Implementing grazing best management practices is key to advancing shorebird conservation in productive landscapes

This Project Grant award of $197,934 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Fish and Wildlife Coordination and Assistance program (CFDA 15.664) supports a two-year initiative by Fundacion Lagunas Costeras, a non-profit organization in Uruguay, to work with local ranchers to develop and implement grazing best management practices (BMPs) that improve habitat for threatened grassland shorebirds while meeting ranchers' production objectives.

The project involves gathering detailed information on ranch management practices, environmental conditions, and socioeconomic factors across 10 ranches in key shorebird wintering areas in eastern Uruguay. Based on this data, the team will redesign grazing strategies and work with the ranchers to monitor cattle movements, shorebird habitats, and production results. Workshops will be held to analyze the information and provide tailored management recommendations to each ranch. The goal is to generate suitable shorebird habitat through improved grazing practices while also maintaining productive cattle operations. At the end of the project, a comprehensive protocol will be developed to apply these conservation-friendly BMPs across diverse ranch types in the region.

The development of a grazing BMP should include both productive and conservation aspects. General information is available on how to manage grazing to provide habitat for buff breasted sandpipers american golden plovers and pectoral sandpiper which are U.S. Fish and wildlife service birds of conservation concern. However how these grazing techniques relate to social economic and natural factors in each ranch is not well known and this limits the capacity to design a BMP that will be successfully implemented on an individual ranch. For example preliminary observations suggest that ranches with a small area of high elevation lands in proportion to lowland usually have smaller stocking rates and are not able to keep grass short for shorebirds. Therefore a more complete knowledge of these and other social economic and environmental factors will improve shorebird habitat conservation and also meet ranchers production objectives. The objective of this project is to work together with ranchers to gather detailed information on their management practices and the resources and conditions of each ranch to then RE design and implement a grazing strategy to improve habitat for shorebirds and cows. Funding for this two year project which builds on past work with local ranchers by fundacion laguna costeras is US 200000. We will work with 10 ranchers located in merin lagoon castillos lagoon and rocha lagoon in eastern uruguay. These lagoons harbor thousands of grassland shorebirds but inadequate grazing management and conversion to agriculture threaten these key wintering areas. Ranches will be selected to have different areas stocking rates and geographical traits. This will enable US to cover a wide range of situations and elaborate bmps according to the specific conditions of each farm. In each ranch we will apply a systematic guide to obtain information on a wide variety of issues that are part of the system and that influence on the rancher s decision making process. For example we will measure the size of each paddock grass productivity stocking rates and distance to the lagoon among other variables as well as environmental and cattle production results. Together with ranchers we will monitor variables such as cattle movements among paddocks and relate them with shorebird suitable habitats as well as meat productive results. Based on the ongoing information that we will obtain over time we will make management recommendations to each rancher to generate suitable habitat through grazing and adequate cattle production results. We will also conduct workshops with ranchers to analyze together the information and generate advice on each ranch management. At the end of the project we will obtain an improvement in habitat quality for shorebirds at each ranch and a clear and detailed protocol to apply BMP in ranches with different socio economic and environmental aspects across the whole system lagoon.