Vol. 19 (1995)
Grand Teton Np Report

Breeding Bird Popluations in Grand Teton National Park: Density and Distribution

Martin L. Cody
University of California

Published 1995-01-01

Abstract

GTNP (Grand Teton National Park) recently initiated a breeding bird monitoring program, with a view toward assessing population densities of breeding birds and their potential changes, both of residents and neotropical migrants; the 1995 season was the first in which the monitoring protocols of the program were fully instigated. The program goals are the monitoring of both species and densities over a broad range of habitats within the park, with a view to detecting changes over time in these variables, in year-to-year "background" variation and in possible long-term trends. Site selection, mapping and marking, and deployment of various bird census techniques, will be completed and refined over three introductory years, 1995-1997. Thence, it is anticipated that the monitoring program will become permanently established, contributing yearly to an expanding data base on the park's breeding bird populations. This data base, it is believed, will become a useful backup and basis for management decisions, and an increasingly sensitive index from which changes in the park's avifauna, natural or anthropogenic, can be calibrated.