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Heron Conservation – a History
Author: James A. Kushlan
Source: Waterbirds, 41(4) : 345-354
Published By: Waterbird Society
URL: https://doi.org/10.1675/063.041.0411
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345
Heron Conservation – a History
James a. Kushlan
3109 Grand Avenue, #618, Coconut Grove, Florida, 33133, USA
Email: jkushlan@earthlink.net
Abstract.—Herons comprise a distinctive family of birds, the Ardeidae, adapted to living in aquatic environments.
The history of herons in human culture dates back at least 4,000 years, continuing through successive cultures.
Through the millennia, hunting herons for sport, food, or feathers has been one of the more enduring conserva-
tion issues for the group. Killing egrets for their feathers initiated the modern conservation era in the United States
and Europe. Overall, protection of nesting sites and feeding habitats has been, and remains, a significant theme in
heron conservation. Owing to their longevity, wetland dependence, and site specificity, herons have been proposed as
potential indicators of environmental conditions and trends. It has been recognized that landscape and regional con-
servation action is the most effective conservation tool for most species, but several species and populations have been
identified as being at risk and requiring special species- and population-level planning and action. To facilitate the
conservation of herons, HeronConservation, the Heron Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation
of Nature, was founded in 1982 and has since led global engagement in heron conservation through communica-
tion, networking, technical syntheses, and action planning and facilitation. Received 30 April 2017 accepted, 2 May 2018.
Key words.—Ardeidae, conservation, egret, endangered species, heron, history, wading bird, waterbird, wetlands.
Waterbirds 41(4): 345-354, 2018
Herons, egrets, and bitterns comprise a
distinctive family of birds (Ardeidae; here-
after referred to as herons) characterized
by their relatively long legs, necks, bills, and
toes; powder down; pectinate toe nails; and
other adaptations for living in the aquatic
environment and feeding in water (Kushlan
and Hancock 2005). Although there are no-
table variations of this evolutionary theme,
their distinctiveness makes most species read-
ily recognizable as herons. Because many spe-
cies in this group frequent human-dominat-
ed landscapes, herons have been recorded
far back in human history and continue to
occupy places within local cultural traditions.
Their conservation has been a matter of con-
cern since the 1200s but has grown in prior-
ity since the early 1900s as a result of popula-
tion declines due to plume hunting, concern
for effects of chemical contaminant and the
loss and functional modification of habitat.
This article traces the conservation issues and
history of heron conservation, notably docu-
menting for the first time the history of Her-
onConservation, the Heron Specialist Group
of the International Union for Conservation
of Nature (IUCN).
herons In human antIquIty
The history of herons within human cul-
ture spans millennia, at least 4,000 years.
Many heron species were apparently well
adjusted to cohabitation of water courses as
they became populated with humans and
so became part of everyday human life. In
ancient Egypt, they were called Benu and
were the most frequently illustrated birds in
surviving images from ancient Egypt (Hart
2005). They were generally depicted within
Nile wetlands and associated with birth and
the sun, playing a part in the Egyptian cre-
ation story (Hart 2005). Herons figured
similarly in the origin story of the Aztecs,
who before settling down wandered for cen-
turies from their home place of Aztlan, “the
place of the heron” (thought to be present
day San Blas) (Andrews 2003). In Greek my-
thology, they were messengers from Athena
(Jashemski and Meyer 2002; Homer 2004).
Herons and their behavior became sym-
bolic for grace, calmness, beauty, solitude,
patience, and resilience. The Egyptian
heron hieroglyph represented both “vigi-
lance” and “rising”, showing an apprecia-
tion for Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) behavior
as it feeds by standing and waiting invisibly
tucked away in the reeds, noticeable only
when it startlingly takes flight. It has been
speculated that the heron’s story of rising
from the marshes was transferred to Greek
as the phoenix, a tale Herodotus transcribed
from Egypt in the 5th century B.C. (Lecocq
2009). In China, herons were a symbol of
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346 WaterbIrds
ascension. In Maori culture, the Eastern
Great Egret (Ardea modesta), “Kotuku”, was a
spiritual messenger and object of beauty, its
feathers being worn only by chieftains. His-
torically, as now, Eastern Great Egrets were
likely rare in prehistoric New Zealand and as
such highly prized (Hutching 2016). In Ja-
pan, herons have been honored as associates
of rice and for symbolizing grace and beauty
(Werness 2003; Mashiko and Toquenaga
2013). Not all of the heron’s attributes were
viewed so nobly; they were also seen as cow-
ardly in their tendency to flee rather than
fight. A mid-1300s poem, Voeux du héron, de-
picts Robert III d’Artois inciting England’s
Edward III to war by making a chivalric oath
over a cooked heron, which was meant to
represent the English king’s cowardliness to
fight (Grigsby and Lacy 1992; Baker 2000).
