The report overview states:
This year’s report provides the nation’s first assessment of the distribution of birds on public lands and helps public agencies identify which species have significant potential for conservation in each habitat. The state of our birds is a measurable indicator of how well we are doing as stewards of our environment. The signal is clear. Greater conservation efforts on public lands and waters are needed to realize the vision of a nation sustained economically and spiritually by abundant natural resources and spectacular wildlife.
You can read the full report at:
http://www.stateofthebirds.org/SOTB_2011-05-03-1200-WEB.pdf
The State of the Birds report is written by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, U.S. Committee:
American Bird Conservancy
Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
Bureau of Land Management
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Department of Defense/DoD Partners in Flight
Klamath Bird Observatory
National Audubon Society
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Park Service
The Nature Conservancy
University of Idaho
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
USDA Forest Service
U.S. Geological Survey
Best of all, birders themselves contributed to this report by recording their sightings in the citizen science program eBird.
The report has this thank you side bar.
"Thank You to eBird Volunteers"
Our understanding of bird distributions has greatly improved thanks to the thousands of bird watchers who have contributed observations to eBird (www.eBird.org). This effort is especially important for tracking seasonal and fine-scale changes in bird distributions, which is not possible with other bird-monitoring programs. However, even this massive observation network provides only imperfect information for assessing the year-round status of birds on many remote public lands across the U.S., including Alaska, Hawaii, and island territories. We urge birders to submit more observations to eBird from public refuges, parks, forests, and wilderness areas. We also urge agencies to support the submission of current and historical records to eBird and other data archives.
