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The Important Bird Areas Program (IBA) recognizes that habitat loss and fragmentation are the most serious threats facing populations of birds across America and around the world. By working through partnerships, principally the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, to identify those places that are critical to birds during some part of their life cycle (breeding, wintering, feeding, migrating) Audubon Connecticut hopes to minimize the effects that habitat loss, and degradation have on bird populations. Unless we can slow the rapid destruction and degradation of habitat, populations of many birds may decline to dangerously low levels.

The IBA program is a global effort to identify areas that are most important for maintaining bird populations, and focus conservation efforts to where they will have the greatest impact. The IBA program is overseen by BirdLife International, with Audubon as the partner designate in the United States In the U.S., and has become a key component of many bird conservation efforts, including, Partners in Flight, North American Waterbird Conservation Plan, and the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan.

Connecticut currently has 27 publicly announced IBAs, and is working to announce additional sites in the coming year.

There are 3 IBAs in Greenwich and they are:

To download a copy of the 2002 Great Captains Island Heron and Egret Study, click here.