United States Department of Agriculture
Natural Resources Conservation Service		 Go to Accessibility Information
Skip to Page Content




Work Plan for the Wildlife Component

Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) National Assessment

New England scrub-shrub bird assessment

Scrub-shrub nesting birds in the Northeast have experienced significant population declines in recent decades. USDA conservation programs such as Wetland Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP), Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), and Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) are being used to provide grassland and scrub-shrub habitats in the Northeast to help address these population declines and provide habitat for other wildlife that use early successional habitats.  Wildlife biologists in the Northeast associated with the CEAP Wildlife Component have identified a need to assess the benefits that early successional habitats developed through Farm Bill programs in New England are providing to scrub-shrub nesting birds. 

This project attempts to analyze a variety of existing data sets on scrub-shrub bird response to habitat development in New England and conduct additional analyses of bird monitoring, land use, and conservation program enrollment data to illustrate how scrub-shrub habitats on USDA program enrollment lands affect scrub-shrub bird populations. 

Three primary phases of this project are planned: 1) a detailed literature synthesis to describe the current state or our understanding of wildlife response to early-successional habitat development in New England; 2) synthesis and analysis of existing vegetation and bird response data sets previously collected by the U.S. Forest Service’s Northeastern Research Station in scrub-shrub habitats including silvicultural openings, power-line right-of-ways, reclaimed scrublands, scrub oak barrens and beaver impoundments; and 3) an assessment of scrub-shrub bird response to USDA program enrollments in New England using implications from literature and data synthesis elements and analysis of data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey and American Woodcock Singing-ground Survey.  The project is scheduled to take place over a three-year period.

These documents requires Adobe Acrobat.
Adobe Acrobat DocumentEcology and Management of Scrub-shrub Birds in New England: A Comprehensive Review, August 30, 2007 (4.5 MB)
Adobe Acrobat DocumentAmerican Woodcock Singing-ground Survey, June 2003 (1.1 MB)

< Back to Wildlife Work Plan