Spring 2001 Whooping Crane Migrational Survey Protocol Implementation Report

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Currently the Cooperative Agreement and proposed Program has available a complete land use /land cover GIS analysis of 1998 color infrared photography. Continued regular collection of landscape data sources of the study area through other protocols, such as aerial photographs and GIS data, will enable future habitat use /availability research. The protocol also outlines what information Program personnel will collect from the FWS and state agencies throughout the whooping crane's migrational corridor. The Technical Committee reached consensus at their January 23 -24, 2001 meeting that this protocol should be implemented during the spring 2001 season for the purposes of testing, verifying, and .modifying the eventual protocol for use during the remaining Cooperative Agreement period and Program. All parties recognize that the protocol may change after this initial season. III. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS AND SPECIFICATIONS III.A. Area of Interest The area of interest for monitoring whooping crane migrational habitat use consists of an area 3.5 -miles either side of the Platte River beginning at the junction of U.S. Highway 283 and Interstate 80 near Lexington, Nebraska, and extending eastward to Chapman, Nebraska. When side channels of the Platte River extend beyond the 3.5 -mile area, a 2 -mile buffer area is included around these channels (see attached map). The field portion of this monitoring will be conducted during the periods of spring and fall migration, primarily March -April and October- November. III.B. Project Design III. B. 1. Detecting /Locating Whooping Crane Stopovers Whooping crane stopovers will be documented using both systematic surveys and opportunistic sighting reports. Crane groups detected with systematic surveys will have known probabilities of inclusion in the sample, while crane groups detected opportunistically will compromise a non- probability based sample. Since the systematic sample covers the study area from East to West with equal effort, and from North to South with known frequency, the sample is unbiased with respect to survey effort. The opportunistic sample will contain biases associated with the unequal sampling effort, and therefore may not represent actual crane use of the study area. The relative efficiency of sighting whooping crane groups using systematic aerial surveys is not known. Therefore, public reports and reports from other survey efforts in the valley (e.g., NGPC, Trust, FWS surveys) will also be used to identify occurrences of whooping crane stopovers in the study area. These sighting reports may increase the opportunity to gather crane movement and habitat use information. Aerial Survey Aerial surveys will be used to systematically detect whooping crane stopovers in the study area. Systematic surveys are necessary to develop information on the spatial and temporal distribution of crane stopovers in the Platte River for comparative evaluations. The design of these February 23, 2001 Draft — WC Monitoring Protocol 3