The Saltmarsh Habitat & Avian Research Program (SHARP) is a large, collaborative initiative to conserve the tidal-marsh bird community of the Atlantic seaboard.  Our efforts are funded by a diversity of state wildlife divisions and agencies within the U.S. Department of the Interior.  The majority of our funding was provided by a Competitive State Wildlife Grant, administered by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  Please see “Collaborators & Contacts” for a more complete list of all the people and agencies that are dedicated to this effort.

THE GOAL of this initiative in the short term is to provide the information necessary for all states along the New England and Mid-Atlantic Coast (Bird Conservation Region, BCR, 30) to protect regionally important habitats for tidal marsh birds (including direct actions for 26 Species of Greatest Conservation Need, SGCN).  In the long-term, the project’s goal is to provide a regionally consistent platform for tidal marsh monitoring in the face of anticipated sea-level rise and upland/watershed development.

THE GENERAL OBJECTIVES of the initiative are to: 1) Fill all regional gaps in current surveys within BCR 30 to produce population estimates for bird species found in the high tidal marsh (including a global estimate for saltmarsh sparrow) and identify regional population centers, 2) Repeat historic surveys, where they exist, to provide estimates of population change, 3) Collect detailed demographic data at multiple points across BCR 30 to model geographic variation in productivity and survival, 4) Relate these items to past conservation actions where local management data exists, 5) Provide the ten states in the region with a detailed description of their regional responsibility for each of 26 SGCN, 6) Identify the most critical areas for the long-term preservation of the tidal marsh bird community within each state, and 7) Build on an existing working group of local, state, and NGO stakeholders to develop and test a pilot program (beginning with Connecticut) of Decision Support Tools for use in implementing the findings of this project throughout the region.