Goal: To monitor or track all breeding birds in semidesert shrubland habitat to document distribution, population trends, and abundance in a statistically acceptable manner.

Objective: All species with AI > 2, including Loggerhead Shrike, Black-throated Sparrow, and Horned Lark, will be monitored with count-based methods.

Strategy: Monitoring will be accomplished through the combined efforts of agencies with primary responsibility for managing this habitat.

Strategy: As a member of Partners in Flight, the Bureau of Land Management will fund the point count work in the semidesert shrubland habitat across Colorado.

Status: The first two years of funding have been approved.

Strategy: Monitoring efforts will continue to rely on BBS data, with CBO's Monitoring Colorado's Birds (MCB) data incorporated as it becomes available.

Status: MCB implemented semidesert shrubland habitat transects in 1999 and ran a total of 30 transects; trend data should be available for most species within 5-12 years.

Objective: All species with AI 2 will be tracked through count-based methods or their presence/absence noted in the state. Burrowing Owl will be monitored using a species-specific technique.

Strategy: The MCB monitoring program will address this.

Status: MCB was implemented in semidesert habitat in 1999.

Objective: All species with PT of 4 or 5 will be tracked with demographic monitoring.

Strategy: CBO's MCB monitoring program will address this.

Status: MCB demographic monitoring will begin in 2001.

Habitat Monitoring

Goal: To document the amount, condition, and ownership of semidesert shrubland habitat in Colorado.

Objective: Develop collaborative efforts to use GIS in mapping semidesert shrubland habitat, documenting amount, condition, and ownership.

Status: This effort has not been initiated to date. Potential collaborators include CDOW, CNHP, CBO, USGS, BLM, and TNC.

Habitat Core Areas

Goal: To conserve unique representatives and/or large, ecologically-functioning examples of semidesert shrubland habitat in Colorado used during the breeding season, during migration, and/or during the winter.

Objective: Identify such areas, use agency- or organization-specific means of designating and conserving them, and work with the appropriate agency or organization to promote conservation activities.

Status: The Colorado Natural Heritage Program (CNHP) database includes a list of protected areas for each species that it tracks.

Objective: Identify any of these areas that are appropriate for designation as Important Bird Areas (IBAs), nominate them, and promote involvement of local groups in conserving these areas once they are designated.

Strategy: CBO will request that the CNHP and the Colorado Natural Areas Program (CNAP) assist the nomination of at least three of what appear to be the most significant desert or semidesert shrubland sites as IBAs in the state. Considerations include size of area, collective variety of birds including the priority species, semidesert shrubland value of the existing IBAs, and representation of taller saltbushes, greasewood, and cane cholla habitats.

Status: Conceptual.

Strategy: Initiate the development of a conservation strategy with the landowners of these IBAs and CNAP sites, or by using CNAP and The Nature Conservancy experience.

Status: The landowners of the nominated IBAs were contacted for approval of IBA status.

Objective: To maintain or increase the quantity and quality of semidesert shrubland habitat on private lands.

Strategy: Encourage landowners to take advantage of funding opportunities and expertise for creating, restoring, and maintaining semidesert shrubland habitat on their properties.

Strategy: Promote collaboration/cooperation between agencies, organizations, and individuals in conserving unique representatives/core areas with multiple ownership.

Objective: To maintain or increase the quantity and quality of semidesert shrubland habitat on public lands.

Strategy: Integrate the BCP into management plans for public lands in the physiographic area.

Objective: To recreate the heterogeneous landscape mosaic of prehistory so that breeding birds are always offered a patchwork of shrubland parcels in a variety of structural stages and densities.

Strategy: Incorporate landscape-scale habitat management into management plans for public and private lands.

Site-based Conservation

Goal: To conserve local breeding sites, migratory stopover sites, and wintering sites in semidesert shrubland that are important for the conservation of priority species.

Objective: Identify agency- or organization-specific means of designating and conserving key local sites. Work with appropriate agencies and organizations to designate such sites, and promote conservation activities.

Status: BLM will protect the Rabbit Valley Recreation Area greasewood valley floors from excessive trail development. Semidesert shrubland priority birds and those of local and statewide interest occur here.

Status: The Ruby Canyon/Black Ridge Integrated Resource Management Plan calls for control of trail proliferation here and for the acquisition of the private in-holdings. The site has been nominated as a Colorado Watchable Wildlife Site.