Although it is doubtful that a roasted heron
was actually involved in initiating the Hun-
dred Years’ War, the poem remains a notable
literary appearance for herons.
Herons were depicted in Greek and Ro-
man pottery and mosaics and in Japanese
drawings and culture. The White Heron
Dance, Shirasagi-no-Mai, in which dancers
become herons, likely Little Egrets (Egretta
garzetta), in a careful imitation of the herons’
postures, walking, and feeding behaviors,
originated over a thousand years ago at Ya-
saka Shrine in Kyoto, Japan. The performers
parade to ward off human and crop disease
(Matsumura 2013). Although the dance was
passed around to different places over the
centuries, it is best known in its resurrected
form, which since the 1960s has been per-
formed for tourists in Tokyo, Japan, where,
as is not atypical for herons’ muddled cul-
tural history, the dancers are called cranes.
In most of these historic settings, there
is little to suggest that herons enjoyed any
overt protections, nor was there likely much
need as they have always been relatively com-
mon and, being wary, not easily killed by
ancient methods. There are exceptions, of
course. Hindu communities and Maha Rajas
in India and royalty in Japan protected colo-
nies for generations (Spillett 1968; Peren-
nou et al. 2000; Kushlan and Hancock 2005;
K. Matsunaga, pers. commun.). In Europe,
herons were valued in that they were used
as quarry for falconry. Emperor Frederick
II of Hohenstaufenin’s De Arte Venandi cum
Avibus from the first half of the 1200s, es-
sentially the first ornithology text, describes
how they were hunted (Anker 1979; Wood
and Fyfe 1961). Because of their value as
falconry quarry throughout the European
Middle Ages, herons were valued by nobles
and protected within their hunting reserves
from commoners.
huntIng
Killing of herons for sport, as food, as
pests, or for their feathers has been one of
the most enduring and impactful themes in
heron conservation history. Theoretically, as
a long-lived animal, herons would be expect-
ed not to tolerate excessive adult mortality
and so hunting and other killing pose a po-
tentially serious conservation threat. Herons
were among the protein fare of the Middle
Ages (Abramson 2004); 400 herons were
served at a single banquet in 1465 (Hibbert
1987). But with few adequate weapons other
than falcons available to hunters and herons
being prized by the aristocracy, their killing
would likely have been localized, infrequent
and probably having minimal population-
level impact. But as hunting methods be-
came more lethal and more widely available,
localized effects from hunting likely oc-
curred. As a recent example, during and af-
ter World War II, residents of the Camargue
in southern France began eating Little Egret
and Black-crowned Night-Heron (Nycticorax
nycticorax) chicks, starting a tradition that
continued long after the food crisis waned
(Yeates 1950; Voisin 1991). The most defini-
tive information on population-level hunt-
ing effects comes from islands where isolated
heron populations disappeared coincident
with the arrival of humans (Kushlan and
Hancock 2005). Herons have been, and in
some cases still are, hunted in places such as
China, Mali, Madagascar, India, and south-
ern Europe (Kushlan and Hafner 2000).
Herons also have a long history of being
killed as pests. Throughout history, people
have often had trouble sharing their fish
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heron ConservatIon hIstory 347
with birds. Although local predator control
at scattered fish ponds or fishing sites prob-
ably had little population-level effect over the
centuries, such mortality intensified greatly
over the past century as commercial fishing
and aquaculture increased worldwide, high-
powered guns became more widely available,
few protective measures were in place, and, in
fact, such predator control in many locations
was legally permitted if not encouraged by
governments. Until the 1970s, tens of thou-
sands of herons were killed annually in Eu-
rope (Marion 2000). In the 1980s, over 4,000
Grey Herons were being killed annually in
the United Kingdom alone, about equal the
population’s annual productivity (Marion et
al. 2000). In 2011-2013, in the United States,
over 20,000 Great Blue Herons (Ardea hero-
dias), 14,000 Cattle Egrets (A. ibis), 12,000
Great Egrets, and 2,000 Snowy Egrets (E.
thula) were officially reported killed at aqua-
culture facilities (Bale and Knudson 2015);
such killing was potentially under-reported.
