Overview

The Northern Forest Woodcock Initiative (NFWI) is in Bird Conservation Region 14, the Atlantic Northern Forest. This ecoregion includes most of New England, the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and Atlantic Canada. A stepdown of the Woodcock Conservation Plan for the Northern Forest region outlines habitat goals.

The NFWI is the first of many planned and ongoing habitat initiatives throughout the woodcock's range. Biologists and administrators in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wildlife Management Institute launched the NFWI in 2004. Since then, more than 30 agencies, organizations, corporations, and individuals have signed on to restore and create habitat for woodcock in the Northern Forest.

In 2008, the U.S. Department of the Interior gave the NFWI partnership its Cooperative Conservation Award. This annual award recognizes cooperative conservation achievements involving collaboration among a diverse range of entities that may include federal, state, and local agencies, private companies, and individuals.

NFWI has been successful because of the willingness of private landowners to adopt "woodcock-friendly" practices on their land. Noteworthy private landowner partners include Cowls Land and Lumber Company, The Lyme Timber Company, Plum Creek, Inc., Berkshire Natural Resource Council, and the J. D. Irving Company. (View a list of NFWI partners).

Wildlife biologists have developed a set of Best Management Practices to benefit woodcock in the Northern Forest.

There are both effective and ineffective ways to try to create woodcock habitat. Context of Management gives guidance on where, and where not, to actively manage land for woodcock.

Partners in the NFWI have set up more than 60 Demonstration Areas to showcase habitat management techniques benefiting woodcock and other young-forest wildlife.