s) involving the Mexican avifauna – Ken
- Proposals are still on the table for discussion at the next NABCI meeting.
- Science Committee is working on merging the databases for a 3-country update.
- Translation is being considered.
Constructing BMPs for birds by BCR and habitat – Terry
- This was a high priority issue from Winston-Salem.
- NRCS is working on developing wildlife habitat management guidelines to facilitate implementation of management actions for birds. This will be a standardized series of documents targeted towards landowners and biologists with a BCR and habitat focus. PIF will be looked upon to provide expertise and to make recommendations at the BCR scale.
- USFS State and Private Forestry is in a similar process. An item for upcoming tri-state PIF meeting between Oregon, Washington and California will address one-page clearly written recommendations for landowners who may not know much about birds. The objective is to add a wildlife component to forestry management.
- Send BMPs to Janet janet_ruth@usgs.gov and she will post to the website. See http://www.partnersinflight.org/pubs/BMPs.htm for current BMPs.
NABCI
- New Fact sheet is available: US NABCI Committee Action Plan Update, March 2005 that outlines the 3 to 5 year work plan and a number of major objectives. http://www.nabci-us.org/
- The Conservation Design portion appears to be similar to the 5 elements? Possibly organize a meeting between people who are developing tools in order to have the conservation-planning group ask the right questions in terms of modeling and integration in the future. Need an evaluation of tools in terms of needs, clarification of objectives to match tools.
- Important for land management agencies to see good examples of land use models to showcase to the planners.
- Planning team for potential meeting/workshop: Jina to help with this effort in addition to Randy, Tom. No dates discussed at this time.
Project Flying Wild
- Contact for more information and program guide: Marc LeFebre, Coordinator, Flying WILD, Council for Environmental Education 5555 Morningside Drive, Suite 212, Houston, TX 77005 marcLcee@aol.com
- Flying WILD is a new program that introduces middle school children to bird conservation through standards-based classroom activities and environmental stewardship projects. It encourages schools to work closely with conservation organizations, community groups, and businesses involved with birds to implement school bird festivals---events in which students take a leading role in teaching their classmates and community about migratory birds.
- Part of the Project WILD network. A Flying WILD network of urban partnering organizations to help distribute the program guide is being developed.
- Discussion: Terry and Jennifer wheeler provided input on the document.
- Other bird focused educational websites
o Bird IQ, http://www.birdiq.com/
o One Bird---Two Habitats, designed for 6-8th grade students. Emphasizes the connections among people, birds, and forests in the Americas. It is personalized for Wisconsin students, including state-specific background information on forests, the selection of one "ambassador" bird, and a focus on WI’s sister state in Latin America. Other states must adapt and disseminate the curriculum in a coordinated manner to ensure that background information is accurate, balanced messages are conveyed, and the value of the unit is maintained. http://birds.cornell.edu/pifcapemay/gilchrist.htm
National Conservation Need
- IAFWA Bird Conservation Committee had the opportunity to submit one request: Large-scale design, implementation, and monitoring for bird conservation.
- Process: Will compete with all of the other NCNs from the various committees, and a final decision will be made Thursday of this week by the NCN committee. Generally select 7-8. The Committee reviews regional and national issues that states are contending with in deciding upon which NCN’s are approved.
- Follow-up: NCN was approved, and proposals will be accepted in June. For more details see: http://www.iafwa.org/multistate_grants.htm.
- Action: discussion by the PIF Council on how PIF may wish to proceed in developing proposals for this funding.
- Council Action: The Council gave the PIF Science Committee the lead on developing one or more NCN proposals to meet the objectives of PIF.
IAFWA Non-game Bird Consultation Report – Debbie Hahn
· Report title: Bird Conservation Committee Nongame Migratory Bird Consultation Working Group Report.
· This working group was created under the Bird Conservation Committee to “evaluate the feasibility of creating a formal State-Federal consultation process for nongame migratory bird issues of mutual concern. The existing Flyway Councils and regional associations of State fish and wildlife agencies should be considered as possible entities to serve the function, but other options may also be evaluated. The Working Group should consider and comment on how other federal agencies and non-governmental bird organizations could participate in the process.”
· Alternatives evaluated: status quo, regional associations of State fish and wildlife agencies, flyway councils, expanded flyway system, and development of a new independent structure.
· Report is available from Debbie Hahn at IAFWA, dhahn@iafwa.org.
· Follow-up: The Bird Conservation Committee endorsed the Nongame Migratory Bird Consultation Report and the recommendations to expand the working group to determine the realities of this concept, with final decisions to be made in September 2005. The goal is to select one structure, agree on mechanisms for staffing and funding, and begin implementation in 2006.
