Research and Monitoring > Coordinated Bird Monitoring > Landbird Monitoring Program > Riparian Wetland Progra Restoration

> Mexico and Wintering Birds > Avian Fire Research Program > Bird Banding Stations> Publications > Data Entry> Citizen Science> Web Resources

 

                                       Big Hole I O'dell

Monitoring the Effects of Our Restoration Efforts

In western landscapes, active land management often involves restoring degraded habitats. Such habitat restoration is one of the only alternatives for conserving biodiversity in vanishing landscapes.  The factors which lead to degraded habitats for myriad species may range from fire suppression in low-elevation forests to overgrazing of riparian vegetation to the effects toxic runoff and tailings from past mining activities.  At present, active restoration efforts in this region are occurring to address all of these factors and more.

As we actively restore such areas, it is incumbent on us to monitor the success of our actions – to consistently evaluate the cumulative progress made over time and alter or improve our future actions based on these monitoring results.  By tracking the progress of restoration, we can facilitate adaptive management of our resources.

Using birds as a tool, the Avian Science Center is now helping to monitor the success of a handful of different restoration projects in Montana. Birds are an excellent metric with which to monitor the benefits and successes of restoration efforts.  First, data can be collected easily and inexpensively for dozens of species across broad spatial scales.  Secondly, collective functional effects of restoration can be integrated into information on bird communities and on individual bird species of interest, providing a solid measure of the success of our efforts. And, finally, the public can identify with birds, thus improving educational and recreational opportunities.

We are presently involved in two ongoing collaborative efforts aimed to enhance the condition of riparian areas:

  1) Big Hole River
  2) O'dell Creek, a tributary of the Madison River, MT

These bird monitoring restoration data, together with additional data collected via our riparian wetland program can also then be used in a habitat modeling framework.  Such modeling, conducted over large geographic areas and over time, will allow us to better understand the locations of target areas where restoration could have the most benefits for a diversity of wildlife species, including specific species of concern.

 

Landscapes and Restoration Assessing the Cumulative Effects of Restoration in Landscapes Assessment of restoration is often guided by either site-level comparisons of how communities change through time, or by comparing the similarity of communities in restored areas to reference sites (targeted conditions) and control sites (pre-restoration conditions). When evaluating the effects of restoration in a landscape context, we need to incorporate the spatial extent of restoration effects on nearby, non-target areas. Thus, understanding the total effect of restoration can be accomplished with bird surveys using two approaches:       1) Transects adjacent to restoration       2) Non-target control plots in landscape Spatial information is then used to estimate the total effects of restoration via GIS.

We cannot emphasize enough, however, the need to protect the intact and healthy riparian and wetland systems that presently exist.  Restoration is expensive and holds a second fiddle to the real thing! 

Montana Audubon has produced a handbook entitled "A Planning Guide for Protecting Montana’s Wetlands and Riparian Areas"  This handbook, authored by Janet Ellis, was published in June 2003 and is available at HERE.

 

 

 

Big Hole River Valley

In the upper Big Hole watershed in southwest Montana, an ambitious conservation and restoration initiative is currently underway. This project, known as the Arctic Grayling Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances, or CCAA, brings together local, state, and federal agencies, private landowners, NGOs and others, to develop and implement restoration projects targeting the last remaining population of fluvial Arctic Grayling in the lower 48 states.

A critical objective of the CCAA is the restoration of riparian habitats. The upper Big Hole is a broad, high-elevation valley with riparian communities dominated by willow communities. The dense willow zones along the stream banks have historically provided over-hanging canopy cover, stream bank stability, undercut stream banks, and limits to erosion during high water events. Unfortunately, the Big Hole riparian communities have suffered tremendous decline in the last 150 years (see photos below), negatively affecting the larger faunal community and leading to the plight of the arctic grayling.  CCAA projects aim to restore riparian habitats throughout the river valley.

Riparian habitats, while occupying less than 2% of the physical area, provide habitat for a wide diversity of birds as well as other plants and animals and are known to support the highest diversity of breeding birds of any habitat in the western US. Over half of Montana’s 245 species of breeding birds use riparian areas during all or part of the year, including 54 of the 107 Montana Partners in Flight (PIF) priority species.

In 2007 we expanded our bird monitoring efforts from our first 2 limited seasons in order to accomplish several goals:

1. continue monitoring the existing sites to measure the avian response to riparian restoration;
2. expand the number of sites and begin monitoring sites slated for future restoration; and
3. begin conducting surveys on several reference reach sites.
   

Our 2007 field season proved successful. 
Download the FINAL REPORT. 

 

POINTS on Google Earth!

If you would like see the specific points we surveyed you can download this zip file.  Once unzipped, click on the file, and it will automatically open in Google Earth.  You must have Google Earth installed on your computer (freeware - easy and fun!).  Points are labeled relative to vegetative condition:

1. = reference (no impact)
2. = minimally impacted
3. = severely impacted
   

Let us know if you have any trouble using this!

We are finding that this restoration project will be especially beneficial to songbirds that depend on willow habitat for breeding – species such as the Willow Flycatcher, Northern Waterthrush, Veery, Fox Sparrow, and White-crowned Sparrow.  These five species are either absent or present in very low numbers on sites slated for restoration when compared to our reference sites.  For example, the Willow Flycatcher has been found on less than 5% of points in areas to be restored, whereas they are present on close to 80% of reference points (see figure below). 

We are presently working with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to secure funding for this project beyond 2007.

For more information, contact Amy Cilimburg.

 

The Big Hole then and now....

These aerial photos are taken of the same reach of the mainstem Big Hole River, ~ 5 miles upstream of Wisdom, 53 years apart.  Note the nearly complete removal of riparian vegetation. Confluence Consulting. 2003.

return to Big Hole

 

O'Dell Creek

A cooperative restoration effort focused on improving O’Dell Creek, a tributary of the Madison River, was recently initiated by private landowners, together with PPL-Montana and state and federal agencies.  The upper O’Dell creek was ditched and channelized in the mid 1900’s, which subsequently reduced aquatic and streamside wetland habitat.  In 2005, over 6,300´ were restored by re-routing the stream channel to the historic channel, based on photographs taken in the early 1900’s.  Another 2000´ were restored in 2006, and more restoration is planned for 2007.  With funding from PPL-MT, we are currently using measures of changes in bird communities to better interpret the success of this restoration.

 

You can download our 2007 report HERE

You can download our 2006 report HERE.

For more information, contact Rob Fletcher.