The Appalachian Mountains Joint Venture and several partners are organizing a workshop that will detail habitat management techniques for a variety of lands and provide an overview on the financial incentives and programs available for landowners. Resource managers and landowners will learn a range of practices to implement that will benefit a diversity of wildlife, including Ruffed Grouse, Golden-winged Warbler, Wild Turkey, Cerulean Warbler, and American Woodcock. The workshop will take place on October 14-16 in Lewisburg, West Virginia. Funding for the workshop is provided by the U.S. Forest Service, and other agencies assisting with planning include West Virginia Department
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The 2015 annual meeting of the Appalachian Mountains Joint Venture Technical Committee convened at Mountain Lake Lodge outside of Blacksburg, VA on August 19-20. The group of bird researchers and resource managers held discussions on a litany of issues regarding the Joint Venture and bird conservation in the Appalachians and beyond including the restructuring of the Technical Committee, a landscape-level habitat planning and delivery tool for the AMJV, and international efforts among partners on wintering grounds of priority bird species. Major action items that came out of the meeting included: Establishing regional technical committee meetings to bring more people and
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The National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Inc. (SFI) announced today an exciting new partnership for future forests. The two organizations have established a memorandum of mutual support that promotes forest management for the benefit of the nation’s forests and wildlife. “Every year, millions of people enjoy recreational opportunities in forests managed to meet SFI standards,” said NWTF Chief Conservation Officer Becky Humphries. “If we hope to achieve the conservation goals of the NWTF Save the Habitat. Save the Hunt. initiative, partnerships like this one with SFI are critical.” The agreement establishes a partnership for cooperation and collaboration
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The Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy recently protected 267 acres in two separate conservation projects in the Newfound Mountains, near the area where Buncombe, Haywood and Madison counties converge. 31 acres were purchased at Doubleside Knob in Haywood County, and placed 236 acres into conservation easement at Haywood Gap, permanently protecting clean water sources, healthy forest communities, habitat, and wildlife corridors. “These projects continue our decades-long commitment to conservation efforts in the Sandy Mush community,” says Executive Director Carl Silverstein. Over the past two decades, the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy has protected over 10,000 acres in this area. Haywood Gap The
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When you spy a Prothonotary Warbler through a pair of binoculars, its yellow feathers are so bright they practically glow. This show-stopping coloring is responsible for their cumbersome appellation—they’re likely named after high-ranking scribes in the Catholic Church called prothonotaries, who wore yellow cloaks to signify their VIP status. Their impressive title hasn’t stopped populations of these creatures, which are native to the southeastern U.S., from falling off in recent decades. Louisiana, which supports a quarter of the Prothonotary Warblers’ global breeding population, has seen a 40 percent drop in their numbers over the past 50 years. To figure out
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A crowd-funded geotagging project helped researchers figure out where these birds spend their lives. It’s hard to protect a bird’s habitat when you don’t know where it lives half of its life. And the Wood Thrush needs all the help it can get—the species’ population has declined by about two percent each year since 1966, according to Breeding Bird Survey data, leading conservation scientist Peter Marra to fear that the Wood Thrush will be “the next passenger pigeon.” Marra, who heads up the Smithsonian’s Migratory Connectivity Project, suspects that habitat disruption, climate change, cats, or other anthropogenic disturbances are responsible
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Click here to view and download the 2023 AMJV Partnership Year in Review!
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The 2023 AMJV Impact Report is now available for downloading and sharing! Starting in 2022, this beautiful report has been designed annually by Liz Brewer (AMJV Outreach Specialist) to…
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by Liz Brewer, AMJV Outreach Specialist Appalachian Mountains Joint Venture (AMJV), in partnership with the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF), USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS), and the West Virginia…
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