The goal of this project is to implement the U.S. Fish and wildlife service (FWS) caspian tern monitoring strategy for the pacific coast region (USFWS 2015) during the 2024 breeding season and…

This $129,907 Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) under the Migratory Bird Monitoring, Assessment and Conservation program (CFDA 15.655) will support Oregon State University (OSU) in implementing the USFWS Caspian Tern Monitoring Strategy for the Pacific Coast region during the 2024 breeding season. The goal is to robustly estimate the population size of Caspian Terns in the Pacific Flyway as part of the USFWS's commitment to the Caspian Tern Management Plan. The award period runs from December 1, 2023 through March 31, 2025. This project aims to enhance standardization of colony definitions and sampling to improve the quality and consistency of Caspian Tern population data. The findings will inform ongoing management efforts for this migratory bird species across its range.

The goal of this project is to implement the U.S. Fish and wildlife service (FWS) caspian tern monitoring strategy for the pacific coast region (USFWS 2015) during the 2024 breeding season and robustly estimate population size in the pacific flyway. Implementation of this monitoring strategy is part of the FWS commitment associated with the caspian tern management plan. During the first three implementations of the FWS monitoring strategy (peterson ET AL 2017 and peck richardson ET AL 2019 and lawes ET AL 2022) a few opportunities for potential methodological improvement were identified including greater standardization of colony definition and more representative and consistent sampling among years and the possible incorporation of non sample set colony size data into the population estimate.