Minnesota is a stronghold for the golden-winged warbler, a bird suffering a significant population decline. A new project brings together a nonprofit, a federal agency and private landowners to slow or even reverse this decline.
Golden-winged warblers depend on young forests for nesting. But across the country, including in Minnesota, forests have changed, and older forests have come to dominate huge areas. Both game and non-game species that rely on young forests are in decline.
Partners Teaming Up to Help Golden-winged Warbler
The American Bird Conservancy (ABC), USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and other partners are working with private landowners who want to adopt sustainable forestry practices on their land, which helps landowners manage for more diversity of forest age classes.
“Golden-winged warblers are one example of wildlife that needs young forest habitat for at least part of their life cycle,” said Duane Fogard, an ABC forester leading this partnership project. “Today, roughly 50 percent of the bird population breeds in Minnesota.”
The ABC pitched a project to the NRCS. It was funded in 2015 through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), which encourages partners to bring project ideas to the table and enables the NRCS to help them meet local conservation needs. Through this five-year project, the ABC provides outreach and technical assistance to build interest and participation in programs that help landowners manage young forests, also called early successional habitat.
Off to a Strong Start
Fogard and his colleague, Kevin Sheppard, spend most of their time meeting one-on-one with landowners about conserving the warbler. “Sometimes it’s hard to get folks excited,” Fogard said. “But this golden-winged warbler conservation effort has people excited. Folks who have not been involved with NRCS are now interested.”
Fogard said both the ABC and NRCS believe that the decline in the nesting population of golden-winged warblers in Minnesota can be arrested or even reversed. So far, 15 landowners have completed warbler conservation projects. The ABC’s foresters in Minnesota are creating plans with about 70 landowners for projects to be funded in 2017. These projects build on about 50 others by NRCS and ABC since 2013.
About the Golden-winged Warbler
“This bird is a neo-tropical migrant,” Fogard said. “This means that they live down in South and Central America in the winter time and then migrate to North America where they breed in the summer.”
The golden-winged warbler is one of the ABC’s focal species, and a target species in NRCS’ Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW) partnership. While NRCS focuses projects like this one in Minnesota to expand the footprint of habitat restoration across a larger segment of the bird’s breeding range.
The bird’s North American breeding range includes the Great Lakes States and the Appalachian states where its losses of habitat have been most significant.
Broader Benefits for Wildlife
Habitat restored for the golden-winged warbler benefits many other species, including the cerulean warbler, indigo bunting, prairie warbler and other songbirds, as well as game species like American woodcock, wild turkey, deer and grouse.
The ABC leads another RCPP project in West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania that helps landowners manage forests for the cerulean warbler, another imperiled neo-tropical songbird. This bird likes mature forests with occasional breaks in the canopy.
“The bottom line: forest birds need a diversity of forest ages across the landscape,” Fogard said. “Our goal is to give landowners the knowledge and tools they need to improve management of their forests, both meeting their goals for their land while helping a host of wildlife species.”
More Information
Minnesota landowners interested in this project are encouraged to contact their local USDA service center. For more stories on how wildlife are thriving on private lands, check out NRCS’ new magazine, Working Lands for Wildlife: A Partnership for Conservation Landscapes, Communities & Wildlife.