In the past two centuries, cowbirds have increased in numbers and extended their range across North America, while many of the native songbird species whose nests they parasitize to raise their young have declined. This timely book collects forty essays by most of the principal authorities on the biology and management of cowbirds. The book's goals are to explore the biology of cowbirds, the threats they pose to host species and populations, and the management programs that are being undertaken to minimize these threats. The book is organized into five sections, each with an extended editors' introduction that places the contributions in a broad, up-to-date setting. The sections cover: The changing abundance of cowbirds and the ways in which their numbers can be estimated. Host choice by cowbirds, the negative effects of cowbirds on particular host species, and the daily patterns of cowbird behavior. Behavioral interactions between cowbirds and specific host species. Patterns of cowbird abundance and host use across varying landscapes. Management programs designed to control cowbirds and protect threatened songbirds.

Provides a comprehensive review of government programs that generate environmental and environmentally-related statistics. Describes how the data are collected, what their temporal and geographic coverage is, what experts to contact for more information, and how to acquire the data and the reports that interpret them. Covers 7 governmet agencies: Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, HHS, Interior, Transportation and EPA. Comprehensive!

This volume represents a compilation of papers presented at the 3rd International Partners in Flight Workshop held October 1-5, 1995, at the Grand Hotel in Cape May, NJ. The title of the workshop was 'Partners in Flight Conservation Plan: Building Consensus for Action.' Manuscripts have been available on-line at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology web site (http://birds.cornell.edu/pifcapemay) since the year 1999, and the majority of them have been updated recently to reflect knowledge available by the 2000 publication date. The volume is divided into seven sections that range from general planning considerations to a case study in bird conservation planning. References from all papers are compiled in a single 'References' section at the end of the volume.

We all rely on a familiar set of indicators - interest rates, unemployment, inflation, the Dow Jones index, and GDP, for example - to gauge the performance of national economies. No such measures are currently available to describe the environment. This book lays out a blueprint for periodic reporting on the condition and use of ecosystems in the United States. Developed by experts from businesses, environmental organizations, universities, and federal, state, and local government agencies, it is designed to provide policymakers and the general public with a succinct and comprehensive - yet scientifically sound and non-partisan - view of 'how we are doing'. This book should prove invaluable for decision makers in natural resource management and environmental policy in government and environmental organizations, businesses, and trade associations; academics with a research or teaching interest in environmental issues; and the general public interested in the continued well-being of American ecosystems.

Land Condition Trend Analysis (LCTA) bird database documentation capabilities often are limited to the generation of installation-wide species checklists, estimates of relative abundance, and evidence of breeding activity. The conservation and characterization of biological diversity is becoming a management objective of both governmental and private organizations, and as such, more ecologically descriptive summaries are being required. Ecological guild analyses have been proposed as a means to link wildlife to a specific biodiversity component, and thus represents an option to military trainers in evaluating impacts to wildlife communities. This report documents an LCTA database update that provides selected ecological attributes (particularly for the nesting season) for 676 bird species occurring within the continental United States. This database upgrade provides land managers the capability to: (1) generate ecological guild-based summaries with no additional fieldwork, (2) identify specific groups of birds most likely to be impacted by a spatially discrete training impact, (3) customize the local database by adjusting individual attributes for species specific to the installation, and (4) conveniently cross reference or simply convert all LCTA species codes to more globally recognized American Ornithological Union "AOU numbers" or the Bird Banding Laboratories "Alpha codes."