What conservation, management, or policy decisions could alleviate known stressors?
Many active bird monitoring programs along the Trail already exist For example, citizen scientists are collecting data on 38 North American Breeding Bird Survey routes that occur within one mile of the Appalachian Trail. However, there are some gaps in existing datasets, such as birds in spruce high elevation habitat, that need to be addressed. The Bird working group had recommended that monitoring efforts along the northern portion of the A.T. should give special attention to one of the region’s most rare and vulnerable species, Bicknell’s Thrush. The Wood Thrush was proposed as a flagship species for a Trail-wide monitoring program, as it is a high conservation priority along the entire length of the A.T. Challenges associated with an A.T. MEGA-Transect bird monitoring program Birds are often harder to study than other animals because they migrate and move around. In addition, it can be difficult to recruit people to monitor birds deep in the forest and learn many chip notes. Another
