This GIS layer delineates the spatial boundaries of Important Bird Areas (IBAs), which are sites recognized as globally significant for the conservation of bird populations within York County, Pennsylvania. The dataset includes polygon features representing IBAs identified through standardized criteria developed by BirdLife International, including species vulnerability, population thresholds, and habitat significance. Each feature contains associated attributes such as site name, location, area, key species, IBA criteria met, protection status, and designation year. This layer supports conservation planning, environmental assessment, and biodiversity monitoring efforts, and is intended for use by researchers, land managers, policymakers, and conservation organizations.

The updated layers can been accessed directly from the source from the 'Important Bird Areas Canada', official website. They have an interactive map, the IBA Database, downloadable resources, in KMZ format. At this location you can also help monitor bird populations at IBAs and contribute to ongoing research and maintenance of these valuable areas. Bird Studies Canada. (n.d.). Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas in Canada. Available at: https://www.ibacanada.ca/index.jsp?lang=en Russell J. and D. Fifield. (2001). Marine bird Important Bird Areas in northern Labrador: conservation concerns and potential strategies. Canadian Nature Federation, Bird Studies Canada, Natural History Society of Newfoundland and Labrador, 134pp

This map indicates the location and conservation priority of Important Bird Areas throughout the U.S. BirdLife International is a global coalition of more than 100 country partner organizations. The Important Bird Areas Program was initiated by BirdLife International in Europe in the 1980's. Since then, over 8,000 sites in 178 countries have been identified as Important Bird Areas, with many national and regional IBA inventories published in 19 languages. Hundreds of these sites and millions of acres have received better protection as a result of the Important Bird Areas Program.As the United States Partner of BirdLife International, the National Audubon Society administers the IBA Program in the U.S. Audubon launched its Important Bird Areas initiative in 1995, establishing programs state by state. State-based IBA programs provide conservation leaders with the flexibility to tailor the program to their individual state needs, and they also give Audubon members and local volunteers the greatest opportunities to protect sites in their communities.Conservation activities are being conducted at many of these IBAs. A U.S. IBA Committee has been established to review IBA data and assures the credibility of all IBAs of continental or global significance.

The Important Bird and Biodiveristy Areas (IBA) Programme is a BirdLife International Programme to conserve habitats that are important for birds. These areas are defined according to a strict set of guidelines and criteria based on the species that occur in the area. The Important Bird Areas of Southern Africa directory was first published 1998 and identified within South Africa 122 IBAs. In September 2015 a revised IBA Directory was published by BirdLife South Africa. All these IBAs were objectively determined using established and globally accepted criteria. An IBA is selected on the presence of the following bird species in a geographic area: • Bird species of global or regional conservation concern; • Assemblages of restricted-range bird species; \ • Assemblages of biome-restricted bird species; and • Concentrations of numbers of congregatory bird species. For more information see: http://www.birdlife.org.za/conservation/importantbird-areas/documents-and-downloads

Important bird areas of international importance (IBA). Map type: Choropleths. Spatial extent: Switzerland. Time: 2015

Polygons representing the perimeters of the IBAs, numbering 6 in Île-de-France.ZICO in French (= IBA in English for Important Bird Area) refers to an international scientific inventory (Birdlife.org) to identify the most favourable areas for the conservation of wild birds. Within the European Union, IBA may also mean Area of Community Interest for Birds or Area of Community Importance for Birds.To be classified as an IBA, a site must meet at least one of the following conditions:- be able to be the habitat of a certain population of a species internationally recognised as being at risk;- be the habitat of a large number or concentration of migratory birds, coastal birds or seabirds;- be the habitat of a large number of species with restricted biotope. Generally speaking, IBAs are intended to ensure the conservation and management of species.

