In 2001, in response to the alarming population decline of the American woodcock since the 1960s, federal and state wildlife agencies and several non-governmental organizations petitioned the Migratory Shore and Upland Game Bird Committee of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies to create the Woodcock Task Force.

Since then, biologists and land managers developed and implemented the American Woodcock Conservation Plan (Plan), with the goal of halting the population decline by 2012 and achieving population growth by 2022, reports the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI).

The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service has estimated that, for the last three decades, woodcock numbers have declined on average 1.2 percent each year. That represents, a loss of 839,000 singing male woodcock across the species' range since the 1970s. Studies have suggested that hunting is not the cause of woodcock population decline. Rather, the problem is an ongoing loss of habitats that woodcock need for feeding, resting during migrations, mating and rearing young.

Two main causes have been behind woodcock habitat loss. First, much of the land where woodcock once lived has been taken over by houses, roads and shopping malls. Second is natural succession of brushy areas to forest, at which point the areas cease to be useful to woodcock.

To boost the woodcock population to those of the 1970s, Plan authors identified the need to improve and create approximately 21.3 million acres (8.6 million hectares) of early successional habitat (young forest and shrublands). Creating openings in dense forest and allowing the openings to grow back naturally yields important woodcock habitat.

"Now that the Plan is completed, the hard work of stabilizing and subsequently increasing woodcock populations can begin," stated Tom Cooper, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Eastern Webless Gamebird Specialist and co-chairman of the Woodcock Task Force.

To implement the Plan, WMI coordinates regional conservation plan goals through a network of Woodcock Habitat Regional Initiatives. These initiatives are partnerships of agencies and organizations that pledge to advance the Plan goals. The partners work together to focus management on creation of early successional woodland through logging and other habitat-management techniques.

The initiatives have been principally funded through the generous support of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

"WMI has been instrumental in taking the next step in achieving the ambitious goals outlined in the conservation plan," said Cooper. " It has been the lead organization behind the development of three regional Initiatives aimed at putting the goals from the Plan on the ground. Projects completed through the initiatives will not only benefit woodcock, but also numerous other species of conservation concern that require similar habitat."

Woodcock Habitat Regional Initiatives are planned for all regions of the United States and Canada where woodcock breed, through which they migrate and where they winter. The first?the Northern Forest Woodcock Initiative?was launched in 2004 and now has more than 30 partners, a coalition sufficiently robust to be recognized with the 2008 Secretary of the Interior's Cooperative Conservation Award. Other Woodcock Habitat Regional Initiatives have been launched in the Northern Appalachians and the Upper Great Lakes regions.

All Woodcock Habitat Regional Initiatives will rely on the same basic approach. First, managers and biologists will develop region-specific Best Management Practices (BMPs) to improve and create woodcock habitat.

?Second, managers will apply the BMPs on demonstration areas on public land, such as state and federal wildlife management areas, national wildlife refuges, and state and national forests, and on private land.

Third, biologists will count woodcock and monitor population response to habitat improvement. Monitoring may include radio telemetry to ascertain which habitats woodcock use.

Fourth, the partners in each Initiative will communicate with public and private landowners about areas and environments where more young forest is needed, as well as areas where it is not necessary or unwise to create young forest. It is anticipated that this outreach effort will encourage these landowners to undertake efforts to improve woodcock habitat on their properties. The ability to guide where and? how early successional habitats are integrated into the landscape, in a manner that compliments the other habitats of greatest conservation need, is one of the most important Plan objectives.

The American Woodcock Conservation Plan can be viewed or downloaded from www.timberdoodle.org. Information on Woodcock Habitat Regional Initiatives, including descriptions of BMPs and demonstration areas, can also be found at www.timberdoodle.org.

For more information, contact Tom Cooper at? (612) 713-5338 or tom_cooper@fws.gov. (sjw).