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Vermont Important Bird Areas Technical Report
Site Identification and Designation
In January 1998 the Vermont IBA Technical Committee was formed and met to develop standardized site selection criteria that would be applicable for Vermont. This committee consisted of ornithologists, biologists, experience birders and members of academia and included:
| Jim Andrews - Middlebury College | Dr. Warren King - Otter Creek Audubon |
| Dr. David Capen - University of Vermont | Mark LaBarr - Audubon Vermont |
| Dr. Walter Ellison - SUNY Albany | Frank Oatman |
| Wally Elton - Ascutney Mtn. Audubon | Michele Patenaude |
| Steve Faccio - Committee Chair, Vermont Institute of Natural Science | Alan Pistorius |
| Dr. James Graves - Green Mtn. College | Nat Shambaugh - Dept. of Agriculture,Vermont |
| Kyle Jones - Marsh-Billings National Historic Park | Alan Quackenbush |
Criteria developed for the New York and Pennsylvania IBA programs were adopted with some slight modifications. These criteria were based on Birdlife International criteria originally developed in Europe. A Program Committee was also developed at this time to help guide the IBA Program in the state. During the designation process, however, most of the work was conducted by the Technical Committee . The role of the Program Committee and function of this committee is currently being redeveloped.
The Technical Committee initially selected 5 sites that met each of the five IBA criteria categories. These became Vermont's first IBAs and were introduced to the public at the Vermont Bird Conference in the spring of 1998. One of the primary purposes for these initial designations was to provide examples for individuals looking to nominate a site. It was at this point that the Technical Committee began soliciting nominations and distributing the newly created nomination forms (Appendix 1).
Over the next four years the Technical Committee received and rigorously reviewed nominations. Technical Committee meetings were held 2-3 times a year to discuss the nominations and vote on whether the site should be designated. The nomination form was modified on 2 occasions to make the process easier and yet still contain enough supporting information. The Technical Committee also discussed sites that met the criteria but had not been nominated. In these instances the nomination and designation process was completed by Technical Committee members in an attempt to include all known sites.
The Vermont IBA Technical Committee also developed the IBA Complex concept to more easily nominate and designate multiple IBAs that focus on a single species, primarily endangered and priority species. The Complex idea came out of the fact that individual nominations for sites that supported state endangered species, such as the Peregrine Falcon and Common Loon, tended to suggest that these sites were more important than other sites where these species occurred. In order to overcome this perception, the Technical Committee invited biologists working directly with these species to nominate all the sites that met criteria developed for each Complex. As a result four IBA Complexes; Peregrine Falcon Eyre, Common Loon Lake, Common Tern Island and Bicknell's Thrush were created.
Vermont's designated IBAs have all been entered in the World Bird Database (WBDB), a database created by Birdlife International for the sole purpose of tracking IBAs across the globe. The WBDB is also being used by the newly formed National IBA Technical Committee as a means for reviewing state IBAs for nomination to National IBA status.
This process is underway and will take the National IBA program to the next level.
The Vermont IBA nomination process in ongoing and nominations are welcome anytime to be reviewed by the Technical Committee. The maturation of the IBA Program and the concurrent development on the North America Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) may however change the way the Technical Committee conceptualizes future IBAs. This has occurred in other states as NABCI has begun developing priority species and habitats for individual BCRs. New York for instance is rethinking its designation process as it begins its second round of nominations. Audubon Vermont hopes to capitalize on these new approaches and integrate them into the Vermont IBA Program.
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