Summary of Monitoring Priorities for Relevant States and Agencies

Summary of Monitoring Priorities for Relevant States and Agencies

Prepared for the Lake Michigan Monitoring Coordination Council – Wildlife Work Group

December, 2001

***DRAFT***

ILLINOIS

Critical Trends Assessment Program

The Critical Trends Assessment Program (CTAP), coordinated by the Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources, is an on-going process to evaluate the State of the Illinois environment. It also provides scientific support for the Ecosystems Program under Conservation 2000, a multi-year initiative to preserve and restore Illinois ecosystems.

The primary goal of CTAP is to conduct statewide & regional assessments of environmental conditions. But when CTAP's first statewide assessment was completed in 1994, scientists reported that there was not enough data available to adequately assess ecosystem health. To rectify this situation CTAP have developed methods such as, land cover mapping and volunteering monitoring to systematically collect data and monitor ecosystems throughout the state.

Land Cover Mapping: Using Landsat imagery, DNR scientists have compiled a comprehensive database of the state's surface cover.

EcoWatch Network: is a statewide network of volunteers monitoring programs coordinated through the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

The CTAP program has begun implementing its monitoring program to track statewide trends in forest, wetland, grassland, and stream habitats. CTAP scientists have conducted detailed biological inventories of 150 randomly selected sites (30 per year, rotating on a five-year cycle) for each of the four habitat types, while EcoWatch volunteers carry out less detailed biological surveys at several hundred sites each year (currently only at forest and stream sites). CTAP staff use the statewide GIS land cover database to select potential sampling sites and establish criteria to ensure that a site is representative of the intended habitat type.

Since it is not feasible to measure all components of the environment, the monitoring program focuses on a set of representative indicators – data on plants, birds, aquatic insects, and fish – to measure environmental change. Below is a description of the indicators for bird and fish populations.

Bird populations are being monitored in forests, wetlands and grasslands. Indicators include, but are not limited to, the abundance and diversity of habitat specialists (species that can live only in wetlands, for example), threatened and endangered species, area-sensitive species (i.e. sensitive to habitat fragmentation), and the ratio of cowbirds (blood parasites) to host species. Because birds are highly mobile, these indicators can reflect landscape conditions that extend beyond the boundaries of the habitat patches being investigated.

Fish communities are good indicators of long-term impacts that occur over a broad range of scales – they feed at a range of trophic levels and are consumed by humans for food. Also, they are relatively easy to collect, are directly related to water quality standards used by many government agencies, and account for nearly half of the endangered invertebrate species and subspecies in the U.S. the environmental tolerance, life histories, and geographic distributions are better know for fishes than any other group of freshwater organisms. Indicators generated from data on fishes include species richness, relative abundance, community structure, and the diversity and abundance of hybrids and exotic species.

INDIANA

The Indiana Natural Heritage Data Center (INHDC) part of an international network of Heritage Programs, maintains a database of endangered, threatened and rare species, high quality natural communities and significant natural areas. INHDC, created in 1978 through a cooperative partnership between the State of Indiana and The Nature Conservancy, has a mission to objectively and systematically track natural resources so that decisions can be made based on sound data; decisions that will lead to conserving the full array of life in the most efficient manner possible.

Originally starting with plants, vertebrates, and natural communities, the INHDC is expanding coverage in more difficult groups, especially invertebrates. Today, amateur naturalists, consultants, university and government scientists, and others provide new data. The DNR Nongame and Endangered Species Program in particular adds considerable data by funding mussel and fish surveys, leading the breeding bird atlas project, and conducting their own surveys. Having obvious spatial components, the data lends itself easily to GIS mapping. The INHDC can provide information on natural areas and conservation lands by U.S.G.S quadrangle map, county, watershed, and congressional district among others. The INHDC can provide the information in other electronic formats as well.

The main goal of the DNR Nongame and Endangered Species Program (NEWP) is to protect and manage more than 550 species of nongame and endangered animals in the state. Approximately 85 of these species are on the state endangered list (any species whose prospects for survival or recruitment in the state are in immediate jeopardy and are in danger of disappearing from the state) while another 44 are listed as special concern in the state (any species about whom some problems of limited abundance or distribution in Indiana are known or suspected and should be closely monitored).

