Rehabilitation of Waterbird Nesting Islands

Lead Investigator: Dale E. Gawlik, Harte Research Institute (HRI) , Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (dale.gawlik@tamucc.edu)

Natural Resource Managers: David Newstead, Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program; Shelley Todd, National Park Service; Alexis Baldera, Audubon Texas 

Project Team: Katya Wowk, HRI; James Gibeaut, HRI; Matthew Streich, HRI; Diana Del Angel, HRI

Collaborators: Joshua Oyer, Texas General Land Office 

Technical Monitors: David Hewitt (dhewitt@usgs.gov) and Adriana Leiva (adriana_leiva@fws.gov)

Federal Program Officer/Point of Contact: Frank Parker (frank.parker@noaa.gov)

Award Amount: $2,000,453

Award Period: October 2023 – September 2027

Why it matters: Every four years, the Texas General Land Office updates the Texas Coastal Resiliency Master Plan, which includes a list of high priority colonial waterbird nesting islands in need of rehabilitation. With more than 200 colony islands on the Texas coast, agencies do not have enough funds to manage all of them. Nor do all islands have the same potential to increase regional waterbird populations. 

What the team is doing: The association between colony traits and nesting productivity will be determined by using drones to measure productivity across a range of colony types for five bird species. Movement data from radio-tagged birds will be used to delineate foraging ranges and estimate the probability of habitat use. The prioritization tool, which uses a linear integer programming algorithm implemented in the software package Marxan, will be used to identify a set of colonies that maximize colony persistence, nest survival, and access to foraging habitat. This project will use an iterative co-production process to set conservation targets that define the conservation planning problem solved by the prioritization tool. 

Expected outcome: A prioritization tool will be co-produced and implemented that helps managers identify a network of colony islands where rehabilitation and management are cost effective and the potential for enhancing waterbird populations is high.