These days, when Matt Poole and his team go out to survey the land at Matador Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in west Texas, they’re pretty happy with what they see. Where these areas of the Rolling Plains of Texas used to be overrun with invasive plants like mesquite, they are now seeing it return back […]

A group of precision agriculture students in Kansas are taking part in the conversation of how best to restore playas and use new technology to advance existing efforts. Educating the next generation of producers about playas is an important step to ensuring the continued conservation of these wetlands and the recharge value to the Ogallala […]

Now, with every Amazon purchase, you can help support bird habitat conservation in the western Great Plains. It’s as easy as 1-2-3. 1. Go to smile.amazon.com. 2. Select Playa Lakes Joint Venture as the organization you’d like to support. 3. Start shopping. Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to […]

This past year, PLJV and the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish have been working together to develop funding for playa conservation in eastern New Mexico and now have nearly a million dollars to dedicate to restoration efforts. This will provide habitat for birds and other wildlife, and help the City of Clovis and […]

PLJV welcomes Communications Specialist Lily Abromeit to our staff and growing communications team. She will be supporting PLJV’s overall communications, including production of the Playa Post, updating printed materials and developing content for the PLJV website.  “We are very excited to have Lily on our team,” said Miruh Hamend, PLJV Communications Director. “She brings a […]

A recent Audubon North American Grasslands and Birds report highlights the need to not only protect our remaining grasslands but also to prioritize and direct our conservation efforts to areas that will support grassland birds now and into the future. Within the PLJV, one of the best ways we can do that is to remove […]

For years, PLJV has been looking for ways to make playa conservation relevant to the people who own or manage these temporary wetlands. Most playas are on private land and are often inconveniently located in the middle of farmland. So, there are many factors that go into the decision of what to do with a […]

The National Audubon Society recently released a report, North American Grasslands and Birds, that evaluates the sensitivity of grassland bird species to climate change and identifies which grasslands are strongholds against both climate change and land use conversion and which are vulnerable to those processes. PLJV collaborated on the chapter addressing the southern Great Plains […]

PLJV welcomes long-time conservation partner Matt Smith as our new Conservation Delivery Specialist. Starting on September 16, Matt will be supporting partners in Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska in delivering conservation programs for playas, grasslands, and other priority bird habitats, with an emphasis on Farm Bill programs. USDA conservation programs provide significant funding for improving priority […]

The PLJV partnership has been using the Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions (IMBCR) program to monitor grassland bird populations since 2016, with most of that sampling designed to measure birds across average conditions. However, shrub encroachment is becoming more and more of an issue, one that many of our conservation partners are wanting to […]