New Forest Service Planning Rule – Wayne Owens, USFS
· As of January 1, 2005, two sets of federal regulations existed governing forest planning; 2004 rule for forest plans coming up, 1982 rule for existing plans.
· Largest difference between two plans is the requirement of maintaining viable populations.
· 191.8 million acres of USFS land in the US, 155 national forests, 20 national grasslands. About half have current management plans. 40-50% of planning units will be creating land management plans using the new rule. Some provisions to allow change for specific items in 1982 era plans (eliminate lists of management indicator species).
· Public involvement is still a key principle. NEPA compliance still in place. Public participation is limited in comparison to previous rule. Have to have involvement from the beginning of the public involvement process in order to comment on the final EIS or to appeal. Also, must address an issue in order to comment on it in the final documents. Protest or challenge instead of appeal; have 30 days to lodge a challenge. Plan not implemented until all challenges are addressed.
· Management Indicator Species are completely out. No longer have this route to ensure monitoring occurs on national forests.
· What routes are available:
- ESA listed species.
- Sensitive Species: No sensitive species in new rule, but every region develops a list; it may include species with high NatureServe ranks, but there is a great deal of variability between regions.
- Species of concern: new in 2004 rule. Determined at local forest level. NatureServe G1-3, or T1-3 ranks only. Proposed or candidate species with positive 90 day finding. Not many birds on the Continental Plan list that meet this definition.
- Species of interest: in general whatever people think is important on specific unit. NatureServe rank of S1, 2; state endangered species list; USFWS Birds of Conservation Concern; game species; anything important to local community. Required to acknowledge and state to what extent can/will do something for them. PIF can have influence here.
· All 1982 plans need to go through Environmental Management System (EMS) in order to be closer to 2004 rule within a certain time frame.
- Adaptive management structure, based on ISO 14001. Process to evaluate if meeting objectives of land management plans.
- Environmental Aspects are items that have an impact on clean water, air quality, bird populations, T&E species, etc.
- PIF can influence conservation actions of each forest doing plans under the 2004 rule, or 1982 plans going through EMS .
- Audited on a periodic basis, independent audit every 5 years. Need to participate in these audits, not defined who auditor has be to.
· 2004 plans make no decisions (e.g., no more standards and guides, required actions); standards are now written project by project basis.
· Supervisor Office (SO) level is key area to input standards from conservation initiatives. Regional office can have influence on the forest if there is a key regional issue. Need partnerships at the state and regional PIF levels.
· Dependence on NatureServe rankings; focus is on range wide conservation first, everything else at a lower level. NatureServe list is updated 3 times a year. Need to find a way to have our effects incorporated with NatureServe’s efforts. This could potentially be a long-term solution for funding RMBO. Potentially have PIF take over leadership for development of bird scores. Some state CWCS plans use NatureServe for their information.
· ACTION for Science Committee: Ken, Randy, Tony, Dave M., others to meet with NatureServe as soon as possible to identify ways to work together. Need to find ways to adapt scores to ranks.
· Schedule of new plans available: http://www.fs.fed.us/emc/nfma/index.html
· For additional information, see: http://www.fs.fed.us/emc/nfma/index2.html
· How to get line officers to pay attention to birds?
o Make birds the most important resource issue. Motivate advocacy groups to carry the message to SO that it is in the SO’s best interest to do the best thing for birds.
· Two places for best influence: work with NatureServe and cooperate with individual forests. Get schedule of planned activities (SOPA), everything that projected to go through NEPA process. Get on mailing list for individual forests (local scale approach).
· ACTION: everyone draft and send a letter to respective Forest Supervisor’s Office asking to receive SOPA. Be ready at state and regional levels to participate in the NEPA process when plans are being written as well as at the project level where possible.
· Proposed Directives for implementing the USFS Planning rule: http://www.fs.fed.us/news/2005/releases/03/planning-directives.shtml. Publication in the Federal Register is anticipated any time and comments are due 90 days after publication in the Federal Register.
PIF Strategic Plan update – Are we on track?
· PIF is tackling the highest priorities, as identified in the Plan. A few items were identified that are not receiving as much attention as they should.
· Customer Service – We committed to finding out what various customers need from PIF. We have had good communications on this particularly with the state agencies over the last year. Current projects are underway with NRCS and State and Private Forestry. BLM is particularly interested in having products such as Best Management Practices.
· Action: Council directed the IC to work with BLM in developing BMPs or similar guidelines for use by BLM biologists.
· IMBD – PIF wants more interaction with IMBD coordinators and potentially more say on the themes, art, products, and related IMBD items. Everyone agreed that IMBD is working very well and that this might not be a wise place to invest time, given more pressing issues.