Most studies have shown consumption of fish
by herons at fish farms to be low in absolute
impact, relatively low contrasted with other
losses, relatively low contrasted to other fish-
eating birds, and often focused on unharvest-
able stock (Marion 2000; Glahn et al. 2002).
Despite limited scientific justification and
counter-measures being available, killing of
fish-eating birds as pests continues worldwide.
This mortality continues to pose challenges
for conservation of local heron populations.
Historically, herons were also killed for
their feathers, especially the elaborate court-
ship plumes of some species, some of which
are called egrets because of their plumes, or
aigrettes. No doubt plume hunting goes back
as far in human history as there were war-
riors, chiefs, nobles and priests who needed
to be impressively decorated. Although for
centuries hunting for the few rich and pow-
erful probably had little population-level im-
pact, by the mid to late 1800s, many others
became wealthy enough to care about their
clothing and also wanted feathers, issuing in
an era of worldwide slaughter of egrets. In
Europe, Little and Great egret colonies were
devastated, as they were in Asia and Austra-
lia. In the Americas, pristine colonies were
within reach of well-armed American back-
woodsmen and Native Americans.
Aigrettes, once off the bird, kept well,
weighed little, and shipped easily via trade
routes leading from local hunter to trading
post, to consolidator, to shipper, to factories in
London, Paris, New York, Berlin and Vienna,
and finally to the tops of ladies’ hats. In 1902,
a tabulation was made of the London plume
season from which it can be calculated that
over 192,000 egrets were killed for their feath-
ers that year (Ehrlich et al. 1988). Around Par-
is, nearly 10,000 people were employed in the
millinery trade, and in America the trade em-
ployed one of every 1,000 workers (Ehrlich et
al. 1988). Historically, any efforts to protect
herons came up against economically and po-
litically powerful opponents.
The first concerted effort at heron conser-
vation was the founding of the Plumage League
in London in 1889, which was an attempt to
stop feather use by influencing custom and
law. In the United States, ornithologists, muse-
um curators, and journalists followed the Brit-
ish lead and began publicizing egret slaughter,
leading to the creation of many local Audubon
societies and the American Ornithologists’
Union Model Law for States to follow in pro-
tecting birds. Once States passed protective
laws, the Federal government was able to use
its authority to regulate interstate commerce
to prohibit interstate shipment of birds taken
contrary to State law (Kushlan 2012). This in-
tervention was followed by the Migratory Bird
Treaty Act that asserted direct Federal control
of migratory birds (Kushlan 2012). The Plum-
age League became the Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds, which now has over a mil-
lion members (Adams 2004). The Audubon
movement coalesced through the National As-
sociation of Audubon Societies in 1905, later
evolving into the National Audubon Society,
the symbol of which remains a flying Great
Egret (Graham 1990). Hunting egrets for
their feathers and the conservation initiatives
that resulted from it were the foundation for
the modern conservation movement in Eu-
rope and the United States, and eventually to
the wider environmental protection policies,
legislation, and international conservation
treaties that followed.
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348 WaterbIrds
PestICIdes
Most, although not all, heron popula-
tions rebounded with the end of plume
hunting, slowly repopulating and reclaim-
ing their historic ranges. But by the late
1940s, herons and other top aquatic preda-
tors, such as cormorants and terns, were
found to face a new challenge, organo-
chlorine pesticides. Eggshell thinning was
found to have occurred in Great Blue Her-
ons and Black-crowned Night-Herons, and
other chemicals, such as dieldrin, were
found to cause direct mortality of adult her-
ons (Custer 2000). It turned out that de-
spite eggshell thinning, Great Blue Heron
mortality rates of adults did not increase,
and there were no widespread population
decreases owing to organochlorine pesti-
cides (Custer 2000). This history of organo-
chlorine impacts led to increased scrutiny
of other potential environmental contami-
nants, such as organophosphate and car-
bonate pesticides, metals, and petroleum.
Poisoning events from such chemicals too
have been shown to have only localized ef-
fects on herons (Custer 2000).
