Web services > United States > 2025-present

Shorebird Priority Areas NAWCA 2024Update [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

U.S. Shorebird Conservation Partnership · 2025 Full Details

Georeferenced: false
Attribute Value
Click on map to inspect values

Full Details

Title
Shorebird Priority Areas NAWCA 2024Update [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]
Description
These data depict areas of the U.S. where NAWCA projects should be developed and favored based on benefits to wetland-associated shorebirds. The idea is that protecting, enhancing, or restoring wetlands within these landscapes has greater value than conducting these same conservation activities outside the landscape boundary. Shorebirds include families of birds that dependent on wetland, grassland, and beach habitats to complete portions of their life cycles, such as, avocets and stilts, plovers, oystercatchers, sandpipers, and phalaropes. Technical Question #3 for the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) asks applicants to describe how the proposed grant and match activities will address the national and/or continental geographic priorities for wetland habitat conservation as outlined in the four major migratory bird conservation plans and makes reference to geographic priority maps for these bird groups. These data were compiled by the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Partnership in consultation with regional U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Migratory Bird biologists, state shorebird biologists, NGO shorebird experts, and staff of the bird habitat Joint Ventures to develop a national-scale map that depicts areas where habitat acquisition, enhancement, and restoration would yield the greatest benefits for the highest priority wetland-associated shorebird species. The original shorebird map illustrated coarse areas (i.e. blobs) of national importance to shorebirds (2004). These areas focused on wetland landscapes that were used by large numbers of migrant shorebirds (>20,000 individuals) or that supported high densities of breeding or wintering shorebirds. The landscape approach was chosen because of the geographic variability in shorebird use of discrete versus dispersed sites throughout the nation and the attempt to balance use during the breeding season with migration and wintering. The same landscape approach was used for the 2012 revision, with the goal of improving the usefulness of the coarse map. The 2004 "blob" map did not define very precisely the boundary of important areas. To remedy that problem, we used (generally) the EPA's Level IV Ecoregion boundaries, which are available for every state except Alaska and Hawaii. We produced state-scale maps designating refinements to the previous blob map for review. A 2024 update now includes important shorebird areas of Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Maps originate from one national, scalable shapefile that will be available to applicants and other users. Although the idea of providing levels of importance to sites (e.g., WHSRN categories) has been previously considered, we believe the complexity would be difficult to portray on a single map, particularly considering the differences between breeding and migrations sites discussed above. Regional importance of sites to shorebirds is assessed separately as a second part of Technical Question #3.
Creator
U.S. Shorebird Conservation Partnership
Temporal Coverage
Last Modified: 2025-09-24
Date Issued
2025-09-24
Rights
Inherent in any data set used to develop graphical representations, are limitations of accuracy as determined by, among others, the source, scale and resolution of the data. While the USFWS makes every effort to represent the data as completely and accurately as possible (given existing time and resource constraints), the USFWS gives no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of these data. In addition, the USFWS shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data described and/or contained in. Graphical representations provided by the use of this data do not represent a legal description of any kind.
Access Rights
Public
Format
ArcGIS FeatureLayer
Language
English
Date Added
October 06, 2025
Provenance Statement
The metadata for this resource was last retrieved from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Open Data on 2025-10-06.

Links

Cite and Reference

  • Citation
    U.S. Shorebird Conservation Partnership (2025). Shorebird Priority Areas NAWCA 2024Update [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]. . https://gis-fws.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/fws::shorebird-priority-areas-nawca-2024update (web service)
  • BTAA Geoportal Link

View more items like this one...

Shorebird Priority Areas NAWCA [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

2016

Waterfowl Priority Areas NAWCA [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

2016

Waterbird Priority Areas NAWCA [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

2016

Landbird PIF Priority Areas NAWCA [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

2023

Appalachian Corridor Boundary [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

2025

shorebird US BCR13 [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

2020

all shorebird BCR30 [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

2020

shorebird bcr14 [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

2020

USFWS VAFO Priority Migratory Birds Areas [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

2024

JV Non-Breeding Waterbirds (Pxl) [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

2025