The objective of this project was to digitally map the boundaries of Audubon California's Important Bird Areas (IBA). Existing Important Bird Areas identify critical terrestrial and inland water habitats for avifauna, in particular, habitat that supports rare, threatened or endangered birds and/or exceptionally large congregations of shorebirds and/or waterfowl. The digitization of Important Bird Areas represents an important first step in conservation planning of these critical habitats using GIS. For more information, visit: https://docs.audubon.org/sites/default/files/documents/auduboncalifornia_gtr_iba_200812.pdfImportant Bird Areas (IBAs) identify critical terrestrial and inland water habitats for avifauna; in particular, habitat that supports rare, threatened or endangered birds and/or exceptionally large congregations of shorebirds and/or waterfowl. Overall bird conservation efforts throughout California by Audubon California. Fishnet & Report Processing Methods: The fishnet summarizes acres of important bird areas within each grid cell. To calculate the report measure, total acres of important bird areas were summed for an area of interest.

CDFW BIOS GIS Dataset, Contact: Andrea Jones, Description: Important Bird Areas (IBA) as described and analyzed by Cooper (2004), Important Bird Areas of California. Each IBA entry supports a list of sensitive species reported to occur within the IBA and a ranking score based on criteria described in the metadata.

This dataset displays the areas important to bird roosting, foraging, wintering. This shows the “key areas for roosting, foraging, wintering” expert mapping component of the Birds ESA. It depicts areas important to bird roosting, foraging, wintering identified through expert participatory mapping. Delineated by Patrick Comins, Exec Dir of Ct Audobon Society in Jan 2019. Additional Source Info: https://cteco.uconn.edu/projects/blueplan/layersESA.htm#keybirdareaswinteringView Dataset on the Gateway

Important note: The dataset is updated daily under OpenData NRW! The map layer bird protection areas can be selected in the Web Map Service Landscape Information Collection (WMS LINFOS) and shows the location and spatial extent of bird protection areas in North Rhine-Westphalia. These bird protection areas are sites of Community importance (EU) notified for the protection of bird species under the Birds Directive for the NATURA 2000 network. Annex I to the Birds Directive (Directive 79/409/EEC) lists selected bird species for which special protection areas must be designated (cf. Article 4(1) of the US Directive). In addition, appropriate protected areas must also be designated for all migratory bird species and their breeding, moulting, wintering and resting areas during migration.

WMS Map Service of the “Aircraft relevant Bird Areas” (ABA) areas. In the Aviation and Nature Conservation Working Group under the direction of the BfN and the German Aero Club (DAeC), so-called “aeronautical bird areas” were selected in cooperation with the countries’ bird sanctuaries according to uniform criteria. These “Aircraft relevant Bird Areas” (ABA) show areas with high numbers of birds during the resting and train times, as well as areas with particularly disturbing (large bird) species in the aeronautical maps of the German Air Traffic Service (ICAO).

Conservation of migratory birds requires improved understanding of the distribution of and threats to their migratory habitats and pathways. Wind energy development poses a potential threat, which may be reduced if facilities avoid or mitigate impacts in migration concentration areas. However, a current lack of information on the distribution of migratory concentration areas in the western U.S. impedes proactive planning. The Wyoming Natural Diversity Database (WYNDD) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) developed deductive models of migratory bird concentration areas. Models were based on a synthesis of existing literature and expert knowledge concerning bird migration behavior and ecology, represented through GIS datasets, and validated using expert ratings and known occurrences. Our results were migration maps for four functional groups: raptors, wetland birds, riparian birds, and sparse grassland birds. Key factors included in migration models differed among the four groups, but included streams, topography, wind patterns, wetland size, forage availability, flyway location, proximity to streams, and vegetation type and structure. Experts rated all models as good or very good, and there was significant agreement between species occurrence data and the migration models for all groups except raptors. Our maps provide data to companies and agencies planning Wyoming wind developments. Our approach could be replicated elsewhere to fill critical data gaps and better inform conservation priorities and wind development planning.

