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 […]

PLJV’s 2018 annual report is now available, and we’d like to thank all of our partners! 2018 marked a great year of accomplishments for the Joint Venture and demonstrated our effectiveness as a partnership-driven organization. In addition to developing new tools for the benefit of our partnership and regional communities, such as the Kansas Water […]

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 […]

Pictured (left to right): Jeff Raasch, TPWD; Mike Carter, PLJV; Mrs. Laura Bush; Bob Locke, Ducks Unlimited; and Don Kahl, TPWD. In October, the Texas Playa Conservation Initiative was one of six conservation projects featured at the first annual Conservation Wrangler Summit and Celebration hosted by Texan by Nature, an organization founded by Former First […]

Before and after the removal of invasive non-native plants including Russian olive and tamarisk. Courtesy of Kansas Partners for Fish and Wildlife. Over the last couple of years, the USFWS Kansas Partners for Fish & Wildlife Program along with numerous partners have been successfully leveraging funding sources — including a NAWCA small grant and a […]