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North America’s grassland birds remain in crisis despite decades of conservation effort s. This review pro- vides an overview of factors contributing to these declines, as well as strategies and resources available to a diversity of stakeholders to help conserve grassland bird communities with an emphasis on the Great Plains—a grassland region of global ecological significance and a habitat stronghold for grassland birds. Grassland bird declines are driven by historical and continuing threats across the full annual cycle including grassland habitat loss, agriculture intensification, woody encroachment, and disruption of fire and grazing regimes. More recently, energy development activities, the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, and anthropogenic climate change have emerged as additional threats. While threats to grassland birds are numerous and often synergistic, possibilities for conservation are also diverse and multifaceted. Land set-aside programs, incentives and voluntary practices for producers, improved environmental manage- ment by energy and utility companies, and policy and regulation can all contribute to the conservation of these unique species. We suggest that future grassland bird research should focus on poorly studied aspects of the annual cycle, such as overwinter survival and habitat use, and the migratory period, which remains completely unexplored for many species. Filling these knowledge gaps may facilitate more so- phisticated population modeling that can identify limiting factors and more effectively guide investment in conservation. 

Species extinctions have defined the global biodiversity crisis, but extinction begins with loss in abundance of individuals that can result in compositional and functional changes of ecosystems. Using multiple and independent monitoring networks, we report population losses across much of the North American avifauna over 48 years, including once-common species and from most biomes. Integration of range-wide population trajectories and size estimates indicates a net loss approaching 3 billion birds, or 29% of 1970 abundance. A continent-wide weather radar network also reveals a similarly steep decline in biomass passage of migrating birds over a recent 10-year period. This loss of bird abundance signals an urgent need to address threats to avert future avifaunal collapse and associated loss of ecosystem integrity, function, and services.