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Administrative: Important Birding Areas (IBAs)
Virginia IBA Statistics
With the full support of its partners, the Virginia IBA Program has worked with hundreds of members of federal, state, non-government, academic, and citizen groups to identify the first 19 Virginia IBAs. At least one more site has been identified as meeting the IBA criteria but is pending additional information before recognition and at least two sites are potential IBAs. Recognized IBAs encompass over 10.2% (more than 2.5 million acres) of Virginia and are confirmed to support all but three of the species listed in the Virginia Wildlife Action Plan (Bachman’s Sparrow, Bewick’s Wren, and Kirtland’s Warbler). Over 44% of the land within IBAs is formally protected in public ownership or in privately held conservation easements. In most IBAs, protected lands make up vital cores on which the sites are anchored. These cores are nested within a landscape of privately held lands that have tremendous potential to provide valuable habitat linkages or buffers between and around protected areas. Conservation ownership within individual IBAs ranges from a low of just 2.4% in the Culpeper Basin IBA to a high of 100% in the Radford Army Ammunition Plant IBA. Most IBAs, however, contain an average of just 37% of land in conservation ownership with many below 10%, making involvement of private landowners an essential component of future conservation strategies.
Virginia IBA Evaluation
IBAs are identified through a systematic approach patterned after that of BirdLife. The IBA Technical Committee was formed to provide technical advice and to evaluate site nominations. This committee consists of individuals from all geographic regions of the state representing federal, state, non-governmental, and academic organizations as well as local citizens with expert knowledge of the bird life in their region. Nominations were solicited from the public, wildlife management and conservation organizations, and other interested parties to be considered as IBAs. The Committee’s role, along with the VA state IBA coordinator, is to decide which nominated areas merit IBA designation. For a site to qualify as an IBA it must meet one or more criteria that were established by the Technical Committee in accordance with national and global standards. These criteria were adjusted to reflect Virginia’s unique avifaunal community and fell under one of three broad categories:
VA1: Sites that support at-risk species in Virginia during the nesting, wintering, or migration seasons.
VA 2: Sites that support a significant assemblage of species in a representative, rare, or threatened habitat in Virginia that are listed as Virginia Responsibility Species.
VA 3: Sites that support significant concentrations of one or more species during the nesting, wintering, or migration seasons.
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