The Road to Recovery Phase 1 virtual workshop in July 2020 convened 122 virtual attendees from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, representing NGOs, state agencies, U.S. joint ventures, and academic institutions, to garner their expert wisdom on the best approaches available for identifying limiting factors, including: 

1. Priority taxa and specific threats to birds
2. Current statistical approaches, such as integrated population modeling
3. Data availability (especially tracking and vital rate information) necessary for identifying causes of declines.

In August 2020, a follow-up virtual Roundtable at the Puerto Rico North American Ornithological Conference featured new perspectives and gathered input from the ornithological community to identify key research needs.

This workshop highlighted the need to focus research and action on priority species that are (1) at risk of slipping into threatened or endangered status or (2) common, but whose declines make up a large percentage of the overall loss in bird abundance. To this end, we must first determine where each species is situated along the road to recovery, from a starting point of little knowledge of a species’ broad threats or specific limiting factors, toward an end goal of identifying limiting population factors, developing a full annual cycle conservation business plan, and implementing targeted conservation actions to address and reverse declines.