In 1998, the Division of Fish and Wildlife published the Atlas of Breeding Birds of Indiana. Research for the atlas was conducted from 1985-1990 by systematically sampling the entire state to determine the distribution of Indiana's summer birds. The result is a 388-page, hard-bound publication with species accounts for 162 breeding birds. Current research projects are underway for Indiana's endangered species including darters, lake sturgeon, least terns, great blue herons, mussels, Indiana bats, and Allegheny woodrats.

Indiana has implemented three endangered species restoration projects. The goal of these projects is to return wildlife species to the state that were here once, but have vanished from the state.

Before a project begins, studies are conducted to determine the factors that led to the loss of a particular species from the state. These studies determine if those factors have been eliminated or regulated, and whether or not it is feasible to restore the animal to Indiana. If the results of the study are favorable for the species restoration, a project is planned and implemented. NEWP's endangered species restoration projects are: Bald eagles 1985 to 1989; Peregrine falcons 1991 to 1994; and River otters 1995 to 1999.

The NEWP also participates and coordinates volunteer monitoring projects including the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program (NAAMP). NAAMP relies on volunteers to study amphibian populations through several different monitoring systems: random route calling surveys, atlasing, terrestrial salamander surveys and aquatic surveys. NAAMP’s purpose is to provide a protocol for consistent methodology and to establish reliable baseline information about amphibian distribution and abundance.

Indiana’s first full year of monitoring focused on conducting frog and toad calling surveys along 56 random routes established by the national NAAMP office. Three training workshops were conducted; one each in the north, central and southern portions of the state. Once trained, volunteers chose a route and conducted several surveys over the course of frog/toad breeding seasons. Methods for implementing the surveys expanded in 2001 with the addition of atlas routes (routes chosen by the volunteers) and a stationary site calling survey.

The DNR Division of Fish and Wildlife also regularly conducts fisheries and game species surveys throughout the state.

In addition to these on-going inventories, the LMCP initiated an inventory of wetlands and of natural areas in the coastal region as part of its program development process. In 1979, the DNR selected and studied 45 wetland areas within the Lake Michigan watershed. The study evaluated wetlands greater than 25 acres in size or clusters of smaller wetlands if they totaled 25 acres or more in one square mile. The wetlands were field inspected and ranked for priority based on size, type, plant and animal diversity, fisheries value, and adjacent land use. In 1996, the top 25 priority sites from this study were revisited. The purpose of the reevaluation was to determine whether the wetlands had changed in size, cover type, or context.

The 1979 natural areas inventory located 258 parcels that required further investigation to determine habitat quality. After field investigation, 30 parcels were found to be notable for their importance on a regional level for teaching, research, public enjoyment, and as wildlife areas. However, notable areas did not meet the more stringent criteria for designation as statewide significant natural areas. Seventeen areas were identified as statewide significant natural areas with a total of 1,290 acres. Several of these sites contained ‘very high’ and ‘high’ quality natural communities.

In 1996, an effort was made to revisit all the high quality sites identified in the 1979 study. Additional areas that had been located in subsequent years were also investigated. This study found that the majority of the sites identified in 1979 were still intact and several of them can be considered protected. Many of the additional sites were also protected in whole or in part. At least one high quality example of most of the natural community types was found to be protected in 1996. The study also found most natural areas had been lost in recent years from degradation due to invading exotic plants and shrubby encroachment.

These inventories provided the LMCP with data regarding a resource of coastal significance, wetlands, that will provide benchmarks for future inventories and protection efforts.

MICHIGAN

Michigan Natural Features Inventory

From: www.dnr.state.mi.us/wildlife/heritage/mnfi

Contact:

Mason Building

P.O. Box 30444

Lansing, MI 48909-7944

Phone: 517-373-1552

Description

The Michigan Natural Features Inventory (MNFI) is a cooperative program of The Nature Conservancy and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. It’s mission is to identify, evaluation, and track locations of Michigan's rarest species and exceptional examples of the State's natural plant communities and to provide that information to the public and private sectors for decision-making that affects Michigan's biological diversity. MNFI was established in 1980 and manages an ongoing, continuously updated information base regarding these biological factors.

