The role of private and public lands in conservation of at-risk vertebrates in Washington State

Recent high-profile conservation efforts indicate a trend toward shifting t he burden of conservation increasingly to public lands while decreasing the demands on private landowners. Species that can maintain a viable populati on on existing public lands may be able to persist with this strategy; howe ver, species whose current ranges do not overlap substantially with public lands may suffer. We examined the characteristics of landownership within t he modeled distributions of at-risk vertebrate species in Washington, where we defined "at-risk" species as those adapted poorly to logging, developme nt, and agriculture or otherwise vulnerable to human presence. We used hier archical clustering based on percentage of public and private lands within the modeled distributions of each species to identify ownership groups. Our objectives were to determine whether there were definable groups of at-ris k species distinguished by ownership characteristics and, if so, whether co nservation efforts that benefit one group would benefit another. Hierarchic al clustering revealed 5 ownership patterns for our 80 at-risk species: Gro up A (n=17), widespread species with distributions primarily on public land s; Group B (n=18), species with restricted ranges on private lands; Group C (n=27), primarily steppe obligates with distributions weighted toward priv ate lands; Group D (n=16), mostly low-elevation forest associates, with dis tributions about evenly split between public and private lands; and Group E (n=2), species with extremely restricted ranges on primarily public lands. We concluded that although many of the largest and most charismatic specie s in Washington may be protected by emphasizing conservation on public land s, most at-risk vertebrate species will receive little or no benefit. There is a need for conservation strategies that provide better protection for s pecies with restricted ranges on private lands.