Important Bird Areas

• Identify areas key to the conservation of important bird populations
  or communities.
• Work cooperatively with land owners and managers to conserve these
  areas through habitat management and/or land acquisition/protection
  agreements.
• Promote public and private participation in bird conservation.
• Provide public education and community outreach at publicly accessible
  IBAs.

An IBA is an area that provides important habitat for one or more species of breeding, wintering, or migrating birds.
IBA Characteristics

• Generally supports birds of conservation concern (including threatened
  and endangered species)
• Large concentrations of birds
• Birds associated with unique or exceptional habitat
• High historic research value for bird conservation
• May be either protected or unprotected
• May be publicly or privately held
• IBA Size
  • IBAs may be of any size, but are usually discrete and distinguishable in character, habitat, or ornithological importance from surrounding areas.
  • Where possible, IBAs should be large enough to supply all or most of the needs of birds during the season in which the site is important.
  • Area boundaries may be either natural (e.g., rivers, ridges, islands, watersheds) or human-made (e.g., roads, property boundaries).

Selection of approximately 100 IBAs in Maine is being made from a pool of potential IBAs nominated by citizens, landowners, Audubon chapter members, government personnel, conservation organizations, and sporting groups. Additional nominations based on state and federal agency bird census work are included.

Nominations are reviewed by the Maine IBA Technical Committee, a group of almost two dozen natural resource professionals and citizens with expertise and knowledge about Maine’s bird populations. There will be several rounds of IBA selection out of the pool of nominations.

The IBA Program seeks to identify the most important and highest priority areas across the state for bird conservation; however, every area that supports an endangered or threatened species does not necessarily qualify as an IBA. Rather, areas that are nominated are compared to each other and those deemed most important relative to the others are selected as IBAs.

Review of Maine IBAs will be necessary over time as bird conservation concerns change and species lists used as the basis for IBA criteria are updated (e.g., endangered and threatened species, special concern species, Partners in Flight priority ratings).

Nomination Criteria

Areas nominated for an IBA met at least one of three primary criteria. Two secondary criteria sometimes strengthened the case for nomination.

Primary Criteria

• Areas for threatened and endangered species
• Areas for species of conservation concern
• Areas with subtantial concentrations of birds and/or high species
  diversity

Secondary Criteria

• Areas important for research/monitoring
• Areas for species associated with rare, vulnerable, or exemplary
  habitat types

IBA Selection

IBAs are selected based on how well they meet the criteria. although these criteria are not absolute and should be viewed as guidelines only. Other factors, such as relative importance or a unique combination of characteristics, may be considered when making final IBA selections.

IBAs may be dropped as bird populations and the associated IBA criteria change over time, and new IBAs may be added.

20 Gilsland Farm Road
Falmouth, Maine 04105

(207) 781-2330
Fax: (207) 781-0974
conserve@maineaudubon.org