Strategy: Encourage Colorado Division of Parks and Recreation to protect the wide and robust greasewood stand at the northern end of Highline Lake from additional trail development and the prairie dog town on the west side of the lake from facilities expansion.

Status: Current manager has been informed of the concern.

Objective: Identify key local sites that are appropriate for designation as IBAs, nominate them, and promote involvement of local groups in conserving these areas once they are designated.

Status: Sites with semidesert shrubland habitat, including Rabbit Valley Recreation Area, were nominated in 1999, and the IBA committee will make final selections in 2000.

Status: Significant migration stopover sites--all wetlands and reservoirs that lie in semidesert shrubland areas--including Alamosa/Monte Vista NWR, Blanca Wetlands Area, and Highline Lake State Park were nominated in 1999.

Interstate/International Wintering Grounds

Goal: To conserve the wintering ground habitat used by birds of semidesert shrublands.

Objective: Track the amount of habitat available on the wintering grounds.

Strategy: Add a map and explanatory text to this plan, showing the primary winter range of the priority summer resident bird species of Colorado semidesert shrublands. Utilize GIS (Heritage Program and/or CBO).

Strategy: Coordinate with appropriate state PIFs, domestic and foreign government agencies, and NGOs to obtain data.

Status: An international bird database is being discussed by Partners in Flight.

Objective: Protect the primary winter range of the priority bird species of Colorado's semidesert shrublands.

Strategy: Identify the wintering distribution and key habitat associations of priority species.

Strategy: Coordinate with appropriate state PIFs, domestic and foreign government agencies, and NGOs.

Status: CBO and the Denver Audubon Society are developing connections with Mexican counterparts. Southern tier United States are recognizing the same species as priority. Better information exchange and entry of information on each species' scorecard are needed.

Strategy: Collaborate with PIF in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico to indicate Colorado's interest in habitats of disproportionately highest winter use by priority bird species of Colorado semidesert shrublands.

Status: CBO and Denver Audubon Society have developed contacts and visited sites.

Strategy: Explore ways for Coloradans to promote the protection of the Gulf Coast shrub plains of Texas and Tamaulipas, which is the suspected winter destination of the majority of the Colorado population of Loggerhead Shrikes (S. Paynter, personal communication).

Status: Conceptual.

Strategy: Identify the regions where the Burrowing Owls from major populations in East Slope and West Slope Colorado winter, and add specific conservation measures to this plan.

Status: The Prairie Partners program from CBO will be doing initial investigations in Mexico in January and February 2000.

Migration Concerns

Goal: To protect migratory stopover habitat of birds of semidesert shrublands as they migrate outside of the state.

Objective: Identify important migratory stopover areas for priority species that breed in Colorado.

Objective: Track amount, condition, and ownership of key migratory stopover sites.

Strategy: Collaborate with PIF in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico to indicate Colorado's interest in habitats of highest use during spring and late summer by priority birds of Colorado semidesert shrublands.

Status: CBO and Denver Audubon Society have developed contacts and visited sites.

Management Practices

Goal: To promote management practices that benefit birds in semidesert shrubland habitats.

Objective: Develop and distribute a Best Management Practices manual for semidesert shrubland habitat to the standard of the document Birds in a Sagebrush Sea. Deserted Not By Birds, therefore, should be written as a west-wide application. The scope will be determined by the willing participants. COPIF will participate and initiate as needed, seeking a team leader and publisher. BLM is nominated as the funding lead for this project. The manual should contain the following recommendations:

1. Protect arid shrublands from wildfires. Total wildfire suppression is the appropriate fire management prescription.

2. Improve the fire resistance of desert lands in the state to prevent the loss of shrub cover and to allow shrub recovery where shrub cover has been lost.

3. Avoid the temptation or pressure to join insect control projects.

4. Prevent the proliferation of off-highway-vehicles (OHV) trails.

5. Promote rodent and lagomorph populations of the semidesert shrublands to benefit wintering raptor populations without decreasing the area of quality habitat for summer resident birds.

6. Maintain or increase the quantity of high quality habitat on public lands. Integrate the BCP into management plans for public lands in the physiographic area.

Status: Conceptual.

Strategy: Identify key landowners and land managers and encourage them to incorporate best management practices to conserve semidesert shrubland birds and their habitat.