In this work, we analyse factors explaining the distribution and range regression of Dupont’s lark in Spain, the only European country in which this threatened alaudid is present. Dupont’s lark is an extremely elusive and scarce species, distributed across a reduced and strongly fragmented range, showing a metapopulational structure with unknown dispersive and connective mechanisms. We used maximum entropy modelling (Maxent) on nearly 15,000 Dupont’s lark observations (1985–2015) to assess the probability of presence at a 1 km resolution across its European range. Moreover, we tested the probability of extinction by comparing pre- and post-2000 observations by means of a GLM over a subset of cells with presence-absence data. We obtained strong model fitting (AUC = 0.919), in which species occurrence was explained by low values of plant productivity (NDVI), climate (high temperature range and medium annual precipitation), land use (increasing with sclerophyllous scrubland), flat topography and human disturbance (associated with low human population density). The species also tolerates dry farming, but not other farm types or forest cover. The probability map identified two main regions known as the species' core areas: the steppes of the Iberian System and the Ebro Valley. The North Plateau is characterised by a dispersed structure of small and very fragmented patches of suitable habitat, while a succession of discontinuous probability patches form an Eastern Corridor connecting the central core areas to the southernmost populations. Finally, the model identified small and isolated patches of high probability of presence along the eastern coastline. The species tends to occur in the best available areas but, at the same time, the model revealed a large area of suitable but unoccupied habitat. Our results correct the previous estimation of occupation area from 1,480 to 1,010.78 km2, a reduction of 26.22%. The current distribution of Dupont’s lark is almost completely covered by Important Bird Areas (IBAs), highlighting their importance for bird conservation, but only 44.89% is included in Natura 2000 Special Protection Areas (SPAs). A comparison of pre- and post-2000 periods revealed a range contraction of 44%. Probability of extinction increased with higher temperature range and lower annual precipitation, and with decreases in population density, which suggests that this species is extremely vulnerable to both climate change and rural abandonment, due to its dependence on traditional grazing. These results suggest the need for a re-evaluation of the conservation status of Dupont’s lark in Spain. They urge the preservation of not only current extant populations, but also the unoccupied suitable areas that could be critical for metapopulation structure, and the development of policies addressing the preservation of traditional grazing.

This data set reflects updates by WDNR through 10/31/2014. This data layer is a polygon layer representing Important Bird Area Boundaries in Wisconsin, prepared by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR). For more information on Wisconsin's Important Bird Area program, see publication PUB-WM-475-2007, Important Bird Areas of Wisconsin: Critical Sites for the Conservation and Management of Wisconsin's Birds, Yoyi Steele, editor.

Human activities alter ecosystems everywhere, causing rapid biodiversity loss and biotic homogenization. These losses necessitate coordinated conservation actions guided by biodiversity and species distribution spatial data that cover large areas yet have fine-enough resolution to be management-relevant (i.e., ≤ 5 km). However, most biodiversity products are too coarse for management or are only available for small areas. Furthermore, many maps generated for biodiversity assessment and conservation do not explicitly quantify the inherent tradeoff between resolution and accuracy when predicting biodiversity patterns. Our goals were to 1) generate predictive models of overall breeding bird species richness and species richness of different guilds based on nine functional or life history-based traits across the conterminous US at three resolutions (0.5, 2.5, and 5 km), and 2) quantify the tradeoff between resolution and accuracy, and hence relevance for management, of the resulting biodiversity maps. We summarized eighteen years of North American Breeding Bird Survey data (1992-2019) and modeled species richness using random forests, including 66 predictor variables (describing climate, vegetation, geomorphology, and anthropogenic conditions), 20 of which we newly derived. Among the three spatial resolutions, the percent variance explained ranged from 27% to 60% (median = 54%; mean = 57%) for overall species richness and 12% to 87% (median = 61%; mean = 58%) for our different guilds. Overall species richness and guild-specific species richness were best explained at 5-km resolution using approximately 24 predictor variables based on percent variance explained, symmetric mean absolute percentage error, and root mean squared error values. However, our 2.5-km resolution maps were almost as accurate and provided more spatially detailed information, which is why we recommend them for most management applications. Our results represent the first consistent, occurrence-based, and nationwide maps of breeding bird richness with a thorough accuracy assessment that are also spatially detailed enough to inform local management decisions. More broadly, our findings highlight the importance of explicitly considering tradeoffs between resolution and accuracy to create management-relevant biodiversity products for large areas.

