The greatest impediment for managers of migratory small-bodied SGCNs, which comprise the vast majority of Utah's SGCN birds, has been the lack of decent data on migration pathways, timing, duration, and wintering areas. We just don't know what threats our birds face the other 9 months of the year. Being able to answer these questions about migratory species is crucial for their conservation, and for identifying high-value conservation sites. But migratory life stages are nearly unstudied since traditional GPS telemetry is far too heavy for most birds to carry and too expensive to deploy in meaningful numbers.The Motus radio telemetry receiver network (motus.org), provides a tagging and tracking system ideal for small birds and even bats and insects. Through this international collaborative network, we have discovered new paths and connected with conservation partners for SGCNS such as the Snowy Plover and Wilson's Phalarope. These data have underlined the (newly understood) importance of connections between breeding & wintering paths, places, and partners for these species, allowing us to build relationships and strengthen the efforts of conservationists and land managers through all phases of the birds' annual cycles. The expansion of the Motus network has been identified by state agencies in the Pacific Flyway Council and in Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) as a high priority, to benefit game and non-game species alike. At this phase in the Utah Motus build out, ongoing maintenance of the existing network, strategic tower installation in target geographies, and capacity building for local banders and researchers have been identified as top priorities for phase III.

We are seeking $200,000 in funding to complete the five following objectives: Objective 1: Continued SGCN tagging, building on Phase II efforts. Additional tagging will focus on species such as Burrowing Owls, California Gulls, Caspian Terns, and Ring-Billed Gulls. These data will inform management practices across the state. Objective 2: Maintenance of the existing Motus receiver network. The team will continue to perform needed routine maintenance and respond to outages. Objective 3: Upgrades to the receiver network. Select stations will be upgraded to support the new triband Motus network. The triband system operates on 2.4 GHz frequency, enabling tracking of smaller species such as hummingbirds and smaller insects, and improving capabilities for tracking bats. Phase III will upgrade a limited number of strategic stations to begin collecting data for this new network. and aims to Objective 4: Continued network build-out. Installation of additional stations to the network. Geographic gaps identified through Working Group discussion will guide placement decisions. Objective 5: Hire seasonal technicians to assist with the installation and maintenance of receiver towers and Motus tagging efforts.

Over the last 5 years, the Utah Motus Network has developed from initial installation through species-focused research. Phase III continues this trajectory by maintaining tagging efforts for SGCNs for Utah and other regions, selectively upgrading infrastructure to triband technology to support new research utilizing 2.4gHz bands, and maintaining the Motus infrastructure that supports numerous ongoing research projects across the state.

This project directly supports Utah's State Wildlife Action Plan by generating essential movement data for the 23 migratory SGCN birds, 5 SGCN bats, 28 SGIN birds, 5 SGIN bats, and many SGCN/SGIN insects identified in the 2025 designation process. This project provides fine-grained movement data that will close information gaps and inform management for these species. Other state wildlife management plans are also supported by the enhanced monitoring provided by this project. At the time of this submission, individuals tagged in Utah have been tracked across 14 other states, providing information on connectivity and migration between states. The project also supports virtually all federal agency management plans, including those of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, Department of Defense, and the National Park Service, all of which manage migratory bird habitats in Utah and require movement data to prioritize conservation investments, identify important stopover sites, and comply with Migratory Bird Treaty Act obligations. The cross-border nature of migratory bird conservation aligns with national and international frameworks, including the North American Bird Conservation Initiative and bilateral migratory bird treaties with Mexico and Canada, which depend on collaborative data collection across jurisdictions. By identifying population bottlenecks wherever they occur along migration routes, this project provides the foundational data necessary for both state and federal agencies to move beyond speculation and implement evidence-based management actions that address actual limiting factors for Utah's priority migratory species.

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For Motus tagging, collaborators hold both federal and state permits for banding. UDWR holds a federal permit and is the jurisdictional authority as the state. For receiver tower installation, the UDWR and Tracy Aviary work directly with landowners and land managers at the specific locations to pursue the required NEPA (e.g., with the BLM for a station at Rozel Point), MOU's (e.g., with Utah State Parks to install stations on existing Parks infrastructure), and federal facilities management plan requirements (e.g. electrical and building inspections were required at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge).