Owing to their wetland dependence, site
specificity, and longevity, herons have been
repeatedly proposed as suitable indicators
of environmental conditions, particularly
in wetlands (Kushlan 1993). Some of the
non-chemical indicators of environmental
conditions measured via herons include
mortality, distributional changes, breed-
ing population changes, wintering popula-
tion changes, reproductive performance,
growth rates of young, parasite load, and
diets (Erwin and Custer 2000). The jury
remains out on how well herons and other
birds actually can serve as indicators, which
of course depends upon carefully dissect-
ing exactly what an indicator is meant to be
indicating and its statistical efficacy at mea-
suring change (Kushlan 1993). However,
herons continue to be considered a useful
option for system-level environmental mon-
itoring; certainly if herons are doing poorly,
so is the environment; however, given her-
ons’ adaptability, the converse is not neces-
sarily true.
PoPulatIon monItorIng
An important result of herons’ appar-
ent resiliency with respect to contaminants
is that herons became candidates for assess-
ment of long-term sub-lethal population
level effects of contaminants, which in turn
required that their populations be inven-
toried and then monitored. In the United
States, this effort began with surveys of her-
on colonies along the Atlantic coast by the
Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (Custer
and Osborn 1977; Kushlan and White 1977;
Custer et al. 1980), followed by a compendia
of status and trends in other areas (Spen-
delow and Patton 1988; Butler et al. 2000).
Monitoring of various sorts continued at in-
tervals at local, State, and regional levels and
over several decades a diversity of waterbird
colony inventory and monitoring activities
emerged as did a growing consensus on ac-
ceptable methodology (Kushlan 2011; U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service 2016). Existing
data sets have proven adequate to infer pop-
ulation sizes and trends, albeit mostly with
unknown accuracy, and to make realistic
conservation status assessments (Kushlan et
al. 2002; North American Bird Conservation
Initiative 2009, 2016; Rush et al. 2015). In
Great Britain, population estimation is even
more exact and long term given country-
wide monitoring of colony sites by the British
Trust for Ornithology (British Trust for Or-
nithology 2018). Various censuses in Europe
through the decades have produced a quite
clear estimate of populations and permitted
recognition of range changes (Voisin 1991;
Hafner 2000a; Marion et al. 2000; Fasola et
al. 2010). Inventories have also occurred in
many other parts of the world, and repeated
counts have more recently allowed analysis
of trends for parts of India, China, Japan,
and Africa (Subramanya 1996; Liang et al.
2006; Mashiko and Toquenaga 2013; Hare-
bottle 2018).
habItat ConservatIon
Worldwide, habitat protection and its ap-
propriate management have proven to be
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heron ConservatIon hIstory 349
the highest priority for heron conservation
(Kushlan 2007). This concern can be divid-
ed into site protection, especially for colony
nesting species, and foraging habitat conser-
vation, which ranges over much larger areas
and involves conservation not only of habitat
area but of ecological function (Perennou et
al. 1996; Hafner 2000b; Kushlan 2000).
Experience has shown that site manage-
ment for colonies and roosts requires pro-
active planning and implementation to be
effective (Hafner 2000b), so methods will
differ among sites depending on site veg-
etation and factors that affect it. It has also
been proven possible to create artificial col-
ony sites, one of the first being Bird City, in
Louisiana, created in 1895 during the plume
hunting era (McIlhenny 1939). Hafner’s cre-
ation of an artificial colony in the south of
France in the 1970s inspired others to at-
tempt similar management (Hafner 1982,
2000b).
At its most fundamental, colony and roost
site protection involves eliminating threats
from disturbance by entering, hunting, or
egg taking. One of the more important con-
cepts to develop from studies of disturbance
over the last few decades is the concomitant
need for a security (or buffer) zone around
a colony so as to provide sufficient isolation
of the herons to proceed with their nest site
selection, courtship, nesting, and roosting
uninhibited by disturbance (Rodgers and
Smith 1995; Hafner 2000b). The impor-
tance of colony site protection was recently
emphasized in studies of the Agami Heron
(Agamia agami), a species extremely sensi-
tive to disturbance, which has been found to
nest in few relatively large colonies through-
out its range, such that each site is crucial in
servicing an expansive regional population
(Stier et al. 2017).
