Geological Survey February 24, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is a long- term, large-scale avian monitoring program to track the status and trends of continental bird populations. Each spring, interested volunteers conduct counts of birds along roadsides across the United States. Data can be submitted electronically via the Internet or on hard copy. These data provide an index of population abundance that can be used to estimate population trends and relative abundances at various geographic scales. Declining population trends act as an early warning system to galvanize research to determine the causes of these declines and reverse them before populations reach critically low levels. The USGS currently provides BBS population trend estimates and raw population data for more than 400 bird species via the Internet. Estimated Annual Number of Respondents: 2500. Estimated Annual Burden Hours: 12,500 hours. Estimated Annual (Non-Hour) Cost Burden: The estimated annual (non- hour) cost burden per response is about $37.50 for a total annual burden of about $93,000. This is based on about 100 miles per survey route, times $0.375 per mile, times 2500 survey routes. Affected Public: Primarily U.S. residents. For Further Information Contact: To obtain copies of the survey, contact the Bureau clearance officer, U.S. Geological Survey, 807 National Center, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, Virginia, 20192, telephone (703) 648-7313.