MNFI is the only comprehensive, single source of data on Michigan's endangered, threatened, or special concern plant and animal species, natural communities, and other natural features. MNFI has responsibility for inventorying and tracking the State's rarest species and exceptional examples of the whole array of natural communities. MNFI also provides information to land managers for many types of permit applications regarding these elements of diversity.

The MNFI information base consists of over 11,000 site-specific records of occurrences of all elements tracked by the program. These records are mapped on USGS topographic maps and incorporated into the Biological and Conservation Database (BCD), a database developed by The Nature Conservancy and now in use in most of the United States and many other countries, especially in the western hemisphere. Records are also periodically incorporated into the Michigan Resource Information System (MIRIS) and Coastal and Inland Waterways Program Information System (CIWPIS), programs of the MDNR. MNFI has developed geographic information systems (GIS) capabilities and anticipates the day when the database will be routinely available in GIS format. In addition to site-specific records, BCD and MNFI manual files contain a great deal of compiled information on biology, distribution, threats, status, and trends of the species and communities tracked by the program.

The records in the MNFI information base were gathered from museum and herbaria records, published and verified unpublished accounts, from field work by MNFI staff, and from private consultants and knowledgeable individuals. The MNFI database each record to the person who submitted it. MNFI requires its staff and contractors to obtain permission to enter private land and does not condone trespass by anyone who might submit data to the database.

The inventory process is not complete for all areas of the state. Many areas have not yet been specifically or thoroughly surveyed for natural features. Further, populations of plants, animals, and communities are constantly changing and require site revisits to verify continued presence or absence. Therefore, absence of known records in the MNFI database should not taken as a definitive statement on lack of occurrence of natural features at a site. In some cases the only way to obtain a statement on the current status of natural features is to have a competent biologist perform a complete field survey. The distribution across the state of thorough MNFI inventories has been influenced partly by priorities based on relative threats, rarity or fragility of sites or elements, and partly by funding sources. Many areas of the state likely to have significant natural features have not been inventoried by MNFI due to lack of adequate funds.

The BCD is used to manage site-specific information on plant and animal species and natural communities being tracked by MNFI. An element occurrence record (EOR), found in the BCD, is a record which includes population and community data, environmental features associated with the species or community, and precise geographical data including township, range, latitude-longitude, county, watershed, and land management/ownership status. The best source for additional information is also cited. Information entered into the BCD follows Natural Heritage Methodology.

WISCONSIN

Wisconsin Statewide Small Mammal Inventory

From: http://dnr.wi.gov/org/es/science/wildlife/smallmammals.htm

Contacts:

Loren Ayers

Bureau of Integrated Science Services

Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources

Dick Bautz

Bureau of Integrated Science Services

Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources

Description:

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources along with a variety of partners is designing an inventory and monitoring program for all terrestrial and aquatic wildlife in order to better support the ecosystem management decision making process. Our understanding of a variety of game and endangered species is relatively good; however, we know surprisingly little about the distribution, populations status, and habitat needs of many of the states small mammal species.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is considering the following species for a statewide inventory and population monitoring project over the next 5-10 years. More management oriented data is needed for these 39 small mammal species in Wisconsin; However, a few may be excluded from the process after further evaluation of the current knowledge and survey techniques. Species classified as rare in the state are noted in bold font (see the Bureau of Endangered Resources website ):

Virginia Opossum Eastern Chipmunk Northern Short-tailed Shrew

Red Squirrel Least Shrew Plains Pocket Gopher

Arctic Shrew Southern Red-backed Vole Masked Shrew

Prairie Vole Pygmy Shrew Meadow Vole

Common Water Shrew Woodland Vole Star-nosed Mole

White-footed Mouse Eastern Mole Deer Mouse

Snowshoe Hare Western Harvest Mouse White-tailed Jackrabbit

Southern Bog Lemming Eastern Cottontail Woodland Jumping Mouse

Northern Flying Squirrel Meadow Jumping Mouse Southern Flying Squirrel

Common Porcupine Woodchuck Ermine

Eastern Gray Squirrel Long-tailed Weasel Eastern Fox Squirrel

Least Weasel Franklin's Ground Squirrel Striped Skunk

Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel Eastern Spotted Skunk Least Chipmunk

Objective: To conduct the first-ever comprehensive inventory of small mammals in Wisconsin and to provide essential management information on:

Local and regional distribution

Relative abundance

Habitat association

Population trends

Population status

Influence of land use and management practices on small mammal populations

Additional objectives include determination of small mammal habitat selection; use of small mammal data to initiate, prioritize, and assess vital habitat restoration and conservation projects; and use of inventory samples for proactive monitoring of wildlife-borne diseases.