Fortunately, in North America and Eu-
rope, many if not most major heron colony
sites are located within parks, refuges and
other public lands, or on private lands man-
aged as reserves. National Important Bird
Area programs and identification of wet-
lands of international importance under the
Ramsar Convention have been critical pro-
cesses identifying wetlands of conservation
value, which has led to heron colonies and
other heron habitat being included in areas
recognized, and hopefully preserved and
managed, for their conservation importance
(Ramsar 2016; BirdLife International 2018).
It also is clear that from historic times,
colonies occur and can prosper at sites that
are frequented by people (Hafner 2000b).
This paradox has been found to be the result
of birds habituating to disturbance that is re-
peated, controlled, and non-threatening. In
India, in the 1990s, 46% of heron colonies
were near villages or cities, which, although
within highly altered environments, are loca-
tions at which the local communities offer
protection (Perennou et al. 2000).
Some herons, such as the three great her-
ons (Ardea spp.), Gorsachius night herons,
tiger herons, and bitterns, nest singly or in
well-dispersed clusters (Kushlan and Han-
cock 2005). Nesting site conservation for
dispersed nesting species is more expansive
than colony site protection, requiring pro-
tection of entire habitat blocks and nesting
marshes, as well as their management of hy-
drology and of competitive use. When such a
species has become threateningly rare, such
as the case of the White-bellied Heron (A.
insignis) and White-eared Night-Heron (Gor-
sachius magnificus) then individual nest site
protection and management becomes cru-
cial (White-bellied Heron Working Group
2015).
Foraging site conservation is even more
difficult than nest and roost site protection
(Kushlan 1981, 1986a, 1986b, 1997). Most
herons feed in the aquatic environment us-
ing a limited repertoire of behaviors and
prey, mostly fish and invertebrates, that must
be available in numbers, sizes, species, and
water depths that allow herons to access them
efficiently (Kushlan 1978). In many habitats,
availability changes with water depths or wa-
ter flow such that individual feeding sites
may be available for only a part of the year,
sometimes for only a few weeks or days at a
time. To the extent that this variation in prey
availability is caused by natural cycles of rain-
fall and hydrology, herons are able to use
these resources in a predictable way. When
human management of water interferes with
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350 WaterbIrds
the natural pattern, active management of
wetlands is required to accommodate the
needs of herons. Accomplishing this has not
proven to be a politically or fiscally easy task.
However, many highly managed wetlands
have proven entirely adequate to support
feeding habitat for herons.
Loss and alteration of habitat and eco-
system functioning has markedly affected
heron populations worldwide (Kushlan
1989, 1992, 2000, 2007). In the United
States, swamp drainage was national policy
for a century, set in motion by the Swamp
Act of 1850, leading to massive loss of her-
on habitat. Conversely, wetland protection,
management, and restoration have provided
habitat. Drainage, diversion, hydropower,
diking, water management practices, water
use, development, and coastal management
all determine the utility of a wetland to her-
ons. Historic trends show little sign of deac-
celerating.
Herons have benefitted from initiatives,
programs, plans, projects, national land pro-
tection, and international agreements that
protect wetlands and other landscapes they
use. Because few herons require directed
species-specific conservation action, most
heron conservation has taken place within
the context of conservation action on the
landscape scale for broader purposes than
for herons alone (Kushlan 2007). Over the
last century, large areas of wetlands in the
United States and throughout the world
have been set aside as parks, reserves, and
refuges, all of which have the potential to
benefit herons, if managed appropriately.
sPeCIes ConservatIon
Notwithstanding the overriding need for
landscape and regional conservation, some
heron species and populations are of such
conservation concern as to have required
special species- and population-level action.
Several species, as well as over two dozen
populations, are considered to be of con-
servation concern due to known threats or
lack of information (Kushlan 2007). These
include the White-bellied Heron (White-bel-
lied Heron Working Group 2015), Malagasy
Heron (A. humbloti), Chinese Egret (E. eulo-
photes), Reddish Egret (E. rufescens) (Wilson
et al. 2012), Slaty Egret (E. vinaceigula) (Tyler
2011), Malagasy Pond Heron (Ardeola idae),
White-eared Night-Heron (Fellowes et al.
