Grassland birds have declined more rapidly than any other group of land birds in North America in the last 50 years with populations of Spragues Pipit, Chestnut-collared and Thick-billed Longspur, and Bairds Sparrow having declined 65-94% during this period. In order to stem declining population trends, understanding the effects of management (e.g., grazing) and grassland restoration on occupancy and abundance at a landscape-scale is critical to better inform conservation actions. Remote acoustic recording units (ARUs) will be paired with in-person transect counts to quantify the effectiveness of this emerging technology to support increased low-cost monitoring capacity of bird populations at the landscape scale. Without this cross-programmatic collaborative project, we will continue to be challenged by the inability collect critical information at the landscape scale to inform conservation actions for the focal grassland songbirds to reduce and ideally reverse declining population trends. The long-term outcome of this project would be a relatively inexpensive, significant expansion of capacity for monitoring bird response to active restoration and enhancement activities such as grassland restoration and grazing system installations on both public and private lands across the Northern Great Plains. This $30,000 SA investment supports conservation priorities for the Grassland Ecosystem. This project is leveraged by $30K in-kind support from the Refuges and Migratory Birds Programs.
