BioTU
Educación sobre la sustentabilidad y las energías renovables Sustainability and renewable energy education
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Sep 25, 2009
Updated: Nov 15, 2009
Membership: Open
Semi-Private
Managing for Cavity-Nesting Birds in Ponderosa Pine Forests
Landowner Stories in Bird ConservationSolution Info Hide
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Problem
Action
The Role of Private Lands
Private lands can play a key role in the conservation of ponderosa pine habitats and the birds that depend on them. Approximately 44% of the 15 million acres of ponderosa pine forest in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho is on private lands. Many ponderosa pine forests on private lands are adjacent to public forest lands, providing an opportunity to enhance their value through cooperative efforts with public land managers. Many of these forests are interspersed with grassland, sagebrush, aspen, and riparian habitats that can be important to our target species (e.g., grasslands for Flammulated Owl and riparian habitats for Lewis’s Woodpecker). This project provided us with an opportunity to work with several private landowners to integrate habitat objectives for cavity-nesting birds within the context of other private landowner objectives such as sustainable harvest for economic values, resiliency from catastrophic fire, and other wildlife goals. Even private landowners with small acerages can play a role in bird conservation through the creation or retention of a few snags on their property. Snag management can be done with minimal financial loss by dedicating snags from low-value “character” trees.
What You Can Do
Reducing the risk of fire through logging and brush removal has become a priority for western landowners in recent years. Much of this effort to reduce fuel levels on public and private lands is consistent with restoring the historic habitat structure needed by nesting and foraging bird species of concern. Where Flammulated Owls, Lewis’s Woodpeckers, and White-headed Woodpeckers are known or suspected to occur, we encourage family forest owners to take advantage of opportunities to manage ponderosa pine forests using the following recommended strategies:
- Retain all live ponderosa pine trees over 21 inches in diameter, and as many large (greater than 17 inches) live trees as possible
- Use thinning and fire to remove invasive trees and shrubs and restore open but patchy understory conditions
- Retain all snags and broken-top trees greater than 9 inches in diameter
- Recruit (create) one large snag (greater than 20 inches) per acre, where feasible
