SaveBirds.app: A web tool for analyzing the North American Breeding Bird Survey data to enhance conservation in protected areas

Initiated in 1966, the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) has gathered a large collection of data on 800 avian species from 300,000 sites across North America. Managed collaboratively by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), this dataset helps in the ecological assessment of 40,000 protected areas (PAs) in the region. To unlock this data’s full potential, we present the SaveBirds.app—a specialized web application designed to explore the extensive BBS dataset. The platform empowers various stakeholders, including ecologists, wildlife managers, and policymakers, by providing them with custom analytical tools to address critical conservation questions. SaveBirds.app offers three core functionalities: 1) Metrics, for calculating species-specific Rarity Scores and route-based Species Richness (SR), Rarity-Weighted Richness (RWR), and Shannon diversity ( H ′ ) based on customizable parameters; 2) Presence/Absence Data, for mapping the spatio-temporal distribution of selected bird species; and 3) Bird Atlas Generator, the first publicly available tool equipped with a pre-built ArcGIS model, enabling users to create customized bird atlases. SaveBirds.app represents a pivotal advancement in using long-term ecological datasets, providing strong analytics to inform and prioritize conservation initiatives in North America.