Pacific Flyway Conservation

Each year a billion birds migrate through the Sacramento region. These birds, which makeup part of the California’s 600 endemic species, follow a yearly migration pattern that stretches from the Arctic tundra to South America. The route they take is called the Pacific Flyway. A billion might sound like a lot, but this is only a fraction of the number of birds compared to a century ago. Habitat loss over the last 100 years has significantly reduced the number of birds that use the flyway. We must ensure that new development does not eliminate critical habitat, and continue efforts to revitalize marginal habitat. 

Partners in Pacific Flyway Conservation

The National Audubon Society, the Pacific Flyway Council, and the Central Valley Joint Venture provide critical habitat management and restoration activities for the Pacific Flyway. Read more about their efforts below. 

National Audubon Society 

The birds of the Pacific Flyway depend on a diverse chain of habitats, from Arctic tundra and northwestern rainforest to tropical beaches and mangroves. Audubon’s network of chapters, volunteers, activists, and members is preserving and restoring these vital links along the way.

Each year at least a billion birds migrate along the Pacific Flyway, but these birds are only a fraction of those that used the flyway a century ago. Habitat loss, water shortages, diminishing food sources, and climate change all threaten the birds of the Pacific Flyway.

The Pacific Flyway is one of four major North American migration routes for birds, especially waterfowl, and extends from Alaska and Canada, through California, to Mexico and South America. Each year, birds follow ancestral patterns as they travel the flyway on their annual north-south migration. Along the way, they need stopover sites such as wetlands with suitable habitat and food supplies. In California, 90 percent of historic wetlands have been lost. Many of these sites are impacted by development and other factors that threaten to affect the viability of the entire flyway. 

Wetlands provide critical wintering habitat for millions of migrating waterfowl, including geese and ducks. The open water and vegetation in wetlands provide food, rearing areas and cover for waterfowl and shorebirds. Major California wetlands along the flyway include the Klamath River Basin, San Francisco Bay, Mono Lake, Suisun Marsh, wildlife refuges in the Central Valley that are sustained by water project deliveries, and the Salton Sea.

The Central Valley is the most important waterfowl wintering area in the Pacific Flyway, supporting about 60 percent of the total population of migratory birds. In the Sacramento Valley, rice fields provide habitat and food for migrating waterfowl and the shorebirds that nest in the fields year-round.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast and the largest remaining wetland area in the state, plays an important role as well. It supports hundreds of species of migrating birds, including millions of traveling ducks and geese on the north-south migration route. Delta wetlands regularly harbor as much as 15 percent of the waterfowl on the Pacific Flyway.

In the Southern California desert, the Salton Sea also provides an important Pacific Flyway stopping point, serving as a jumping off point for millions of birds migrating south.

For more detailed information please visit the National Audubon Society’s Pacific Flyway webpage. 

Pacific Flyway Council

The Pacific Flyway Council is an administrative body that forges cooperation among public wildlife agencies for the purpose of protecting and conserving migratory birds that inhabit western North America. The Council is composed of the director or an appointee from the public wildlife agency in each state and province in the western United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Migratory birds use four major migratory routes (Pacific, Central, Mississippi, and Atlantic flyways) in North America. Because of the unique biological characteristics and relative number of hunters in these regions, state and federal wildlife agencies adopted the flyway structure for administering migratory bird resources within the United States. Each flyway has its own council. 

In the U.S., the Pacific Flyway includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and those portions of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming west of the Continental Divide.

Biologists from state, federal, and provincial wildlife and land-management agencies, university students and faculty, and others develop management plans for the cooperative management of migratory bird populations in the Pacific Flyway. Biologists from the Central Flyway, Canada, Mexico, and Russia contribute to these plans. The Pacific Flyway Council has prepared more than 28 management plans to date. Flyway management plans are products of the Council, developed and adopted to help state and federal agencies cooperatively manage migratory birds under common goals.

For more information regarding the Pacific Flyway Council please visit their website.

Central Valley Joint Venture

The Central Valley Joint Venture (CVJV) is a self-directed coalition consisting of 19 State and Federal agencies, private conservation organizations and one corporation. This partnership directs their efforts toward the common goal of providing for the habitat needs of migrating and resident birds in the Central Valley of California. The CVJV was established in 1988 as a regional partnership focused on the conservation of waterfowl and wetlands under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. It has since broadened its focus to the conservation of habitats for other birds, consistent with major national and international bird conservation plans and the North American Bird Conservation Initiative.

In 1990, the CVJV developed its first strategy document, the Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture Implementation Plan. In 2006, the Plan was updated to incorporate new information and broaden the scope of conservation activities to include objectives for shorebirds, waterbirds, and riparian songbirds. Now, the 2020 Central Valley Joint Venture Implementation Plan updates and expands on these previous efforts to incorporate new science, new bird groups, and the practical constraints of water availability, conservation opportunities, current and predicted shifts in climate, and the impacts and needs of human communities in the region.

For more information regarding the Central Valley Joint Venture please visit their website.

Sources: National Audubon Society, Pacific Flyway Council, and Central Valley Joint Venture