PRBO Conservation Science (PRBO) is leading the establishment of the California Avian Data Center (CADC)--a collaborative, web-based integration of bird and ecosystem datasets to provide practical, broadly-accessible, web-based tools and applications for improved conservation outcomes. Its goal is to make timely and relevant scientific data and analyses readily accessible to habitat managers, policy makers, conservation practitioners, researchers, students, and the public.

Building on the Avian Knowledge Network (AKN) infrastructure, CADC develops on-line analytical tools to enable habitat managers and conservation planners to derive trends, indices, interactive maps, and other visualizations from the collective data sources of participating partners. These data currently represent more than 25 million bird observations with associated habitat, landscape, and management data spanning more than 50 years.

CADC is the first regional node of AKN and designed as a working demonstration of AKN technology employed at a regional scale. CADC specifically targets California constituents, especially to assist resource managers in County, State, Federal, and Non-Governmental agencies in prioritizing conservation actions. CADC serves as a model for other regional nodes to be developed in the next few years, and strives to employ open-source, modular, and exportable technologies to the greatest extent possible. This process is intended to greatly reduce the costs associated with future AKN node-development, since data models and interfaces can be readily copied.

Projects currently being developed within the California Avian Data Center include:

• Predicting Bird Species Distribution in the Central Valley
• Farallon Marine Bird and Mammal Distribution
• Tracking movement patterns of shorebirds using satellite telemetry:

•   Standardized Protocols, and tools for data entry (online and offline), analysis for monitoring:

The California Avian Data Center will dramatically increase access to ecological data in California as we develop practical, interactive science-based decision tools while supporting priority conservation initiatives already underway in California.

The CADC website provides interactive tools describing bird distribution. This example shows the density of Rhinocerous Auklet in shelf waters off Point Reyes.

In addition to species specific data, CADC also provides data visualizations that are site-specific; this examples shows density indices for certain birds at Willow Slough in California's Central Valley.