Map of the Comunitat Valenciana that shows the most important places for bird watching. The information on ornithological areas is classified into coastal zone, inland sierra, wetland zone and steppe zone, each of which is represented in a different colour. The base map on which the thematic information is represented is a map derived from the 1:300000 map by the Institut Cartogràfic Valencià, which contains population centres of more than 50000 inhabitants, main and secondary roads and railways. The background is a 25m shadow map

Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) is a 50,000 acre refuge overlaid on portions of the former Jefferson Proving Ground (JPG) in Jefferson, Jennings, and Ripley counties, Indiana. Beginning in 1996, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) began managing the area. Big Oaks NWR was established in June 2000 as an “overlay” Refuge through a 25-year real estate permit from the U.S. Army. As an overlay refuge, the U.S. Army retains ownership and the USFWS manages the property as Big Oaks NWR. Big Oaks NWR hosts a variety of different habitat types, providing for a diversity of wildlife species. The refuge is unique in that it contains one of the largest contiguous forest blocks and grassland complexes in southeast Indiana. Big Oaks has been recognized as a Globally Important Bird Area. Grasslands at Big Oaks NWR host many species which while once common but are now rare in Indiana. There is a large nesting population of Henslow’s sparrows as well as the Kirtland’s snakes and crawfish frogs, which all depend on grasslands at Big Oaks. The flatwoods at Big Oaks NWR is another important habitat type, which host several types of rare or endemic salamanders. While Big Oaks NWR is a refuge which encompasses much diversity, it did not have an up-to-date, detailed, and comprehensive vegetation map of its habitats. Vegetation mapping will help Big Oaks NWR monitor and record changes across the landscape. It will also serve as a baseline to track future changes on the refuge related to habitat restoration projects, flooding and drought, plantings, and invasive species treatments.

The Natura 2000 network comprises 2 types of regulatory areas: special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Special Conservation Areas (SACs). SPAs are designated on the basis of the Inventory of Important Bird Conservation Areas (ICOAs) as defined by European Directive 79/409/EEC of 25 April 1979 on the conservation of wild birds. The designation of SPAs is a national decision, resulting in a ministerial order, without requiring a prior dialogue with the European Commission.

This dataset contains data published in the first-ever Atlas of Breeding Birds in Bulgaria which was developed and published by the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds, the BirdLife partner in Bulgaria. The atlas contains the most complete information about the bird fauna of the country. It was done on the standard for Europe methodology and covers all the 1,240 10×10 km UTM squares on the territory of Bulgaria for the period 1996-2005.

The Atlas is a scientific basis for the identification of Important Bird Areas in Bulgaria (respectively the Special Protection Areas under the EU Birds Directive), for developing the new edition of the Bulgarian Red Data Book (published in 2011), for future monitoring the status of the national bird populations, as well as for successful conservation. The main sponsors of publishing this book are BirdLife/Vogelbescherming Nederland and Dutch Nationale Postcode Loterij. The main sponsors of mapping and the overall work on the Atlas are The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds - the BirdLife Partner in UK, and BirdLife International - Global partnership of conservation organisations. BSPB website: www.bspb.org.

The printed book (680 pages) presents information (in Bulgarian and English) on 297 bird species accounts, as well as a chapter with information on the history of bird mapping in Bulgaria, goals and methodology of the mapping, analysis and summarized data about the breeding bird fauna in the country, etc. Every species account is illustrated with a black and white drawing and presents data on population size, trends in the distribution and numbers, distribution map, a map showing the numbers of the pairs in every UTM square, historical changes in the population since 1859, preferable breeding habitats and the breeding altitude range of the species.

Unlike the atlas, for the time being, the current dataset contains only presence data (i.e. no data on species density).

Data Updated: Feb 2020For commercial use of this dataset please visit https://www.ibat-alliance.org/ (note that IBAs are a subset of KBAs)The most important sites for birds are known as Important Bird Areas (IBAs). The IBA Programme of BirdLife International is a worldwide initiative aimed at identifying and protecting a network of sites, critical for the conservation of the world's birds. These sites were selected on the basis of the bird numbers and species complements they hold. IBAs are particularly important for species that congregate in large numbers, such as wintering and passage waterbirds and breeding seabirds. Many sites have also been identified for species of global, and European/EU conservation concern. This dataset contains IBA boundaries from Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. It is projected in WGS 1984. The dataset was updated in Feb 2020 to resolve a projection issue. More info