On the island of Hispaniola, 72 percent of land cover is now agricultural crops, early-successional scrub, or pasture. Most forested areas remaining in the Dominican Republic are fragmented and under continuing heavy pressure. While large portions of the country have already been converted to agricultural use through slash-and-burn practices, other forested sites are selectively cut and the understory burned to promote forage for cattle grazing. The effects of these practices on birds, and the use of these early- and mid-successional habitats by birds, has never been studied. Thus, for management planning efforts, there is a need to know how this most common form of habitat conversion affects bird demographics and survival, and how birds respond to regeneration of these habitats.