intensity and fire history feature prominently among the many factors affecting recovery from fire [10].  Scrub habitat should be managed adaptively to account for local variation in scrub conditions and fire priorities.

Scrub lands adjacent to or near protected properties with Florida scrub-jays should be purchased and protected whenever possible.  Small population size poses a major threat to the long-term persistence of Florida scrub-jays and any possibility of increasing the number of contiguous or spatially close groups under protection should be taken.  Alternatively, when land purchases are not feasible, it may be possible to manage important lands cooperatively and achieve all, or nearly all, of the same management objectives.  This may be especially important for large, undeveloped ranchlands, where regular burning for range management could just as well create optimal scrub habitat for Florida scrub-jays.  Cooperative management agreements also could be used to facilitate jay dispersal among populations.  Many forest tracts, for example, may have little intrinsic conservation value, but still could be important for jay conservation.  Florida scrub-jays usually do not enter, let alone traverse forests, so forests prove effective dispersal barriers [10].  In these circumstances, outright purchase of forest lands probably would not warrant serious consideration.  But working to develop management agreements to thin or burn forests in order to facilitate jay movement between populations might be a jay management priority that could result in tangible population benefits. 

Each metapopulation should have a comprehensive conservation plan that integrates and prioritizes management strategies for its own set of subpopulations.  Its principal objective should be to fortify the metapopulation, much as the recovery plan seeks to ensure the well being of the entire species.  To do so, the plan needs to define specific conservation objectives for the metapopulation, weigh alternative strategies for accomplishing them, and measure progress toward their completion.  While it may not be possible to develop the requisite knowledge base for an entire set of subpopulations, knowledge of the current size and distribution of major subpopulations and their potential for future growth and expansion would provide an acceptable start.  The main advantage of this approach is that it superimposes a landscape perspective over what otherwise usually are population based management plans.  Management would still be implemented on a site-specific basis, but with direction based on landscape level considerations. 

The South Brevard-Indian River-North St. Lucie metapopulation provides an example of a successful comprehensive management approach.  This metapopulation comprised 22 subpopulations and 158 pairs in the 1992-1993 state mapping project.  Four of the Brevard County Environmentally Endangered Lands Program (EEL) lands properties accounted for about a third (55) of the pairs [9].  These and the other subpopulations were small and their distribution fragmented.  Managing each on an individual basis would have done little to secure the long-term persistence of the metapopulation.  Instead, the EEL program works with other owners of protected lands in the southern portion of the county, most notably the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, St. Johns River Water Management District, and county parks, to coordinate management planning and implementation.  The advantage is that small, isolated clusters of Florida scrub-jays, which might otherwise be dismissed as likely candidates for local extirpation and unworthy contenders for scarce management resources, instead are regarded as integral to conserving the metapopulation.  Greater priority is given to preserving the existing birds and to expanding their numbers by habitat improvements within each