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The Boreal Forest at Risk: A Progress Report

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INTRODUCTION

The boreal forest stretches across a vast northern expanse of North America, from Alaska in the west to Newfoundland & Labrador in the east. This vastness itself is one of the most important aspects of the boreal. Not only does it provide critical habitat for very large numbers of birds of many species, but it also allows many species to live a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, taking advantage of abundant food in one part of the boreal one year, and moving long distances to new areas the next year. Thus infrequently seen Black-backed Woodpeckers can suddenly become abundant in areas burned by forest fires, while Tennessee and Bay-breasted Warblers increase greatly when there are outbreaks of spruce budworm. Concentrations of boreal finches shift dramatically over thousands of kilometers as seed supplies change, and owls periodically invade the south due to great swings in small mammal abundance in large areas of the north.

Figure 1 - Bird Conservation Regions in North America's Boreal Forest

Figure 1: The boreal forest in North America encompasses four Bird Conservation Regions: the Northwestern Interior Forest , BCR 4 (blue), the Boreal Taiga Plains, BCR 6 (red), the Taiga Shield and Hudson Plains, BCR 7 (light green), and the Boreal Softwood Shield, BCR 8 (dark green). Analyses in this report exclude the Alaskan part of BCR 4. Together these BCRs encompass some 5.2 million km2,, or approximately two million square miles.

Although the boreal is known to be of considerable significance to landbirds, until now there has been no systematic survey of boreal birds across the whole of the region, due to its size and remote location. But increasing pressures on the boreal forest from resource extraction industries, road access, development and climate change are creating a greater need for information about boreal landbirds. In this report we make use of several large-scale datasets to outline broad patterns in boreal landbird population sizes, trends and links to wintering grounds. Together these illustrate the significance of Canada's portion of the boreal forest to landbirds, not just within the boreal forest, but also across North America, the Western Hemisphere and globally.

In order to understand the significance of Canada's boreal forest for landbirds, the following questions are addressed:

1. How many landbirds of how many species breed in Canada's boreal forest?

1. How many species of landbirds breed in the boreal forest?
2. How many individual landbirds are estimated to breed in the boreal forest?
3. How many landbirds leave the boreal forest after breeding each year?

2. How significant are boreal landbirds throughout Canada, North America and the Western Hemisphere?

1. What proportion of Canada's landbirds are produced in the boreal forest?
2. Which species of landbirds rely most heavily on Canada's boreal forest for breeding, based on percentage of population and/or range?
3. What proportion and what number of landbirds migrate from the boreal and from Canada after the breeding season?
4. Where do boreal migrants go when they leave Canada?
5. How significant are these migrants to the avifauna of other countries?

3. Which boreal landbird species are experiencing significant declines?

4. Based on answers to the above, which species or species groups best illustrate the importance of the boreal to landbirds?

For these species or groups, are there important links to migratory or wintering grounds that can be shown with banding recovery data? Where are their U.S. wintering grounds?

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