· Action: Council directed Rich to talk to coordinators of the other bird initiatives to find their ideas on this issue.
· Next International PIF Conference – PIF committed to holding another conference at some future date (Asilomar was in April 2002). The next PIF conference should not be held earlier than 2008, due to the North American Ornithological Conference in Veracruz, Mexico in October 2006.
· Action: Council directed Rich to talk to coordinators of the other bird initiatives to find their ideas on this issue.
Status of 5 Elements White Paper – Randy Dettmers
· Document describing a process of stepping down the PIF continental population objectives to regional and local scales arose from a February 2004 meeting in Port Aransas, Texas.
· The “Five Elements” were further developed by a small group of the Science Committee, and represent the components of a process by which spatially-explicit, landscape orientated habitat objectives can be developed for supporting and sustaining bird populations at levels recommend through the objectives set by PIF and other bird conservation initiatives.
· Overall objective: translate population objectives into habitat objectives. The five elements are: landscape characterization and assessment, bird population response modeling, conservation opportunities assessment, optimal landscape design, and monitoring and evaluation.
· The bird National Conservation Need came from this document.
· National Environmental Assessment Team (NEAT) is a joint FWS / USGS effort for developing habitat objectives in support of population goals through science-based, biologically-driven landscape design. This effort is intended to be applicable at the ecosystem level and incorporate conservation targets from all taxa of concern (not just birds). There is clear overlap between the concepts described in the Five Elements document and the concepts being developed by the NEAT team, and they appear to be consistent with one another at this point.
· Need to identify the collective roles of initiatives and agencies, and how PIF can move this process along.
· Need this information at regional and other meetings, use as a structure to implement the plan, citable for JV implementation plans, etc.
Joint discussion with Atlantic Coast JV staff--Andrew Milliken, Craig Watson, Tim Jones, Melanie Steinkamp, Mitch Hartley, and Debra Reynolds.
· Andrew outlined the origin, boundaries, partnerships and missions of the ACJV. More information on their website: http://www.acjv.org/
· The group had a lengthy discussion in regards to integration and interaction of PIF with ACJV.
· ACJV has the list of key species and good idea of spatial needs of some of these species (e.g., salt marsh sparrow, know where need to work). Currently this comes down to the JV or a partner within the JV working at the landscape level. Levels of comforts are different, Central Valley, Pacific Coast, PLJV, LMVJV, and others are already doing the modeling.
· Goal of the JV will be to start with those species that have the most information and set aside those with little information currently available even if it is a priority species. A parallel process, one not exclusive of the other. Not every species requires a sophisticated process. Sharpies on a map are still models.
· What resources are limited for the ACJV? MLRC nice to have done, what available is too coarse for bird habitat relationships. Also need better density estimates and best expert opinion on habitat associations.
· Matrix of density information useful? Problem of temporal disconnect as population is always fluctuating and changing. Spatial disconnect how vary across thousand hectare block. PLJV took what had, stated limitations, and outlined assumptions and the need to test those assumptions.
· Five Elements are useful; JV will need help from landbird experts to develop the landscape design. The ACJV wants to facilitate this effort for the Atlantic Coast, and needs any help it can get to pull data together and test assumptions.
DAY TWO, TUESDAY
Site visit - Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
Overview presentations by, discussion with PWRC staff
Breeding Bird Survey lab, Bird Banding Lab, PIF web site tour
Format of PIF Implementation, Science Committee meetings
· Historical link to North American (spring) and IAFWA (fall) to plug into states. Need to maintain some kind of presence at these meetings.
· Potentially have Science Committee and IC meet, with at least one day of overlap/joint meeting time. Possibly a 3 or 4 day sequence total.
· Combining aspects of science, implementation, and policy issues forces all of us to hear everything; some Science issues should be only Science Comm.
· Concerns with location/proximity to the main meeting. However, some people are not allowed to attend the main meeting (agency attendance is capped).
· Spring DC meeting every four years. Meeting costs higher (room rate, food, breaks, etc.) for host hotels at main meeting.
· There is increasing overlap with IAFWA committee meetings.
· Problem with attendance if removed from main meeting? If want more people at the PIF meetings why not meet closer.
· Implementation committee, what it is, who do we want there?
o Historically this was the primary body, had to come to this meeting to find out what was going on.
· IC Charter:
o The PIF Implementation Committee (formerly Management Steering Committee) is primarily responsible for implementing those actions in PIF Goal II - Create a coordinated network of conservation partners implementing the objectives of the landbird conservation plans at multiple scales.
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