Approach: Because of the complex nature of the project and the large area and number of species under consideration, no one agency or organization can accomplish a statewide inventory of small mammals in all representative habitats. We plan to use a combination of agency and University partnerships, citizen science initiatives, volunteer efforts, and internal DNR resources to accomplish the project.

Five ecological regions have been delineated for small mammal inventories. This project will begin a 5-year rotation to cover each region, and when combined with a broad-scale background monitoring effort, will provide a comprehensive evaluation of small mammal population ecology and dynamics.

The initial 2-year effort will focus on one high priority region in the State which includes the Superior Coastal Plain, North Central Forest, Northern Highland, Northeast Hills, Northeast Sands, Northeast Plains, and Northern Lake Michigan Coastal Ecological Landscapes. The full 5-year program eventually will address all ecological landscapes in the State.

Products: Anticipated products are a refined small mammal atlas by ecological landscape (online and hardcopy - both dynamically upgradable), a managers' reference manual to predict small mammal species distributions and impacts of management options, publicly accessible information and data, and online educational materials and opportunities.

US FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Region 3, Fish & Wildlife Resource Conservation Priorities

A group of Region 3 employees was brought together to identify the most important functions that it performs and to direct its limited fiscal resources toward those functions.

This group identified 161 species considered to be in the greatest need of attention under the Service’s full span of authorities. This group also identified strategies that will contribute to the conservation, protection, and recovery of migratory birds, threatened and endangered species, and interjurisdictional fish as well as the habitats on which they depend--thus fulfilling the Service’s mission.

The basis of the Region’s Resource Conservation Priorities is fish, wildlife, and plant species, populations, and strains, i.e., species of fish, wildlife, or plant, subspecies of fish, wildlife, or plant, and distinct population segments of vertebrates that interbreed when mature. Examples of within-species distinctions from the Resource Conservation Priorities table include the Canada goose (giant population, urban giants, Southern James Bay population) and lake trout (lean and deepwater).

They recognized that there were at least two ways to approach the Service’s conservation priorities - by focusing on species, or by focusing on habitat. They chose the species approach for the following reasons:

• First, species represent extremely valuable biological and genetic resources that must be considered of primary importance because, once extirpated, they cannot be replaced.

• Second, a focus on species conservation necessitates a concurrent focus on habitat in a way that highlights the specific ecological conditions that must be maintained for species survival.

• Finally, only by focusing first on species assemblages and identifying those areas where their ecological needs come together can we select the few key places on the broader landscape where our limited efforts will have the greatest impact. The species-focused approach to identifying key habitats for conserving natural resources and biodiversity is described most effectively in The Nature Conservancy’s recent

publication Rivers of Life (Master, Flack, and Stein 1998).

*Strategies to address each species are outlined in this document and include monitoring and inventorying activities.

National Park Service

Service wide Inventory and Monitoring Program

NPS Inventory and Monitoring Home Page: http://www.nature.nps.gov/im/

The National Park Service has developed a guide to natural resources inventory and monitoring as part of the Service wide Inventory and Monitoring Program . Below is a brief description of this program and guide.

Based on legal mandates and National Park Service (NPS) policy, the major goals of the Service wide inventory and monitoring (I&M) program are: to inventory the natural resources and park ecosystems under NPS stewardship to determine their nature and status; to monitor park ecosystems to better understand their dynamic nature and condition and to provide reference points for comparisons with other, altered environments; and to integrate natural resources inventory and monitoring information into NPS planning, management, and decision making. Other goals include establishing natural resources inventory and monitoring as a standard practice throughout the NPS and forming partnerships with other natural resource agencies in order to pursue common goals and objectives.