Receiver Network Deployment and Maintenance Process: The Motus system operates by deploying small radio transmitters on birds, bats, and insects that emit unique identification codes detectable by receiver stations within range. These automated receiver stations continuously listen for transmitter signals, recording detection time, signal strength, and antenna orientation to document wildlife movements across the landscape. The international Motus network enables researchers to detect individuals tagged anywhere in the system, creating a collaborative infrastructure where Utah's stations detect birds tagged by partners across the Americas while our tagged birds are detected by stations throughout their migratory range. New receiver stations are identified through Utah Motus Working Group discussions where partners identify geographic coverage gaps or priority habitats. Tracy Aviary secures landowner permissions, orders equipment including receivers, antennas, mounting hardware, batteries, and cellular modems, then conducts tower installation, antenna mounting, receiver configuration, and system testing. Following deployment, stations require routine maintenance including battery replacement, antenna and cable repair from weather or wildlife damage, sensor board updates, and troubleshooting of outages identified through cellular monitoring. This cycle from Working Group identification to operational station typically spans several months, with maintenance visits required multiple times annually to ensure continuous data collection. Partnership Development and Capacity Building: The Utah Motus Working Group coordinates DWR regional biologists, federal agency staff, university researchers, and NGO practitioners to align tagging priorities with network capabilities. New partners require training in bird capture techniques, proper handling protocols, transmitter attachment methods, and data recording standards before contributing to tagging efforts. Building this capacity involves formal training sessions and apprenticeship-style field mentorship where experienced banders supervise new practitioners through multiple field seasons. Coordination includes collaborative planning around field season timing, equipment sharing, data management protocols, and ensuring multiple research projects operate without conflicts while maximizing network-wide detection probability. SGCN Tagging Project Implementation Constraints: Phase III SGCN tagging for Burrowing Owls, California Gulls, Caspian Terns, and Ring-billed Gulls faces bottlenecks due to the limited availability of trained, permitted banders. Many priority species require specialized capture techniques or access to remote sites that exceed Tracy Aviary core staff capacity during compressed field seasons when multiple species are simultaneously available. Federal BBL permits require applicants to demonstrate competency through supervised experience and letters of recommendation, creating a multi-year pathway from initial training to independent permitted status. Without expanding the pool of permitted banders now, SGCN tagging will continue to be constrained by personnel availability rather than funding or equipment. Training new banders during Phase III creates additional permitted capacity distributed across partner organizations, enabling opportunistic tagging when species are encountered rather than waiting for staff availability.

Motus detection data are accessible through the Motus website (motus.org), which provides researchers with standardized data downloads and visualization tools, while novel analytics platforms are emerging to support more sophisticated movement analyses and collaborative data exploration. The recent development of an API between Motus and Movebank creates new opportunities for data integration and analysis, which Utah is leveraging through a nearly-complete API between Movebank and the Utah Wildlife Migration Initiative (WMI) that will enable real-time streaming of Utah's Motus data into regional conservation planning frameworks. Newly purchased Motus tags will be distributed and deployed by UDWR biologists, the Tracy Aviary, and other qualified and permitted collaborators. The Utah Motus Working Group continues to serve as the primary coordination mechanism for network planning, research priorities, and data sharing protocols, ensuring that station placement decisions and tagging efforts align with statewide and regional management needs while avoiding duplication and maximizing collective detection capability across partner projects. Tracy Aviary's expanding social media and public-facing outreach efforts translate complex movement data into accessible narratives that build public support for migratory bird conservation, demonstrate the value of collaborative research infrastructure, and engage citizen scientists in understanding how local conservation actions connect to hemisphere-scale wildlife movements. These combined monitoring and outreach activities ensure that data collected through the network inform both technical management decisions and broader public understanding of migratory species conservation needs.

Utah's Motus Network operates through collaboration between Tracy Aviary as implementation partner, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources as funding and regulatory authority, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service providing technical expertise and coordination with federal land management, and the Pacific Flyway Nongame Technical Committee offering regional flyway-scale coordination and priority-setting. The Waterbird Working Group contributes species-specific expertise for shorebird and waterbird tagging priorities while ensuring alignment with broader waterbird conservation initiatives across the flyway. Individual station cooperators including private landowners, state and federal land management agencies, ski resorts, water districts, and municipal governments provide critical site access and infrastructure support for receiver placement across diverse habitats and elevations statewide. Project success depends equally on the growing network of permitted banders including university researchers, agency biologists, NGO conservation practitioners, and independent researchers who conduct field capture, tagging, and data collection across target species and geographic regions. This partnership structure distributes expertise, capacity, and geographic coverage while ensuring that data collection priorities reflect the collective needs of Utah's conservation community and contribute to hemisphere-scale collaborative research through the international Motus network.

Phase III establishes the foundation for a comprehensive five-year strategic expansion of Utah's Motus Network. Years 1-2 (current Phase III) focus on maintaining existing SGCN tagging programs, training new permitted banders, selectively upgrading strategic stations to triband technology, and adding several new stations to address critical coverage gaps identified by the Working Group. Years 3-4 focus on expanding species coverage and infrastructure. Species coverage will expand to include those requiring federal threatened and endangered permits (e.g., southwestern willow flycatcher) as well as species pending federal review (e.g., pinyon jay, Wilson's phalarope, and hoary bat), to safeguard monitoring continuity against potential ESA listings. Infrastructure will be upgraded at strategic locations to enable tracking of smaller taxa (e.g., hummingbirds, insects), and new receiver stations will be built to create near-continuous coverage along major migratory corridors and key stopover habitats. By Year 5, Utah aims to operate a fully triband-capable network with 45-50 stations providing comprehensive detection coverage statewide, support an active community of 15-20 permitted banders distributed across partner organizations and regions, and transition from opportunistic species-focused tagging to systematic long-term population monitoring programs that generate trend data for adaptive management. Long-term goals include integrating Motus data with the Utah Wildlife Migration Initiative to create a unified platform for tracking terrestrial and avian migrations, establishing Utah as a regional hub for migratory species research supporting multi-state flyway conservation planning, and demonstrating population-level responses to habitat restoration and management actions through before-and-after comparisons enabled by continuous multi-year data collection. This progression ensures that initial infrastructure investments compound over time, transforming from exploratory research into operational monitoring systems that directly inform Species of Greatest Conservation Need management across their full life cycles.

Implementation of conservation measures for bird and mammal SGCNs will maintain healthy wildlife populations on the landscape while allowing sustainable uses of natural resources in most cases. Bird and mammal watching are also popular recreational activities that will be improved through this project.