Regional Initiatives

Northern Forest Initiative

Overview

The Northern Forest Woodcock Initiative (NFWI) is in Bird Conservation Region 14, the Atlantic Northern Forest. This ecoregion includes most of New England, the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and Atlantic Canada. A stepdown of the Woodcock Conservation Plan for the Northern Forest region outlines habitat goals.

The NFWI is the first of many planned and ongoing habitat initiatives throughout the woodcock's range. Biologists and administrators in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wildlife Management Institute launched the NFWI in 2004. Since then, more than 30 agencies, organizations, corporations, and individuals have signed on to restore and create habitat for woodcock in the Northern Forest.
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In 2008, the U.S. Department of the Interior gave the NFWI partnership its Cooperative Conservation Award. This annual award recognizes cooperative conservation achievements involving collaboration among a diverse range of entities that may include federal, state, and local agencies, private companies, and individuals.

NFWI has been successful because of the willingness of private landowners to adopt "woodcock-friendly" practices on their land. Noteworthy private landowner partners include Cowls Land and Lumber Company, The Lyme Timber Company, Plum Creek, Inc., Berkshire Natural Resource Council, and the J. D. Irving Company. (View a list of NFWI partners).

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Appalachian Mountains Initiative

Overview

The Appalachian Mountains Woodcock Initiative (AMWI) is located in Bird Conservation Region 28. It covers southern New York, much of Pennsylvania, western Maryland, all of West Virginia, and parts of Ohio and Virginia. A stepdown of the Woodcock Conservation Plan for the Appalachian region outlines habitat goals.

GWW Habitat
In the past, this area had some of the best breeding habitat for woodcock in the species' range. But development by humans and the gradual changeover from brushy forest to mature woods has cut deeply into the number of acres that remain available to timberdoodles.

Partners in the AMWI include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Natural Resources Conservation Service; National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; U.S. Geological Survey; American Bird Conservancy; Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies; fish, wildlife, and conservation agencies for New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia; the Ruffed Grouse Society; Woodcock Limited of Pennsylvania; and the Wildlife Management Institute.

Wildlife biologists have developed a set of Best Management Practices to benefit woodcock in the Appalachians.

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Upper Great Lakes Initiative

Overview

Biologists and conservationists created the Upper Great Lakes Woodcock and Young Forest Initiative in 2007 to promote the stewardship of early successional habitats (young forest and shrublands) in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, within Bird Conservation Regions 12 (Boreal Hardwood Transition) and 23 (Prairie Hardwood Transition). A stepdown of the Woodcock Conservation Plan for the Upper Great Lakes region outlines habitat goals.
aspen in autumn
An important partnership in the initiative is the collaboration between the Woodcock Task Force and the Golden-Winged Warbler Working Group. The population of golden-winged warblers is also falling in the region, likely due in part to habitat loss.

Partners in this regional initiative include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the Golden-Winged Warbler Working Group, the Ruffed Grouse Society, Woodcock Minnesota, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the Wildlife Management Institute.

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Atlantic Coast Initiative

Overview

The Atlantic Coast Woodcock Initiative centers on Bird Conservation Region 30, which stretches from southwestern Maine south through coastal New Hampshire, most of Massachusetts, all of Rhode Island, most of Connecticut, New York’s Long Island, southern New Jersey, the Delmarva Peninsula of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, and those counties in mainland Maryland and Virginia bordering Chesapeake Bay.

Mannington Mills
This region lies in the coastal plain. By the early 1900s about 70 percent of the land had been cleared for farming and settlement. After many farms were abandoned in the mid-1900s, young brushy forest grew up. Since then, urban development and the maturing of forests have caused a steady decline in the amount of habitat available to woodcock and other wild creatures that need young forest for food and cover.

Woodcock breed in the Atlantic Coast region, and timberdoodles that breed farther north migrate through this important coastal corridor. Young-forest habitats provide crucial resting and feeding areas to woodcock shifting between the northern primary breeding range and wintering areas farther south. Some woodcock may winter in extreme southern New Jersey, the Delmarva Peninsula, and parts of Virginia adjacent to Chesapeake Bay.

Another wild animal that needs young forest is the New England cottontail, found in parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York covered by the Atlantic Coast Woodcock Initiative. The New England cottontail is a candidate for the federal endangered species list. Creating young-forest and shrubland habitat for woodcock also benefits the New England cottontail, whose population has dwindled in recent decades because of habitat loss.

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