ENDANGERED HABITATS VERSUS ENDANGERED SPECIES: A MANAGEMENT CHALLENEGE

Abstract

Riparian ecosystems are the most productive—and possibly the most sensitive—of the various bird habitats in the arid and semiarid North American Southwest. The highest population densities of non-colonial nesting birds in North America were reported from riparian cottonwood (Populus fremontii) forests in central Arizona by Johnson (1971) and Carothers et al. (1974).