Strategy: Inquire of each public desert land managing office as to whether full suppression of wildfires on desert lands is the management policy, and adopt an advocacy role where such is not the policy. BLM, USFS, NPS, USFWS, and CDOW are some of the partners that manage semidesert shrubland habitats.

Strategy: Find examples of "greenstrip" plantings that appear to be successful barriers to the run of wildfires across strategic parts of semidesert shrubland. Use these examples to find extension agents and agencies that will promote and perform these projects. (BLM in the Snake River Plain of Idaho has made the most progress.)

Strategy: Negotiate with the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to achieve agreements on rangeland pest control that provide assurances for semidesert shrubland wildlife communities. Vigorously oppose the formation of grasshopper control districts that take in large sections of semidesert shrubland.

Strategy: Encourage land management agencies to install in their management plans a recognition that they have a responsibility to set and enforce limits on the density of roads and trails on semidesert shrubland. Some agencies identify "sacrifice areas" and make attempts to discourage OHV use in some areas. However, the proliferation of trails continues and more strategies are needed to deal with conflicting laws and soft policies.

Outreach and Education

Goal: To improve landowner and general public respect for the hazards experienced by open country raptors and the priority semidesert shrubland species by providing information to children, teachers, naturalists, landowners, natural resource professionals, and other interested parties.

Strategy: Produce agricultural extension bulletins that address the role of poaching and "varmint" hunting in the loss of Burrowing Owls and other raptors, the effects of rangeland insect pest spraying, the effects of livestock grazing practices, and the damage to vegetation and ground nesters caused by OHVs and wildfire.

Strategy: Produce a booklet on semidesert shrublands and its fauna for distribution in elementary schools, nature centers, and natural resource agencies.

Strategy: Prepare a syllabus for brief and more extensive presentations at conferences, annual meetings, workshops, and field training programs.

Strategy: Produce or find a producer of a brochure on the value of semidesert shrublands, portraying where they are, how to identify the major shrub species, the importance of keeping them (birds, other wildlife, livestock, visual, soil protection), the threats to them, and how to protect them.

Strategy: Make educational materials available at local nature centers and natural resource agency offices.

Strategy: Search for and collaborate with producers and publishers.

Strategy: Hold workshops and field programs for teachers.

Strategy: Hold workshops and field programs for natural resource professionals (CDOW, BLM, and USFS staff).

Strategy: Present information at Teacher Association meetings, conferences, other annual meetings.

Strategy: Submit manuscripts to popular magazines for children and adults, and to more specialized magazines targeted at landowners, farmers, and ranchers.

Research Priorities

Goal: To identify and facilitate research that will aid in understanding and managing semidesert shrubland habitats for Colorado's birds.

Objective: To identify the top ten research needs in semidesert shrubland habitat in Colorado.

Strategy: Update the list of research needs annually to reflect shifting conservation priorities and to remove research needs from the list as they are investigated.

Strategy: Solicit input from researchers and managers on research needs and accomplishments.

Status: The following research needs have been identified:

1. The general natural history of the priority semidesert shrubland bird species including: breeding biology (Determine second brood fledgling survival; Of the permanent residents, do they form permanent pair bonds? Do they defend territories throughout the year?), foraging biology (is species important in limiting number of devastating grasshoppers and Morman crickets), and habitat requirements.

2. The conditions that lead to excessive parasitism and predation failure in nesting of semidesert shrubland birds. Are nest mites more common in lightly grazed than heavily grazed sites? What level of human presence brings in the corvids or changes the predator species balance?

3. The mortality of Colorado semidesert shrubland bird species on winter ranges.

4. The safety and value of the herbicide OUST for cheatgrass control, including the opportunities for small and large-scale applications to enhance bird habitat, without harming prized Chukar populations.

5. Determine the feasibility of re-introducing priority species (Loggerhead Shrike, Burrowing Owl) to habitats that appear to have recovered, yet do not have these birds.

6. Identify the significance of the arid basins in Colorado to wintering raptors and rank them according to importance. (Colorado Field Ornithologists is nominated to organize a schedule of events that will terminate in their publishing these sites with the goal information.)

Strategy: Advertize this and other research needs to the developing Colorado Plateau Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit on the campus of Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, and assist with grant proposal writing.

Strategy: Facilitate investigations to answer these questions by providing information about priority needs to universities, public and private research entities, identifying funding sources, and promoting collaboration between management and research agencies.