The Nature Conservancy - Great Lakes Program is leading the development of a scalable (Great Lakes wide, individual lake basin, to coastal reach within a lake basin) rule-based spatial model for ranking the relative importance of coastal lands and waters as habitat for migrating birds. Results will guide conservation actions including land acquisition, land and water management and restoration, and development of wind energy facilities. Specifically, the team will: 1) refine, create and integrate migratory bird stopover habitat models which depict the distribution of potential stopover sites along or near the shorelines of Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario; and, 2) develop an online portal that will deliver results, models, data and information to conservation decision makers and implementers.
