Missouri’s state and federal
agencies, nongovernmental organizations and citizens have a partnership called the Grasslands Coalition. The Grasslands Coalition
was established to help preserve remaining tallgrass prairie. This includes applying a management regime that enhances natural
functions and interactions. The coalition is a state-based effort co-sponsored by the Missouri Prairie Foundation and the
Missouri Department of Conservation. The long list of partners includes The Nature Conservancy, the Missouri Coalition for
the Environment, Pheasants Forever, National Audubon Society, Missouri Native Plant Society, Quail Unlimited, many Missouri landowners, Ozark Regional Land Trust, Missouri Department
of Natural Resources, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Prairies Forever, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and many more.
Greater Prairie-Chicken and Henslow’s
Sparrow top the list of bird species of concern for birds, but the coalition focus is broader and includes protecting
and restoring prairie ecosystems at a landscape level. Other priority bird species of the Missouri grassland suite are Dickcissel, Grasshopper
Sparrow, Northern Bobwhite, Sedge Wren, Bobolink, Upland Sandpiper, Loggerhead Shrike, Short-eared Owl, Northern Harrier and
Eastern Meadowlark.
The
Grassland Coalition partners selected nine Focus Areas (FA) and established partnership teams for each focus area. The target
FAs were selected from thirty potential sites based on the areas’ potential for immediate conservation action and grassland
restoration opportunities. The nine FAs range in size from 4,230 to 18,952 ha. Through combining land cover and grassland
bird suites in a GIS assessment, we determined where the highest potential was for effective management.
In
other words, focus areas are where prairie chickens and other grassland birds occur in the state, as well as where the highest
percentage of grassland is present in the landscape. The FA teams include agency staffs that have the capacity to effect landscape
level changes through incentive programs with willing landowners, management on public lands, and restoration efforts funded
by grants on both public and private lands. Partnerships, Focus Areas, targeted restoration efforts, and a capacity to conduct
landscape level restoration by the partners have all been helpful in securing grant funds.
As
part of an education program for agency staff, students, and the general public, the Grasslands Coalition organized a public
event called the “Lek Trek.”
The event occurred over several months and involved 909 km of back-roads-hiking by many people who signed up to hike
for one to several days. The trek route started on the Iowa and Arkansas
borders and traveled from Focus Area to Focus Area during the months from July through October, eventually ending at one of
Missouri’s largest native prairies at Prairie State
Park. Special events were organized at each Focus Area. Special “Learner Days”
were arranged, and weekend Prairie Festivals, as well as school and community events occurred in
nearby towns. An estimated 7,500 people participated. We conducted both roadside and point count monitoring
in the FAs to test the Partners in Flight Bird
Conservation Area (BCA) concept (Fitzgerald and Pashley 2000.) We used
50-stop Breeding Bird Survey (Sauer et al. 2001) type roadside point counts placed at 0.8 k intervals on all the roads within
the BCA and BCA paired areas. These surveys will give us a measure of relative abundances of all bird species in all habitats
within the BCA. Over the 10-year study period these surveys will be used to interpret population trends in abundance.
We
hope to be able to detect any major changes in bird abundances that differ between the managed BCA and the unmanaged BCA. Other monitoring efforts are underway including point counts in six grassland habitat
types to determine where the highest abundances of target species are present. Vegetation monitoring also is being conducted,
as is land cover mapping in the bird monitoring areas to facilitate landscape-level analysis. Management within the BCA includes
tree removal, shearing invasive woody vegetation off grassland areas, fescue conversion and native prairie restoration. Fire
management, rotational grazing, and herbicide control of exotic and invasive species are also tools used in the project. Partners in Flight has supplied much of the information needed to design the Grassland
Coalition’s bird
monitoring project. Species prioritization, habitat
prioritizations, the BCA model, physiographic plans, and effective partnerships already established at the national and regional
level, all have been utilized in the project development phase.
As
the Grasslands Coalition moves forward, another coalition has been forming called the Missouri Bird
Conservation Initiative (MOBCI). It was initiated on 19
April 2001 as a state level implementation partnership
and will take on the task of stepping-down the
goals and objectives of the North American Bird
Conservation Initiative (NABCI). Once the MOBCI
is established then the implementation and project centered
efforts will be developed. The intent of this
process is to bring along all partners as motivated, knowledgeable, trusting partners with a common mission, set of values,
and focused vision.
Currently
a steering committee has been established to review the MOBCI goals and objectives. The team is
made up of five agency and five nongovernmental
organization representatives, but may expand as new
members join MOBCI. This group will be a forum
for all bird conservation in Missouri.
