ABOUT THE SURVEYS

Thirty years ago, after identifying a critical gap in data regarding inland habitats for shorebirds throughout the Intermountain West, the first Intermountain West Shorebird Surveys took place between 1989-1995.

Under the leadership of Point Blue Conservation, formerly known as Point Reyes Bird Observatory, former Senior Scientist, David Shuford, organized volunteers across 162 sites counting shorebirds. The results of that historic effort culminated in the peer-reviewed article in Western Birds Journal, Patterns of Distribution and Abundance of Migratory Shorebirds in the Intermountain West of the United States. 

Since its publication, the data from this historic study has informed years of work and decision-making for conservationists, biologists, state agencies, non-profit organizations and more. To this day the information is still widely referenced, despite drastic environmental changes. In the last 30 years, between climate change, drought, and increased water diversions, many of the wetlands and shorebird habitats originally surveyed have undergone significant transformation or completely disappeared.

Understanding how important Shuford’s original data collection proved to be, and the 30-year data gap since its publication, Stan Senner, former Vice President of Bird Conservation with the National Audubon Society and Brad Andres, from the Division of Bird Habitat Conservation at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, set in motion the rejuvenation of those surveys through the Pacific Flyway Council, resulting in another five-year surveying effort: the Intermountain West Shorebird Surveys.

August 9, 2022, marked the effort’s pilot surveys as over 200 participants across eight western states surveyed for shorebirds at 88 sites from the original study.  In 2023, the project expanded to over 300 participants, and included the original 162 sites, plus additional sites newly identified by biologists as important to shorebirds. These additions have expanded the scope of the project to include the easternmost portion of the Pacific Flyway in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Montana.

While it varies by season, this new survey effort has built out a full partnership network composed of more than 70 organizations, including key partners, and 300 participants, of which two-thirds are volunteers and the rest professional biologists. Of the 200+ sites in the network, the vast majority are on some kind of publicly managed lands—including more than 40 sites on federally managed national wildlife refuges, and a significant number on the lands managed through 11 different state wildlife agencies. Such a level of coordination and collaboration is often not the standard, but it’s needed here because of the massive scale of migrating shorebirds.

The IMWSS project takes advantage of fall and spring migration, periods which give surveyors a chance to count a significant portion of the far-flying birds as they funnel through stopover points in their journey.

IMWSS partners hope that the insights gleaned from case studies such as these sites will help aid water managers to better manage their own wetlands. If we can understand how distribution has changed over time, we can better understand how management can create additional habitat.

When the surveys wrap up in 2026, Point Blue and Audubon are aiming for a peer-reviewed paper, like the original Shuford Paper, and ideally, a few more analyses that will provide additional details on individual sites or species. Blake and the team also hope to work through the Pacific Flyway Council and State and Federal wildlife agencies to have migratory shorebirds better addressed within both state and federal wildlife plans as potential species of conservation focus.