Coordinated Management
The Pacific Flyway Council is an administrative body that forges cooperation among public wildlife agencies for the purpose of protecting and conserving migratory birds that inhabit western North America. The Council is composed of the director or an appointee from the public wildlife agency in each state and province in the western United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Migratory birds use four major migratory routes (Pacific, Central, Mississippi, and Atlantic flyways) in North America. Because of the unique biological characteristics and relative number of hunters in these regions, state and federal wildlife agencies adopted the flyway structure for administering migratory bird resources within the United States. Each flyway has its own council.

Flyway councils have responsibilities in the annual process of setting migratory bird policy and regulations within the United States and conduct and contribute to migratory bird research and management throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The Pacific Flyway Council has both a game and nongame migratory bird technical committee that provides biological advice to the council. The technical committees are each composed of one biologist from the public wildlife agency in each state and province in the western United States, Canada, and Mexico.

In the U.S., the Pacific Flyway includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and those portions of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming west of the Continental Divide.

Alaska is the only state where migratory bird and egg hunting is allowed in spring and summer in certain rural areas for subsistence needs. The Council works with the Alaska Migratory Bird Co-management Council to develop migratory bird hunting regulations and coordinate management of migratory birds.