Habitat Protection, Management, & Restoration
HABITATS
Examples of Cuckoo Habitat (Photo Credit: Stephanie Coates):
DECLINING HABITATS CONTRIBUTE TO DECLINING CUCKOO POPULATIONS
The primary threats to the Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo are reduced fitness and/or fecundity due to anthropogenic habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation on the breeding grounds in the western US. In addition, the cuckoo spends approximately 80% of its annual life cycle away from its breeding grounds, during which time it is also threatened by extensive habitat loss.
HABITAT IS HOPE
Recovering the cuckoo “to a point where they are secure, self-sustaining, and functioning components of their ecosystems” (USFWS 2013b) will necessitate creating, restoring, and maintaining habitats required by the cuckoo during breeding, migration, and overwintering. Specifically, managers will need to offset threats to cuckoo habitats by controlling exotic vegetation, planting native vegetation, improving geomorphological conditions, and adaptively managing water flows to create the conditions necessary for cuckoo breeding habitat establishment, development, maintenance, and recycling.”
PROTECTING CRITICAL HABITATS
On 21 April 2021, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) published in the Federal Register the final rule on the critical habitat designation for the western distinct population segment (DPS) of Yellow-billed Cuckoo. The final designation includes 298,845 acres of land in portions of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Texas and Utah (see below image with a critical habitat shown in dark red from Species Profile for Yellow-billed Cuckoo(Coccyzus americanus) (fws.gov)).
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION NEEDED: HOW BEST TO IMPLIMENT RESTORATION
The Working Group 1) promotes scientific investigations that provides information vital to successful implementation of habitat protection, management, & restoration efforts for the benefit of the cuckoo now and in the future 2) connects agencies and organizations responsible for land and water management to resources that inform restoration efforts.
Despite expansive restoration efforts completed in the western US over the past 25-30 years, it appears that restored habitats have not yet significantly affected stabilization and recovery of the cuckoo. This is largely due to the fact that successful design and implementation of cuckoo habitat restoration has been limited by the lack of information on cuckoo habitat requirements.
Therefore, to improve the success of cuckoo habitat restoration efforts, managers require more accurate scientific data, such as those on:
Threats to cuckoo habitats (e.g., invasion of exotic plant species),
Which abiotic and biotic variables predict suitable cuckoo habitats across multiple spatial and temporal scales,
Restoration targets at multiple spatial scales, such as patch size, configuration, and vegetation composition and structure ,
Where and which (e.g., unsuitable vs. marginally suitable habitats) habitats should be protected and restored,
Which river processes and active and passive management actions promote cuckoo breeding habitats, and
How suitability of restored habitats varies and trends temporally due to within and between year variation in river flows and precipitation, disturbance events, and natural succession, maturation, and degradation of riparian vegetation.
GENERAL HABITAT CONSERVATION, MANAGEMENT, AND RESTORATION GUIDELINES
PROJECT SITING
Evaluate the pre-existing conditions of potential sites and prioritize habitat projects where management has the highest likelihood of successfully conserving, creating, and restoring suitable cuckoo habitats.
Prioritize siting projects in designated critical habitat and other key sites across the cuckoo’s range within your geographic scope.
Prioritize projects that are sited or result in connected (i.e., separated by <500-m-wide gaps) native riparian habitat patches to provide movement corridors for foraging and post-breeding dispersal.
IMPLIMENTATION
Aim to protect, create, or restore patches of native vegetation with floristic and vegetative structure characteristics that support nesting and foraging. Suitable cuckoo habitat varies across southwestern US and Mexico both in plant species composition and in vertical and horizontal vegetative structure; however, common habitat features include a dense understory of native woody riparian or xeroriparian shrubs, a dense mid- to upper level canopy (5-10 m high) with at least a few large native canopy trees, and a robust groundcover of forbs.
Protect and promote natural establishment, development, maintenance, and succession of native riparian vegetation when possible through irrigation or dynamic overbank flooding timed with seed dispersal of riparian trees.
Encourage establishment and growth of native vegetation (e.g., forbs) on spring-saturated (in riparian areas) or monsoon-saturated soils to support the cuckoo’s invertebrate prey.
Avoid removal of native vegetation along drainage bottoms in xeroriparian habitat, particularly during the breeding season.
Implement exotic plant (e.g., Tamarix, Russian-olive [Elaeagnus angustifolia]) removal strategies that 1) prioritize removal of unsuitable exotic woody vegetation, such as sparse monoculture stands, and 2) defer removal of occupied and suitable exotic vegetation (e.g., vertically complex stands of that contain some attendant native plants) unless sufficient native vegetation is available at or adjacent to the site.
Employ management strategies that reduce anthropogenic impacts. E.g., prohibit motorized travel off the designated system (i.e., off those areas marked as open) and limit livestock grazing in suitable cuckoo habitat.
Improve water management in irrigated agriculture. Specifically, work with landowners to incorporate incentive programs that retire agricultural fields and water rights, and improve irrigation processes and infrastructure to conserve water.
HABITAT PROJECT RE-ENTRY
If needed, simulate natural disturbance processes to transition a portion of the available mature (decadent) habitat patches to dense young riparian forest every ~5–10 years, ensuring that young riparian forest is continuously available for nesting (see below for examples).
ASSESSING HABITAT PROJECT OUTCOMES
Clearly define project goals and specific and measurable outcomes at the outset.
Employ standardized survey methods to assess the effectiveness of habitat projects in achieving the targeted outcomes for the cuckoo and both its prey and habitats.
Whenever possible, assess the effectiveness of habitat projects in achieving positive outcomes for other riparian-obligate bird species, as well as for fish species of concern within the associated aquatic ecosystem.
Identify which habitat project methods contribute most or least to successfully achieving targeted outcomes, and determine if and how future management actions should be adjusted through the adaptive management process.
ECOSYSTEM BENEFITS OF IMPLIMENTING GUILDELINES
Promoting habitat conditions that are essential to the cuckoo can provide some or all of these additional ecosystem benefits:
Habitat for other wildlife (both terrestrial and aquatic)
Improved water quality
Groundwater recharge
Flood control
Carbon sequestration
KEYS TO SUCCESS
UNDER DEVELOPMENT
Links to Restoration Efforts Targeted at Benefiting the Cuckoo (Under Construction)
