CVJV Board Partners Help Shorebirds and Benefit Farmers
This past fall our board member River Partners engaged in a successful test of a project called BirdReturns that teams up farmers, wetland managers, and communities with conservation groups to provide habitat for migrating shorebirds. By shallowly flooding post-harvest rice fields and fallow agricultural fields at just the right times during migration, farmers can create “grocery stores” for these struggling bird species. The shallow water also helps prepare the fields for the next planting season, and the farmers receive some financial compensation for their efforts, so everyone comes out ahead.
River Partners helped conduct a BirdReturns test this summer at Dos Rios Norte, their 1,600-acre habitat restoration site at the confluence of the Sacramento and Feather rivers.
Shorebirds can lose 40% of their body weight in one night of migration
River Partners worked with their cooperative farmer, Lundberg Family Farms, to flood a fallowed 50-acre rice field on Dos Rios Norte for five weeks, at just the right depth to create optimal shorebird habitat. This temporary wetland habitat immediately attracted thousands of waterbirds including several species of shorebirds and wading birds. Shorebirds can lose 40% of their body weight in one night of migration, and they generally have very long migration journeys, so providing this type of stopover habitat is critically important.
Maven’s Notebook, California’s leading water news aggregator, excerpted the River Partners blog post in its “In California Water News and Commentary Today” section, increasing this project’s visibility among the state’s top lawmakers, regulators and other thought leaders concerned with water policy. And the Sacramento-area Fox News channel ran a substantive story about the project, bringing awareness of this positive project to community members – and voters – as well.
BirdReturns is a project innovated by The Nature Conservancy and managed cooperatively for the last 10 years with Audubon California, Point Blue Conservation and California Department of Fish and Game. More than 200 farmers and wetland managers have participated in the program, creating thousands of acres of shorebird habitat. Thanks go to River Partners, The Nature Conservancy, California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, Audubon California, and Point Blue Conservation Science – all of whom serve on the CVJV Management Board – as well as to Lundberg Family Farms, the Floodplain Forward Coalition, and Apple, for engaging in this important work.
Photo: Black-necked stilt in flooded rice field – California Rice Commission
