Conservation across boundaries and borders

Posted onOctober 22, 2024byStephanie Winton|Canadian Species Initiative, Canadian Species Initiative, News

IUCN Director General, Dr Grethel Aguilar, has recently called upon the global conservation community to “reach across boundaries and borders – of geography, sectors, age and expertise…to make real change”. WPC has been doing just that to ensure the survival of an endangered grassland bird, the eastern loggerhead shrike (Lanius ludovicianus migrans).

This migratory subspecies of raptor-like songbird is only found in eastern North America and is facing continued declines across its range. For the past three years, WPC biologists have been involved in a collaborative conservation planning process, guided by partners at the IUCN Conservation Planning Specialist Group (CPSG), to develop the first international conservation strategy for the eastern loggerhead shrike. The strategy, which is now published and available, encompasses conservation needs across the full life cycle of this unique species.

The full annual cycle of the eastern loggerhead shrike is a captivating journey that highlights their resilience and adaptability as they navigate various challenges and opportunities to survive year-round.

Vision collage (clockwise from top left - A Solecki_WPC, N Cairns, J Spero_WPC, J Spero_WPC, K Hennige, H Hess_WPC)

Wild shrike spend about five months each year breeding in southern Ontario where they inhabit open areas such as grasslands, pastures, and agricultural fields with scattered shrubs and trees. These habitats provide essential resources for hunting (including their characteristic behaviour of impaling prey on thorns or barbed wire) and successful nesting. A typical clutch consists of 4-6 eggs, with fledging occurring around three weeks after hatching.
Following the breeding season, eastern loggerhead shrike travel from Ontario to the southeastern US where they spend their winters in habitats that are similar to the breeding grounds. Wintering shrikes may experience competition with resident and other migratory individuals for territories and resources.
The next spring, shrike return to breed in Ontario. During this two-times-a-year journey, they depend on stopover habitats that provide essential resources for refueling and resting. Specific details of their migration routes remain unclear, something that WPC and partners are working to resolve by tracking migration patterns of shrike released from the conservation breeding program.

Coming up with a plan to recover a migratory population that spans borders is a challenging task. To meet this challenge, we used an intricate predictive model that included multiple populations of loggerhead shrikes across the subspecies range, plus the conservation breeding population, and highlighted where conservation work can have the biggest positive impact to inform the conservation strategy.

Many species experts, managers, and other groups with vested interests in the species and its habitat in both Canada and the US contributed to the development of the strategy, ensuring that it had broad buy-in from everyone who was involved. This is the spirit of CPSG’s One Plan Approach to species conservation, which WPC strives to embody, where all responsible parties jointly develop one conservation plan for all populations of a species, including those in the wild as well as those in captivity.

Tracking collage (top left - Ontario, H Hess_WPC; bottom right - Virginia, G Schultz)

For eastern loggerhead shrike, the conservation strategy includes:

protecting and conserving existing shrike habitat,
restoring and enhancing degraded habitat,
reducing knowledge gaps,
mitigating direct threats, and
improving wild population demographics by improving management of wild and captive populations

If we can achieve these things, then we can get to our ultimate goal: viable, self-sustaining populations of loggerhead shrike across eastern North America, supported by local communities and industries. This will require continued collaboration and coordination among partners across the US and Canada, but we know that we and our partners are committed and up to the task.

Read more about the recommendations to conserve this remarkable species here: Conservation Strategy for the Eastern Loggerhead Shrike

Stephanie Winton

Species Conservation Planning Coordinator – Canadian Species Initiative

Stephanie was the 31st Canada’s New Noah and has stayed on with WPC to work with the Canadian Species Initiative to build capacity for species conservation planning in Canada. Stephanie has extensive experience working in conservation and research for species-at-risk risk reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds in Western Canada.