The Intermountain West Joint Venture (IWJV) is a partnership of government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and other public and private landowners for the conservation of bird habitats in the inter-mountain areas of the western United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It was established in 1994 and focuses on the "implementation of the conservation goals and objectives of five major bird initiatives": North American Waterfowl Management Plan

North American Waterfowl Management Plan

The North American Waterfowl Management Plan is an international plan to conserve waterfowl and migratory birds in North America. It was established in 1986 by Canada and the United States, and expanded to include Mexico in 1994....

, Partners in Flight

Partners in flight

Partners in Flight / Compañeros en Vuelo / Partenaires d’Envol was launched in 1990 in response to growing concerns about declines in the populations of many land bird species, and in order to emphasize the conservation of birds not covered by existing conservation initiatives...

, United States Shorebird Conservation Plan, North American Waterbird Conservation Plan and the National Sage Grouse Conservation planning Framework. Its primary objective is to address conservation issues for about 40 waterbird species which use the marsh

Marsh

In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....

es, playa

Dry lake

Dry lakes are ephemeral lakebeds, or a remnant of an endorheic lake. Such flats consist of fine-grained sediments infused with alkali salts. Dry lakes are also referred to as alkali flats, sabkhas, playas or mud flats...

s, riparian zone

Riparian zone

A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the fifteen terrestrial biomes of the earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks are called riparian vegetation, characterized by...

s, lakes and other wetland

Wetland

A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....

s throughout its extent.

Its region of operation covers all of Idaho

Idaho

Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....

, Nevada

Nevada

Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

,and Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, and portions of Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, Montana

Montana

Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

, New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

, Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, Washington, and Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

. It has boundaries delineated by the border with Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 to the north and Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 to the south, the Rocky Mountains

Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

 to the east, and the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range

Cascade Range

The Cascade Range is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades...

 to the west, and includes the "Great Basin

Great Basin

The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...

, Columbia Basin

Columbia Basin

The Columbia Basin, the drainage basin of the Columbia River, occupies a large area–about —of the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In common usage, the term often refers to a smaller area, generally the portion of the drainage basin that lies within eastern Washington.Usage of the term...

, Colorado Plateau

Colorado Plateau

The Colorado Plateau, also called the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. The province covers an area of 337,000 km2 within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico,...

, and Wyoming Basin

Wyoming Basin

The Wyoming Basin physiographic province is a geographic area through which the Continental Divide of the Americas traverses. The province includes the Washakie and Great Divide Basins, and is demarcated by the following:*southwest: Uinta Mountains...

 physiographic regions and their associated mountain ranges". It is adjacent to the Canadian Intermountain Joint Venture

Canadian Intermountain Joint Venture

The Canadian Intermountain Joint Venture is a partnership of "government agencies, Aboriginal groups, nongovernmental organizations, industry, universities and landowners" for the implementation of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in the inter-mountain areas of south and central...

 to the north, the Pacific Coast Joint Venture

Pacific Coast Joint Venture

The Pacific Coast Joint Venture is a partnership established in 1991 between governments, organizations, and conservation groups along the Pacific Coast of the United States and Canada, established to protect and enhance wetlands important to migratory birds, within the framework of the North...

 and Central Valley Joint Venture to the west, the Rio Grande Joint Venture and Sonoran Joint Venture to the south, and the Northern Great Plains Joint Venture, Playa Lakes Joint Venture, and Prairie Pothole Joint Venture to the east.

The California Action Group was established to determine focus areas for the IWJV in California, for which it identified: the Klamath Basin

Klamath Basin

The Klamath Basin is the region in the U.S. states of Oregon and California drained by the Klamath River. It contains most of Klamath County and parts of Lake and Jackson counties in Oregon, and parts of Del Norte, Humboldt, Modoc, Siskiyou, and Trinity counties in California. The drainage basin...

