The Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) Program  was created by The Institute for Bird Populations in 1989 to assess and monitor the vital rates and population dynamics of over 120 species of North American landbirds in order to provide critical conservation and management information on their populations.

For the past three years biologists in Washington state have been using CyberTracker successfully for their project’s contribution to MAPS.

The MAPS Program utilizes constant-effort mist netting and banding at a continent-wide network of monitoring stations staffed by both professional biologists and highly trained volunteers. MAPS data are used to describe temporal and spatial patterns in the vital
rates of target species, and relationships between these patterns and:

• ecological characteristics and population trends of the target species

• station-specific and landscape-level habitat characteristics

• spatially explicit weather variables

Information from these patterns and relationships is then used to:

• identify the causes of population declines

• formulate management actions and conservation strategies to reverse declines, and maintain healthy populations

• evaluate the effectiveness of management actions and conservation strategies.

A CyberTracker sequence was developed to record relevant data - such as location, physical condition of birds, measurements, etc.  The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife project (co-funded by the Washington Department of Natural Resources) is now run almost entirely by volunteers using Palm Pilots and the CyberTracker software.  The lead biologist visits them occasionally and collects the data on a weekly basis from the handheld computers for filing, storage and analysis on his PC.

Since its first season, MAPS has grown from 16 to over 500 stations and has received the support and endorsement of many federal agencies and conservation groups, including the USDA Forest Service, the National Park Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Biological Resources Division of the USGS, the Department of Defense Legacy Resource Management Program, the National Audubon Society, and the international co-operative Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Initiative, "Partners in Flight."

Photo © Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife