Center for Natural Lands Management & Ecostudies Institute

Why Bird Conservation?

Bird conservation is crucial for preserving ecosystems, and in the case of the Oregon Vesper Sparrow (OVSP), it’s vital for the survival of a threatened subspecies. The OVSP is one of three subspecies of Vesper Sparrow recognized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. According to the Klamath Bird Observatory, populations of OVSPs historically spanned grasslands from southwest British Columbia to northwestern California, but they are now found only in western Oregon and Washington.

The subspecies is facing severe habitat loss due to land conversion for agriculture and urban development, with a current population size estimated at fewer than 3,000 individuals. As a result, the American Bird Conservancy petitioned to list the subspecies under the Endangered Species Act in 2017.

Grasslands are critical for biodiversity and ecosystem function, and the OVSP relies on these habitats for nesting and foraging. Their numbers have decreased dramatically over the past few decades, but conservation efforts by organizations such as land trusts that focus on restoring these habitats offer hope for the recovery of not just the OVSP but a range of other species that depend on these ecosystems. Efforts to conserve the OVSP and its habitat help ensure the health of the broader ecosystem, improving the resilience of grassland environments to climate change and other environmental pressures.

Innovative, collaborative partnerships can provide opportunities to integrate environmental stewardship into working landscapes, showing that agricultural practices can align with conservation goals. Through on-the-ground management, landowner engagement, and bird monitoring, the Center for Natural Lands Management used funding from a 2019 small grant to develop a model for demonstrating how sustainable grazing practices can contribute to maintaining habitat conditions for OVSP and other grassland species while supporting agricultural land uses.

Spotlight Resources: Collaborative Partnerships, Bird-friendly Habitat Management, Landowner Engagement, eBird

The success of this project hinged on the collaboration of various conservation organizations, an engaged landowner, and technical resources. Key collaborators in this project included the Center for Natural Lands Management (CNLM), Ecostudies Institute, Cascadia Prairie-Oak Partnership, and Darrick Salyers, who owns Creswell Oaks, the 1,600-acre working ranch where the habitat management for the grant project took place.

Creswell Oaks is permanently protected by a conservation easement held by CNLM, which protects and manages land in the Pacific Northwest. During the course of this project, two key staff from CNLM transitioned to another conservation organization, the Ecostudies Institute, and brought some project work with them. The staff members who moved from CNLM to Ecostudies Institute were Gary Slater, Executive Director and Director of Avian Conservation, and Elspeth Kim, Director of Partnerships. The mission of Ecostudies Institute is to discover real-world solutions for conserving natural habitats in the Pacific Northwest. 

According to Kim, who managed this grant project, it was successful “because of landowners who care about their land, and who care about birds.” She says many farmers and ranchers value conservation, and her work is to understand how she and her organization can better support them with technical advice and capacity. She notes that the owners of Creswell Oaks have substantially contributed to the development of best management practices for OVSP by actively managing habitat for these birds and then sharing their successes and lessons learned with the team and other landowners.

Through this project, the partners worked to demonstrate that grazing, when managed correctly, can replicate natural disturbance processes and maintain the open, grassy landscapes that OVSPs require for successful breeding, thus using management practices like rotational grazing as a conservation tool.

To support the management that the landowner was already conducting, for the grant project CNLM helped remove trees, brush, and invasive plant species from 15 acres of pastures at Creswell Oaks. Ongoing management includes thinning edges of oak stands, along with brush cutting and herbicide applications of invasive species to create the unique grassland habitat that OVSPs require, with a relatively small component of shrub and tree cover.

To assess the effects of the habitat management on the avian community, and OVSP specifically, an avian monitoring strategy was implemented across the grazed pastures. Slater, Director of Avian Conservation at the Ecostudies Institute, established a monitoring protocol using line transects. In 2019, he surveyed each transect three times during the breeding season, recording all aural and visual detections in eBird. Slater continues to monitor the site annually, recording detections of all birds and noting the type of detection, sex, and perpendicular distance between each bird and the transect.

Over the four years of monitoring, Slater has observed patterns of OVSP abundance that are consistent with other OVSP monitoring efforts in the region. He says that it is hard to make strong inferences over short time periods, especially since this site is small and the weather has been variable the last couple of years, which has influenced the rate of grass growth. He adds that the property owner and land manager are actively trying to optimize grazing for OVSP benefits, and that with longer-term monitoring, they hope “to identify the sweet spot for grazing and creating OVSP habitat, understanding that it may change every year depending on weather conditions and regional demographics.”   

This monitoring allows for adaptive management, ensuring that conservation practices remain effective as conditions change. During the course of the grant project, two webinars helped demonstrate effective management strategies to local landowners, conservationists, and the broader community, setting up Creswell Oaks to be a demonstration area for successful OSVP habitat management going forward. These workshops showcased the value of grazing as a habitat management tool and shared hands-on experience in habitat restoration and bird monitoring. The project partners also used the Cascadia Prairie-Oak Partnership listserv to reach a network of people collaborating on conservation projects in the prairie oak landscapes of Oregon and Washington.

Making the Connection

“Many folks have hesitance around grazing in a conservation context and have trouble understanding how those two things can go together,” notes Kim. She says that Creswell Oaks has the largest breeding population of OVSP in the Willamette Valley, is a beautiful and productive ranch, and is managed by a charismatic landowner who cares about birds—making it an ideal place to demonstrate how conservation and land management can coexist in working landscapes, benefiting both agriculture and wildlife. By highlighting grazing as a tool for maintaining grassland habitats, this project helped landowners see how they can participate in the recovery of the OVSP while continuing to use their land productively.

The project also emphasized the importance of community outreach in creating a network of people invested in conservation. Through webinars and outreach, the project engaged local stakeholders—particularly private landowners—helping them understand the needs of the OVSP and the value of preserving grassland habitats. For landowners, these events provided valuable knowledge on how to integrate sustainable grazing into their operations, while also enhancing biodiversity and supporting the recovery of the OVSP and associated species. According to Kim, grazing is an excellent way of creating heterogeneity in grasslands. It creates a mix of short grass, tall grass, bare ground, and crowded areas that bird species such as OVSP need for successful breeding.

Through a combination of land management, community engagement, and data-driven monitoring, the project is demonstrating that successful bird conservation is possible in a working landscape and that private landowners play a critical role in conservation efforts.

Advice to Other Land Trusts

For other land trusts and conservation organizations looking to take on similar bird conservation projects, Kim suggests a multifaceted approach that involves management, monitoring, and outreach. When collaborating with landowners, she says it’s important to think about what the property needs and how it can help your organization share useful information about conservation with others.

Think creatively and holistically, Kim says. Considering the broader benefits and impacts of a project can help foster long-term partnerships, build connections with the community, and enhance wider conservation efforts.

Collaborative partnerships such as the one between CNLM and Ecostudies Institute can help strengthen and align conservation goals by contributing valuable data for managing bird populations and building a community of supporters for species recovery.

Next Steps

The next steps for this project involve continuing to refine habitat management practices and expanding outreach efforts to include more landowners. Kim hopes that the Ecostudies Institute will always be engaged around supporting and monitoring the avian species at Creswell Oaks. She also sees many opportunities for other bird conservation work at Creswell Oaks; for example, it could be used as a future demonstration site for prescribed fire or converting pasture grasses to native cover.

By focusing on habitat restoration, monitoring, and community engagement, this project has already set an effective example for integrating conservation into working landscapes. In summary, Slater says, “This has been an incredible partnership and is a key example of how private lands and sustainable grazing can contribute to avian conservation of common and imperiled bird species.”