The Intermountain West Joint Venture

Established in 1994, as the tenth U.S. habitat joint venture, the Intermountain West JV is a public-private partnership dedicated to the conservation of bird habitat in selected portions of 11 western states stretching from Canada to Mexico.

The IWJV's work centers on implementation of the conservation goal and objectives of five major bird initiatives: The North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP), Partners in Flight (PIF), The U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan (USSCP), The North American Waterbird Conservation Plan (NAWCP), and The National Sage Grouse Conservation Planning Framework. The current objectives of the IWJV include protecting 1.5 million public and private acres through facilitation of conservation easements, management agreements, incentive programs, and stewardship programs; restoration and enhancement of 1 million acres of wetland habitat through direct habitat improvement programs; and enhancement of all bird habitats through direct improvement programs, public education, and cooperation with partners.

ABC's Northern Rockies office in Kalispell, Montana is under contract with the IWJV to provide leadership and facilitation for all-bird conservation action in BCR 10, and GIS support for the delivery of 11 state implementation plans covering nearly 500 million acres of the interior West. We participate actively with the IWJV Steering Committees in each state falling within BCR 10 (ID, MT, OR, WA, WY), and work with other BCR coordinators and with the IWJV to tie state Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategies together with IWJV objectives and west-wide Coordinated Bird Monitoring. We work strategically with land trusts, watershed groups, state and federal agencies, and other diverse partners to help bring grant money to bear on priority habitats and declining species with a subset of the >380 "Bird Habitat Conservation Areas" identified as focal areas for coordinated bird conservation within the Joint Venture.

The IWJV comprises perhaps the most diverse habitat within any joint venture in the contiguous forty-eight states due to the wide variation in physiography, elevation, and climate. Well over 600 mountain ranges are found within the IWJV, including 21 of the 33 tallest mountains in North America. All seven of the largest deserts in North America occur in the IWJV, five exclusively.

With such diversity comes a wide range of avian habitat niches, from alpine types to low and high elevation deserts, from wetlands to montane wet meadows, from cedar-hemlock forests in the north to Joshua tree forests in the south, from mixed grass-mesquite types to short grass prairie, and from bristlecone pine forests to pinyon-juniper woodlands. This is reflected in the tremendous bird diversity in the region.

The Intermountain West is home to 1 million breeding shorebirds and several million transients, including the majority of North America's Snowy Plovers, American Avocets, Black-necked Stilts, and Long-billed Curlews. Well over 130 million acres of sagebrush-steppe habitat occurs within the Intermountain West Joint Venture, home to the Gunnison's Sage-Grouse, Greater Sage-Grouse, Sage Sparrow, Sage Thrasher, and Brewer's Sparrow. More than half of the Pacific Flyway's Mallard, Redhead, Canada Goose, and Rocky Mountain Trumpeter Swan Populations winter in the Intermountain West, and more than 2 million breeding ducks nest here.

Riparian habitats in the Intermountain West support the highest species diversity of any western habitat, yet it is one of the rarest of habitats here. Breeding birds include the Black Swift, Rufous Hummingbird, Willow Flycatcher, Lewis's Woodpecker, and Calliope Hummingbird.

IWJV habitats support nearly 100% of the range of all high priority pinyon-juniper landbird species, such as the Gray Vireo, Gray Flycatcher, Pinyon Jay, and Juniper Titmouse.

Low and high elevation riparian habitats are a priority throughout the IWJV area for species such as the Calliope Hummingbird, Broad-tailed Hummingbird, Lewis's Woodpecker, Bell's Vireo, Black Swift, Willow Flycatcher, MacGillivray's Warbler, and American Dipper.