Audubon Missouri's Important Bird Areas Initiative & Map

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The Important Bird Area (IBA) program is a worldwide bird conservation program designed to identify, monitor, and protect those areas most important to birds. The National Audubon Society, in partnership with BirdLife International, began implementing the IBA program in the United States in 1995. There are currently 46 states with IBA programs in various stages of development.

Audubon Initiates IBA Program in Missouri

In 2002, Audubon initiated the Missouri IBA program which identifies the 47 most important landscapes for bird populations in Missouri. Being centrally located among continental biomes and their transitional zones, Missouri contains a wide variety of avian species from western and northern prairies and wetlands, eastern forests, and southern swamps. Most avian conservation issues in Missouri region involve the degradation, loss, and fragmentation of habitat. Our IBA program identifies these imperiled habitats, their conservation concerns, species affected, and then targets them for on-the-ground community conservation action. See our Missouri IBA MAP below.

Given the realities of such a broad endeavor, under the direction of a steering and technical committee comprised of ornithological experts from chapters, agencies and universities, we have identified four of the most critical IBAs in Missouri in an effort to deploy landscape scale species monitoring and habitat restoration efforts:

• Cole Camp Prairies IBA—A 31,000 acre grassland/prairie landscape near Sedalia, Missouri that supports populations of Greater Prairie-Chicken (state endangered), Henslow’s Sparrows, Grasshopper Sparrows and Eastern Meadowlarks. We hired a project director on the ground in Cole Camp to work with our MDC partner and private landowners to advance grassland conservation activity, focused on large-scale fescue and row crop conversion, tree removal, and community awareness.
• Iatan/Weston River Corridor IBA—A 100,000 acre landscape near Kansas City, Missouri of restored marshes and bottomland forests located along a key corridor for migratory landbirds. Area also supports significant wetland species such as Least Bittern, Common Moorhen, Marsh Wren, and Virginia and King Rails. In its early stages of development, a partnership is emerging between Missouri DNR, Kansas City Power and Light, Fort Leavenworth, the city of Weston, and other stakeholders to deploy bird and habitat conservation activity in one of the most critical migratory flyways in the country and the largest surviving tract of old-growth bottomland forest on the entire length of the Missouri River, known as the Weston Bend Bottomlands.
• Great Rivers Confluence IBA—Network of significantly public and privately-owned marshes and bottomland forests embedded within an agricultural context, that support wetland bird species such as Virginia Rail, Marsh Wrens, and the state-endangered American Bittern and King Rail. This IBA is also a key flyway and stopover site for migratory shorebirds and landbirds. AM recently hired a director to develop the St. Louis project and IBA. Working closely with our St. Louis Audubon Society Chapter and the U.S. Corps of Engineers partners, this project will continue to utilize IBA data to identify and restore wetlands and bottomland areas within a 54,000 acre landscape. Specific monitoring focus will be put on the 1,200 acres of wetlands at Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary.
• White River Glades and Woodlands IBA—An extensive 432,000 acre network of glades, savannas, and woodlands that support populations of Bachman’s Sparrows (state endangered), Greater Roadrunners, Painted Buntings, and Prairie Warblers. Our Greater Ozarks Audubon Chapter has initiated an effort for community stewardship and workshops, training, and cane restoration work at Drury Mincy Conservation Area. We are also collaborating closely with our Audubon Arkansas conservation efforts established in this region.

Please click on the numbered area to find out more information about each particular Missouri IBA.