From the May 2020 Newsletter, this article was contributed by Rick Howie.

You may have heard about “important Bird Areas” or IBAs and wondered what they are. To quote from the IBA Canada website “important Bird Areas (IBAs) are discrete sites that support specific groups of birds: threatened birds, large groups of birds, and birds restricted by range or by habitat. IBAs range in size from very tiny patches of habitat to large tracts of land or water. IBAs are identified using criteria that are internationally agreed upon, standardized, quantitative, and scientifically defensible. This gives them a conservation currency that transcends international borders and promotes international collaboration for the conservation of the world’s birds.”

The areas have no legal status and conservation mandates reflect any protected areas where the IBA may overlap places like parks, wildlife management areas and so forth. While the boundaries do include many areas of private land, there are no IBA rules that must be followed by landowners – but of course, national and provincial wildlife regulations always apply. So, the IBAs provide a way of increasing public awareness of the significance of areas where people may live and hopefully will increase stewardship of bird populations. There is no increased level of regulatory controls over private property, which may be of some concern to people when IBAs are created.

The program began in Canada in 1996. I looked at the criteria provided by the program and decided that some areas around Kamloops met the requirements; so, in about 2000, I sent in proposals for two IBAs for our region. They were accepted as the South Thompson River (BC176) and the Douglas Lake Plateau (BC 172).

The South Thompson River IBA includes the river from its outlet from Little Shuswap Lake downstream to Kamloops Lake. The area as yet has an ill-defined minor upland component. The prime justification for its creation was the significant population of trumpeter swans wintering there, but other species of concern include Lewis’s woodpecker, great basin spadefoot and western rattlesnake. Nesting populations of osprey and bald eagle are of interest and of course, the migratory salmon populations add to the biodiversity values.

The Douglas Lake Plateau IBA is a large and diverse area stretching from just south of Kamloops to Nicola lake and east to Salmon Lake. The large numbers of sandhill cranes that migrate and to a lesser extent breed in the IBA was a prime motivator for the creation. However, other species of conservation concern that occur there include flammulated owls, Lewis’s woodpecker, Swainson’s hawk, ferruginous hawk, burrowing owl, prairie and peregrine falcons, bobolink, American avocet, Brewer’s sparrow and black tern. Large numbers of waterfowl and various raptors use the area along with a great diversity of passerines and other species.

Since the IBAs were established, I and some members of the Nicola Naturalists Club have been doing some monitoring of the areas as caretakers under the program. The Nicola group have visited the southern portion of the Douglas Lake Plateau in recent years and I have visited both IBAs on many occasions. However, there has been no publicity or specific projects developed for these areas. I would say that the knowledge of their creation is unknown among the general public.

Apart from undertaking some specific kinds of bird population surveys, I think the major challenge that we have is implementing a public awareness and education program for the IBAs. This could include on-site signing as well as articles for various media and so forth. Ensuring support from local landowners is important and allaying fears of additional regulatory environments or other infringements on private property rights will be critical. There was no recommended public awareness or approval process before establishing IBAs so we face the challenge of explaining something that has already been done and past experience suggests that not all landowners take kindly to such processes.

At the moment we have some club members who are willing to take over my role as caretaker for the South Thompson IBA and possibly for the northerly portion of the Douglas Lake Plateau IBA. I will remain in an advisory capacity and still conduct surveys, hopefully along with other club members as there is lots of potential work that can be done.

I suggest going to the website  to read up on the IBA program and to access information about all of the IBAs. The write-up for our two areas needs to be improved and a proper bird list and calendars established for each. The ones that are on the website are not accurate.