, coordinated with the Oregon Action Group; the Carson River

Carson River

The Carson River is a northwestern Nevada river that empties into the Carson Sink, an endorheic basin. The main stem of the river is long....

 and Stillwater Sink, coordinated with the Nevada Action Group; the areas of the Lower Colorado River, Salton Sea

Salton Sea

The Salton Sea is a shallow, saline, endorheic rift lake located directly on the San Andreas Fault, predominantly in California's Imperial Valley. The lake occupies the lowest elevations of the Salton Sink in the Colorado Desert of Imperial and Riverside counties in Southern California. Like Death...

, Imperial Valley, Coachella Valley

Coachella Valley

Coachella Valley is a large valley landform in Southern California. The valley extends for approximately 45 miles in Riverside County southeast from the San Bernardino Mountains to the saltwater Salton Sea, the largest lake in California...

, and Mystic Lake

Mystic Lake (California)

Mystic Lake is an ephemeral lake in the San Jacinto Valley of western Riverside County, California. It is located east of Lake Perris, between Moreno Valley and San Jacinto.-Shrinking:...

, coordinated with the Arizona Action Group; the Modoc Plateau

Modoc Plateau

The Modoc Plateau lies in the northeast corner of California as well as parts of Oregon and Nevada. It is a mile-high expanse of lava flows with cinder cones, juniper flats, pine forests, and seasonal lakes. The plateau is thought to have been formed approximately 25 million years ago...

, Pit River

Pit River

The Pit River is a major river draining from northeastern California into the state's Central Valley. The Pit, the Klamath and the Columbia are the only three rivers in the U.S...

, and Surprise Valley; Honey Lake

Honey Lake

Honey Lake is an endorheic sink within the Honey Lake Valley located in northeastern California, near the Nevada border. Summer evaporation reduces the lake to a lower level of 12 km² and creates an alkali flat....

 and Sierra Valley; and the Mono Lake

Mono Lake

Mono Lake is a large, shallow saline lake in Mono County, California, formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in a basin that has no outlet to the ocean...

 Basin, Owens River

Owens River

The Owens River is a river in southeastern California in the United States, approximately long. It drains into and through the Owens Valley, an arid basin between the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and the western faces of the Inyo and White Mountains. The river terminates at Owens Lake, but...

, Walker River and Adobe Valley.

In Colorado, it is a participant in the recovery and conservation plans for the Burrowing Owl

Burrowing Owl

The Burrowing Owl is a tiny but long-legged owl found throughout open landscapes of North and South America. Burrowing Owls can be found in grasslands, rangelands, agricultural areas, deserts, or any other open dry area with low vegetation. They nest and roost in burrows, such as those excavated...

, Ferruginous Hawk

Ferruginous Hawk

The Ferruginous Hawk , Buteo regalis , is a large bird of prey. It is not a true hawk like sparrowhawks or goshawks, but rather belongs to the broad-winged buteo hawks, known as "buzzards" in Europe...

, Greater Sage-grouse

Sage Grouse

The Sage Grouse is the largest grouse in North America, where it is known as the Greater Sage-Grouse. Its range is sagebrush country in the western United States and southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada. A population of smaller birds, known in the U.S. as Gunnison Sage-Grouse, were recently...

, Gunnison Sage-grouse, and Mountain Plover

Mountain Plover

The Mountain Plover is a medium-sized ground bird in the plover family . It is misnamed, as it lives on level land...

.

In 2008, in conjunction with the American Bird Conservancy

American Bird Conservancy

American Bird Conservancy is a non-profit membership organization with the mission of conserving native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas...

, it undertook a study to assess "the effects of conservation practices implemented through USDA conservation programs" of the conservation cover, wetland restoration, and prescribed grazing areas for the Prairie Grouse

Sharp-tailed Grouse

The Sharp-tailed Grouse, Tympanuchus phasianellus , is a medium-sized prairie grouse. It is also known as the sharptail, and is known as "fire grouse" or "fire bird" by Native American Indians due to their reliance on brush fires to keep their habitat open.-Taxonomy:The Greater Prairie-chicken,...

, land birds, and waterfowl in the Great Basin Bird Conservation Region in eastern Washington and Oregon, specifically the wetland and upland practices employed in those areas.