North Cascades National Park provides nesting habitat for approximately 70 species of migratory birds. The park Flightlines program seeks improved conservation of migratory birds through partnerships, information sharing, and higher-quality information about their populations in the park.

Robert C. Kuntz
Ecologist, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Brecksville, Ohio

“Quantifying avian habitat relationships will help predict consequences of management decisions within and outside the park.”

Reported declines of many migratory birds breeding in North America have stimulated interest in avian population trends and the mechanisms that drive them. Habitat loss or fragmentation, succession, increased nest predation and parasitism, and increased mortality during migration may play a role, and each crosses local, regional, and international boundaries. Developing partnerships with other natural resource management agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and the public is critical if park managers are to succeed in better understanding and protecting migratory birds. In 2001, North Cascades National Park Service complex—which includes North Cascades National Park and neighboring Ross Lake and Lake Chelan National Recreation Areas—initiated a multifaceted program called Flightlines. This conservation program is an effort to improve our knowledge and understanding of migratory bird populations in the North Cascades, develop partnerships to better manage this resource, and promote migratory bird conservation through information sharing.

As one of the National Park Service’s 11 prototype national parks for long-term ecological monitoring, North Cascades has spent the last few years planning a monitoring program. In preparation for one element of the program, landbird monitoring, park biologists convened a panel of nationally recognized bird sampling experts to conduct a two-day workshop to help design a landbird monitoring program for the park. In 2001 the park complex took its first step toward implementing the panel’s suggested monitoring strategy. Park biologists, the Institute for Bird Populations, and Western Washington University researchers initiated a two-year effort to determine bird-habitat relationships and to field-test and evaluate a sampling method and survey design for monitoring avian populations in areas with diverse habitats and limited access.

This project has several research and management implications for the North Cascades complex and lands beyond its boundaries. First, quantifying avian habitat relationships will help predict consequences of management decisions within and outside the park, including decisions about fire management, visitor use, snag removal, and forest harvest on non-NPS lands. Second, data on avian distributions and population densities will provide a baseline for future comparisons. Third, patterns and trends of concern identified for particular bird species will alert researchers to look for trends in species less conspicuous than birds but using similar resources. In this way, collecting data on many bird species can provide a screen for problems in other animal groups that otherwise would pass undetected.

Funding to develop the program required the help of multiple partners. Research proposals and grant applications were jointly developed by park staff, the Institute for Bird Populations, and Western Washington University. Funds from the NPS Inventory and Monitoring Program were supplemented by Seattle City Light’s Wildlife Research Fund, the Northwest Forest Plan Fund, and Western Washington University’s Graduate Program.

In 2001 the National Park Service, the American Bird Conservancy, the USDA Forest Service, and the Methow Conservancy were awarded a grant from the National Park Foundation and American Airlines to promote migratory bird conservation through information sharing. The grant will bring three biologists from Central America to north-central Washington in June 2002. The primary objective is to provide the visiting Latin Americans with a wide range of experiences and extensive information exchange relative to bird conservation that can be shared across international borders to further bird conservation efforts on both breeding and wintering grounds. These biologists will spend four weeks participating in bird conservation projects and programs in the park complex and on adjacent national forest and private lands. Project components include monitoring, management, restoration, education, and public outreach.