Silent Auction 5:30 PM
Dinner 6:00 PM
TALK: Monitoring the response of Golden-winged Warbler Habitat Management
SPEAKERS: Jeff Larkin is a Professor of Ecology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and an American Bird Conservancy grant recipient. Darin J. McNeil is a graduate student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania under Dr. Larkin.
The Golden-winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera) is a Neotropical migrant bird that breeds in young forest habitats and is experiencing steep population declines throughout the Appalachian Mountains. One cause of population declines is loss of breeding habitat. Since 2010, the Pennsylvania Young Forest Council has overseen the implementation of Golden-winged Warbler habitat management guidelines. We will present an update on the number of acres created and the key factors to our success. We will also share our findings from an ongoing study that is evaluating Golden-winged Warbler response to habitat management using conservation practices suggested by the Natural Resource Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Working Lands For Wildlife (WLFW) Initiative in the Southern and Central Appalachian states. In particular, we will share findings regarding territory density, nest success, and post-fledgling survival and habitat at study areas placed into four NRCS conservation practice groupings: brush management, prescribed fire, prescribed grazing with brush management, and timber harvest.