Biological Projects

Breeding Bird Surveys:

The Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is a continent-wide program designed to monitor the populations of North American breeding birds. The program is organized by the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center based in Laurel, Maryland. Each route consists of a 24.5 mile stretch of road or river and is composed of 50 stops placed at 0.5 mile intervals. Routes are surveyed once a year in mid June to early July by an observer who is familiar with the songs and appearance of birds in the region. At each of the stops, the observer records the number of individuals of each bird species heard or seen during a 3-minute period. To learn more about the BBS program, visit the BBS website.

There are four BBS routes that the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge surveys: Dillingham, Togiak River, Kanektok River, and Goodnews River. The Dillingham Breeding Bird Survey route has been performed each year since 1993 (except 1998). The Togiak River route was originally created and performed in 1994 and the Kanektok River route was originally created and performed in 1995. These two routes were discontinued for 4-5 years and have been performed in most years since 1999. In order to increase the coverage of bird monitoring work on the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge, a new route was created on the Goodnews River in 1999. This route has been performed annually since then.

The Dillingham BBS route is performed on the road system between Dillingham and Lake Aleknagik. The Togiak, Goodnews, and Kanektok BBS routes are performed on the individual rivers with a motorboat used to move between points for the required 50 stops. The Togiak River BBS route runs down-river from Togiak Lake, the Goodnews River BBS route starts at Canyon Creek and runs down-river, and the Kanektok River BBS route runs down-river from Klak Creek.

Following is the data recorded for the various BBS routes between 1993 and 2002. We plan to continue these bird surveys indefinitely and recent years' data is available.

For more information regarding the bird species and numbers of birds sighted during the Breeding Bird Surveys, contact the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge.