Atlas of Breeding Colonial Waterbirds in the Interior Western United States

Many states in the western U.S. identified information on colonial waterbird distribution and populations as a priority.  The primary issues included determining their status, identifying conservation issues, and refining conservation actions. The Western Colonial Waterbird Survey (WCWS) was implemented during 2009, 2010, and 2011. The final product is a report with the numbers and colony locations of 19 waterbird species in eight western interior states. 

This final Atlas of Breeding Colonial Waterbirds in the Interior Western United States is completed and available on the Internet.

This Atlas consists of two parts:  the Maps for all the sites surveyed during the WCWS and an Atlas data table.  In addition to this Atlas, the final report includes a State database of the survey data.  All data from the WCWS were entered into Microsoft EXCEL spreadsheets, one for each state.  Each spreadsheet has three parts (sheets):  1) Breeding birds; 2) Nonbreeding, if collected in that state; and 3) historical data, if compiled for that state.

This final Atlas: the State maps, Atlas data tables and State databases are described in: Cavitt, J.F., S.L. Jones, N.M. Wilson, J.S. Dieni, T.S. Zimmerman, R.H. Doster and W.H. Howe. 2014. Atlas of breeding colonial waterbirds in the interior western United States. Research Report, U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Denver, Colorado.  The Atlas is available from U.S. FWS or from Weber State University.