The positive 90-day finding in fall of 2023 started the ESA clock. Under current federal workloads and realistic budget projections, we have roughly 3 years to collect relevant and influential data on the status, distribution, and trend of pinyon jays in Utah before the 12-mo Finding occurs (2028). This current FY request is needed to make use of the time available. The Pinyon Jay is a piñon pine, juniper, and pine-dominated woodland (aka PJ) obligate that often uses the ecotone between closed canopy pine woodlands and sagebrush for foraging, caching pine nuts, and nesting. It has had a recent positive 90-day finding (8/17/2023). It also has a range wide, long-term (1968-2023) significant average population decline of 3.3%/yr with an overall population loss of approximately 83.5%; declines in the core of their range, however, are higher. The causes of these population declines are poorly understood, largely because Pinyon Jays remain understudied. One potential cause that is being assessed through three concurrent PhD studies in Utah is the effects of thinning and complete removal of pinyon-juniper woodlands for various management objectives. These habitat-use focused projects, the forthcoming Species Status Assessment (SSA), and the 12-mo finding process all also need background and baseline data on the bird's use of potential habitat statewide.

Our objectives are to: 1) describe use of modelled potential breeding habitat in the Great Basin across the range of modelled probabilities (0-1) 2) check all known extant breeding colonies for activity to help build our understanding of colony use, persistence, and periodicity 3) use survey data to bolster the growing record of broad-scale habitat use in actively managed landscapes

In addition to the rationale given above, Utah has conducted statewide surveys 2019-2021 using a coarse, road-based approach: Great Basin habitats were both occupied less and not as well sampled by this approach as Colorado Plateau areas. We also need to conform our survey approach to the recently published methodology in order to collect the most seamlessly relevant information for the upcoming SSA and 12-mo finding processes.

As a wide-spread SGCN whose distribution touches every land manager in Utah, and as a potential listing-threat, this project is relevant to most State and Federal management plans.

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UDWR has all the relevant authorizations for passive surveys

This project will utilize the newly-standardized protocols and methods for locating Pinyon Jays and nesting colonies, developed by the USFWS-led Pinyon Jay Working Group, which includes the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, to conduct surveys for jays in PJ woodlands in Utah. We will field test the new pinyon jay habitat probability model (J. Tack, pers. com), using it to stratify and select our 2.5km^2 sampling locations. We propose to conduct repeated surveys (2 visits) during the breeding season (early March through May) at approximately 24 sites. Work will be focused in 2024 on the Great Basin. We expect to the work will cover areas expressing a range of management objectives, i.e., sagebrush restoration, woodland thinning, fuel reduction, etc., and will help quantify potential effects of different types of woodland treatments on Pinyon Jay habitat use.

See methods

The State Office of the BLM has signalled interest in coming in as partner in 2025-2026.

These data will be used to inform the SSA and 12-mo finding, as well as informing the 2025 UTah SWAP SGCN evaluation process.

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07/01/2023

06/30/2024

2024

All surveys followed the Pinyon Jay Working Group landscape survey protocols. Between 25 March and 24 May 2024, Intermountain Bird Observatory (IBO) staff conducted area search surveys in portions of western Utah following the Pinyon Jay Working Group (PJWG) protocol and in coordination with the Utah Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR). In addition to seeking novel data on Pinyon Jays in the study area, our 2024 effort also served as a field test of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) supported Pinyon Jay breeding habitat model, hereafter known as the "Tack model", predicting habitat suitability for Pinyon Jays for the Great Basin region in Utah. Our goal was to fill the urgent data need on presence and breeding status for the contemporary locations of Pinyon Jay breeding colonies in Utah after their recent petition for listing under the Endangered Species Act based partly on long-term population declines from the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS; Haaland et al. 2022), and the upcoming Species Status Assessment (SSA) due in 2028. Our objectives in 2024 were to assess the predictive accuracy of the "Tack model" across potentially suitable public lands in the Great Basin in Utah, follow up on potential breeding activity to discover new colonies, and -- if time allowed -- check known colonies for breeding activity. Our data on this species' presence and breeding status in western Utah, alongside data collected from graduate students and UDWR, will assist agencies with the status assessment and ideally inform targeted approaches for management. This initial effort will hopefully also inform more extensive survey efforts in 2025, including coordinated region-wide surveys, across as much potentially suitable habitat in Utah as possible. Our first objective was to survey at least 40 survey plots (2.5 km2), with the idea that we would survey each plot a maximum of twice throughout the season, or until we detected Pinyon Jays and identified a flock activity type, further assessing for any potential breeding activity, if possible. These surveys spanned three UDWR Regions (Northern, Western, and Southern), covering 130-km2 of public land. In addition to our surveys in these regions, Rory Eggleston, a Ph.D. student at Utah State advised by Dave Dahlgren, and her team also conducted Pinyon Jay surveys in 2024 predominantly in the UDWR Northern Region. We worked collaboratively with her team on study design to ensure data compatibility and search areas to avoid duplication of efforts. We also surveyed in portions of the Northern Region where Rory was not surveying. The data Rory and her team collected will be reported on by Rory and Utah State University and are not included in this report. report

Due to a relatively high detection rate, we were ultimately able to survey 52 plots (Figure 2) during a total of 74 survey visits following the Pinyon Jay Working Group (PJWG) protocol. We detected Pinyon Jays at 26 of the 52 plots with observations occurring during the 1st survey visit at 19 of these 26 plots, and on the 2nd visit at 7 of these 26 plots. We did not detect Pinyon Jays in half of the 52 plots we surveyed this year (n=26). We amassed a total of 77 unique Pinyon Jay observations across the 26 plots with detections and our detections spanned from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM and ranged in counts from individual birds to flocks of up to 75 birds. Flock activity types were identified at 22 survey plots with 45 observations and included Pinyon Jays engaged in flying, flyover, perching, and foraging in trees and on the ground. Additionally, we identified breeding behaviors at 5 survey plots with various breeding behaviors such as breeding vocalizations, carrying nesting material, courtship chasing, and feeding fledglings. Our second objective was to follow up on potential breeding activity to discover new colonies and our third objective was to check known colonies for breeding activity. We conducted a follow up visit to the 5 survey plots where we observed various breeding behavior and confirmed the continued presence of Pinyon Jays at all 5 plots. We plan to follow-up with these potential colonies in 2025 to confirm their continued presence and breeding behaviors to confirm the presence of the colony as advised by the PJWG. Though it was one of the original objectives, we ended up not checking status of previously known colonies for breeding activity during the season so that we could focus our time and effort on conducting surveys and any necessary follow up on the 52 plots. This decision was made in conversations with Russell Norvell, UTDWR, in an effort to maximize the funding available in 2024 to focus on completing as many surveys as possible. Our efforts this spring were minimally impacted by access issues caused by mud, snow, and wintry weather in March, and this allowed us to achieve a higher than anticipated completion rate.

We will build on the success of this effort with newly received FY25-26 ESMF funds and expand this effort to pinyon jay habitats statewide, and collaborate with our neighboring states to coordinate our surveys and methods to move toward a range-wide status assessment