This guideline: (1) summarizes the reasons for inventory and monitoring of natural resources in units of

the National Park System; (2) provides an overview of the Service wide I&M program, including staff roles

and functions; (3) describes a process for conducting I&M studies at the individual park level; (4) identifies

major ecosystem components useful for resources inventory and long-term monitoring; and (5) provides

data administration and reporting guidelines for the program.

The document also outlines strategic considerations needed to rank inventory and monitoring needs,

standardize recording techniques, test model inventory and monitoring systems in selected parks, bring all

parks up to an acceptable level of resource awareness, and develop a framework to synthesize inventory

and monitoring information over large spatial and long temporal scales.

Finally, the guideline provides information which should guide national, regional, and park efforts to

implement an I&M program in about 250 NPS field areas with significant natural resources. Application

of the I&M approach contained herein, combined with the knowledge gained from assessing existing park

I&M activities, should assist management of park natural resources proactively from a basis of

knowledge. As the I&M program progresses, the individual elements of the program will be reviewed and

revised; technical protocols, quality assurance plans, and data management plans will be developed; and

individual park I&M plans will be initiated in direct support of park natural resources management.

This guide can be found at: http://www.nature.nps.gov/im/monitor/nps75.pdf

Forest Service

Conservation Assessment Strategies and Agreements

From: http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/wildlife/tes/ca-overview/index.htm

Conservation Assessments Strategies and Agreements are one of the measures that the Forest Service provides for the conservation of Regional Forester Sensitive Species. Drafting Conservation Strategies is one of the priorities of the Eastern Region (R9) Threatened and Endangered Species Program.

A Conservation Assessment analyzes and documents of the current status and distribution of a species, species group or ecosystem. The assessment provides the background information needed to prepare a Conservation Strategy.

Conservation Strategies outline the management actions designed to conserve a species, group or ecosystem on National Forest System lands. Most often a Strategy will be completed through a Forest Plan Amendment or Revision.

Once a Conservation Assessment and Strategy is completed, the Forest Service works with one or more cooperating agencies or groups to draft a formal Conservation Agreement that identifies how a multi-entitiy conservation strategy will be implemented.

Conservation Assessments In Progress:

ANIMALS	PLANTS	COMMUNITIES
Northern Goshawk (L. States)	Botrychium mormo (L. States)	Barrens.Glades (HO)
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (AL)	Botrychium spp. (L. States)	V. cespitosum/No.blue butterfly (L.States)
Henslow’s Sparrow CA (SoTier,FL)	Cyprepedium arietinum (L. States)	Niagra Escarpment (HI)
Boreal Owl (SU)	Paronychia argyrocoma (WM)	Great Lakes Shoreline (L. States)
Bicknell’s Thrush (GM)	Triphora trianthophora, (WM)	Alpine Community (GM)
Red-shouldered Hawk (L. States)	Disporum hookeri (OT)	Shawnee Hills Cent. Hardwoods (So. Tier)
Cerulean Warbler (R9)	Calypso bulbosa (L. States)	Warm-water streams (L. States)
Eastern Massasauga (HM)	Cynoglosum virginianum (L.States)	Cliff Community (So. Tier)
Allegheny dragonflies (AL)	Malaxis brachypoda (L. States)	Shale Barrens (MO)
Timber Rattlesnake (So. Tier)	Listera suite (WM /L. States)	Mark Twain Species (MT)
Alpine butterflies (WM)	Carex wiegandi (HI,GM, AL, MO)	Wetland Plants (AL)
Darters (AL)	Jugulans cinerea (R9)	Karst (So. Tier, MO)
Sharp-tailed Grouse (L. States)	Polemnium vanbruntiae (GM)	White Cedar (L. States)
Short-eared Owl (HI, HM, ME)	Potamageton confervoides(HI,CN, GM)

Black backed Woodpecker (L.States)	Hiawatha species (Hanes Trust)
LeConte’s Sparrow (L.States)	Petasites sagittatus (HI)
Loggerhead Shrike	Menegazzia terebrata (HI)
Trumpeter Swan (Lake States)
Yellow Rail (Lake States)
Prairie Warbler (HI, HM)