Strategic surveys gather information at the landscape, population, or site-specific scale to address questions that relate to identified objectives for each category and address the need to manage for a reasonable assurance of species persistence. Information provided by strategic surveys (as well as research and other information-gathering efforts) will help address fundamental questions of Survey and Manage species, including: is there a concern for persistence; is the species rare or uncommon; is the species closely associated with late-successional forests; what is the appropriate management for the species; and, do the reserve land allocations and other standards and guidelines of the Northwest Forest Plan provide a reasonable assurance of species persistence? Strategic surveys can also help refine habitat descriptions and define geographic range and information needs for future surveys, and could also provide important information on population status, life history, and habitat use
Information from strategic surveys feeds into the adaptive management process, provides information for the development of Management Recommendations and pre-disturbance Survey Protocols, and provides information to better focus subsequent strategic surveys if needed. They provide information required in order to change species categories or remove them from Survey and Manage. These surveys also provide information to help establish or confirm direction for managing known sites, identifying high-priority sites, and conducting pre-disturbance surveys. For species with very few sites, strategic surveys may be the primary method for finding additional sites. Strategic surveys are different from "pre-disturbance surveys" (described on the Survey Protocol page) because they are focused on gathering information about the species and its habitat needs range-wide, and are not focused on determining presence or absence in specific areas prior to habitat-disturbing activities.
Strategic surveys are envisioned as "samples" with sampling intensity dependent upon information needs and the characteristics of the species and the habitat. The information to determine range, habitat associations, distribution, ability to survey for, and meet other strategic survey objectives is expected to come from a series of samples distributed on the landscape. Once surveys have reasonably established those parameters, or further surveys are not expected to contribute significant additional information toward those objectives, strategic surveys may be considered completed. For some very rare species, this means strategic surveys may be complete even if few or no additional sites are found. The long-term benefit to Survey and Manage species comes from continuing to apply other Survey and Manage Standards and Guidelines over time, not continuing to do strategic surveys indefinitely.
Below you will find the most up-to-Strategic Survey documents. Several of the documents include links to other attachments. In case those links become invalid over time, PDF versions of the attachments are provided in a bulleted list beneath the original documents.
- IM-OR-2006-038 - Equivalent Effort Survey Protocol for Survey and Manage Category B Species and Survey Methodology for One Lichen Species with Category Change from the 2003 Annual Species Review (April 2006) (PDF)
- Category B Lichens and Bryophytes where Strategic Surveys are Considered Complete (March 2006) (PDF)
- IB-OR-2003-244 - Strategic Survey Implementation Guide: Memo (September 2003) (PDF)
- 2003-2004 Strategic Survey Implementation Guide: Version 1.2 (PDF)
- Strategic Survey Framework for the NW Forest Plan Survey and Manage Program, General Technical Report (GTR) 573 (February 2003) (PDF)