Since June 2013 the Manitoba Important Bird Areas Program have been working on the Manitoba Grassland Conservation Initiative. This program was established with the aim of engaging landowners and communities in Manitoba about the fast declining populations of grassland birds. Over the intervening period, the program has delivered the objectives of the program. This has included attendance at local fairs, giving talks promoting the program, finding out about how landowners view grassland birds in a stakeholder survey, involving volunteers in monitoring the grassland IBAs and providing workshops on the birds of the prairies. At the culmination of funding from Environment Canada’s EcoAction Community Funding Program, we have produced a ‘Landowners’ Guide to Grassland Bird Conservation in Manitoba’. This guide provides an overview of the issues which cause bird populations to thrive and those which cause them to decline. It gives a brief overview of the added activities, in addition to farming livestock, which might benefit birds. Finally it describes some of the threatened species that might be found on each parcel of land. Designed by Carrie-Anne Lander and based on a literature review from Marshall Birch, we hope it will be a valuable addition to bird conservation in Manitoba.

Image of the front cover of the guide

A copy of the guide can be downloaded at the bottom of this page: https://importantbirdareasmb.ca/manitoba-grassland-bird-initiative/. If you would like a hard copy of the guide, please contact Tim Poole at iba@naturemanitoba.ca or (204) 943-9029.