Coordinating across eight agencies to count vulnerable shorebirds
How do you monitor a vulnerable shorebird species when its breeding areas are scattered across lands managed by a patchwork of state agencies, federal agencies, and non-profit conservation groups? American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliates) nests are sparsely distributed, time-intensive to find, and often in remote locations, all adding to the challenge of estimating the size of their breeding population. However, a new study in The Condor: Ornithological Applications demonstrates that a new, simplified survey method, coordinated across 8 agencies, has tremendous potential to provide accurate population estimates and aid in the species' conservation. Rather than searching for and counting each individual nest, researchers recorded how many oystercatchers they observed within suitable nesting habitat and then modeled the size of the breeding population from this data.