2001; He et al. 2016), Japanese Night-Heron
(Gorsachius goisagi) (Hamaguchi et al. 2014),
New Guinea Tiger Heron (Zonerodius heliosy-
lus), and Agami Heron (Stier and Kushlan
2015). Attention to some of these species
through research and especially dedicated
species specialist groups is increasing under-
standing and leading to initiation of conser-
vation actions.
heron ConservatIon PartnershIPs
Through the mid part of the 20th cen-
tury, conservation became increasingly in-
stitutionalized through national legislation,
increased authority and scientific ground-
ing of wildlife agencies, the engagement of
international organizations, and the imple-
mentation of international migratory spe-
cies conventions. Over 35 years ago, in 1981,
the Heron Specialist Group was organized
to take advantage of such national and in-
ternational conservation networks. After
its founding, it was accepted as a research
group by the International Waterfowl Re-
search Bureau, as a specialist group by the
International Council for Bird Protection,
and as a specialist group by what was then
known as the World Conservation Union
(now the IUCN) (Hafner et al. 1986; Haf-
ner and Kushlan 1990, 1996; Kushlan and
Hafner 1991, 1993). The Heron Specialist
Group was headquartered first at Station Bi-
ologique Tour du Valat, Arles, France, from
1981 to 2005, before transitioning to the
USA and becoming HeronConservation.
Participating in the governance and pro-
grams of its partner organizations, the Her-
on Specialist Group held leadership roles in
the International Waterbird and Wetlands
Research Bureau and Wetlands Internation-
al, and supported Wetlands International in
population estimation for herons, and Bird-
Life and IUCN’s Red List process. As the
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heron ConservatIon hIstory 351
Group’s primary partnership has been with
IUCN’s Species Survival Commission, it has
participated in its planning, reporting, and
taxon leadership. Through these activities,
the Group allowed the message of heron
conservation to be elevated and included
in international and national deliberations,
goals, and projects.
Being primarily a communication and
linkage network, the Group’s tangible prod-
ucts were those derived from its worldwide
information-sharing network such as biolog-
ical monographs (Herons Handbook and The
Herons) and conservation syntheses such as
Heron Conservation (Hancock and Kushlan
1984; Kushlan and Hafner 2000; Kushlan
and Hancock 2005). Global action plans
have also been published, at approximately
5-year intervals (Hafner et al. 1996; Hafner
and Kushlan 2002; Kushlan 2007), with re-
source information eventually moving on-
line (HeronConservation 2018).
The activities of HeronConservation are
globally oriented, and it is worthwhile to
note that bird conservation in the USA has
had a trajectory apart from that of the inter-
national bird conservation community as a
whole, a trajectory that influenced approach-
es to bird conservation in the rest of the
Western Hemisphere. There, in the 1990s,
bird conservation began to be organized
around taxon-based partnerships (Brown et
al. 2001; Rich et al. 2004, U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service and Canadian Wildlife Service
2012). In response to the desire to put the
conservation needs of waterbirds in a simi-
lar context to that of other taxa, the North
American Waterbird Conservation Initiative
organized and undertook a multinational
planning effort in which herons figured
prominently (Kushlan et al. 2002). The vari-
ous taxon-oriented initiatives came together
in the North American Bird Conservation
Initiative, which has served to organize bird
conservation efforts, including efforts for
herons and other waterbirds (Kushlan et al.
2002), on the continent (Yaich et al. 2000;
North American Bird Conservation Initia-
tive 2016). As a result of this engagement,
herons became a conservation concern to
wetland managers, joint venture planning,
national wetland conservation funding, and
State programs.
Formal participation by those concerned
about heron conservation at both the global
and national scales over the past several de-
cades has served to institutionalize heron
conservation. In this way, the conservation
needs of herons may be recognized along
with those of other waterbirds and other spe-
cies. As there are few instances, albeit impor-
tant ones, where single species conservation
efforts are practical for herons, embedding
the needs of herons within larger frame-
works of regional conservation planning and
implementation has proven to provide the
most effective approach to the conservation
of these species.
aCKnoWledgments
This paper is based on a plenary presentation in-
vited on the occasion of the Herons of the World Sym-
posium at the 40th anniversary of the Waterbird Society
and in anticipation of the 35th anniversary of the IUCN
Heron Specialist Group. I thank conference organizers
Sara Schweitzer, Clay Green, and Chip Weseloh. And
I thank Clay Green, Tina Knezevic, Chip Weseloh and
anonymous reviewers for comments and editorial ad-
vice.
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