Sanderling Plan - Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network

New Jersey; the Outer Banks of North Carolina; and the Washington coast. Recommendations
made in Version 1.0 of this document are based mainly on the International Shorebird Survey
data scheme (emphasis on United States) and, as such, are incomplete. Future versions of this
Sanderling Conservation Plan will expand geographically to include other data sets for a more
comprehensive perspective.
In response to the recognized need for standardized survey efforts, the Program for
Regional and International Shorebird Monitoring (PRISM) was launched as the blueprint for
shorebird monitoring efforts in the United States and Canada. It is intended to provide reliable
information on the distribution, abundance, and population trends of shorebirds. A top priority
for Sanderling conservation continues to be to improve monitoring schemes, in order to enable
robust estimates of population trends; PRISM is a crucial (and substantial) step in that direction,
although it does not replace existing schemes (i.e., ISS). However, ideally, other sites should
continue to be monitored (albeit in a more standardized fashion) to supplement PRISM efforts
and to provide wider coverage throughout the nonbreeding range.
An option that merits consideration is to organize and refocus non-PRISM monitoring
efforts (such as ISS, or other) to incorporate a rotating panel design. In such a design, a set
number of ‘key’ sites are monitored every year, and additional rotating sets are identified for
monitoring at lower frequencies (e.g., every few years). Such a set-up would require greater
logistical investment up front (to coordinate participant efforts), but once up and running, would
offer critical improvements over the current (non-PRISM) set-ups, because it would provide
consistent sampling in space and time, increasing confidence in both population trend analysis
and the identification of important sites.
CONSERVATION TIMELINE
By 2010
• Create a Sanderling Working Group that includes participants from across the Western
Hemisphere;
• Develop a plan to revisit and evaluate ISS sites that were important to the Sanderling at
some point in the past, but have not been surveyed since the 1990s;
WHSRN – Sanderling Conservation Plan, February 2010, v1.1 66