Management of over 400 rare species thought to be associated with late-successional and old-growth forest conditions on U.S. federal lands within the range of the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) included a four-pronged "survey-and-manage" approach in 1994-2004 and 2006-2007, which included predisturbance surveys, strategic surveys, management of known sites to address species' persistence, and adaptive management via an annual species review to improve management approaches. Although the objective of predisturbance surveys was to detect species in areas proposed for land management activities, strategic surveys were intended to fill critical information gaps in species knowledge. Many rare taxa in this program were little known, and basic knowledge of abundance and distribution patterns, species-habitat relationships, or species responses to disturbances were not well understood. To advance the adaptive management of this type of program, we compiled these strategic survey projects and evaluated their relative effectiveness by project types (including known site surveys, purposive surveys, probability surveys, historical data and literature synthesis, modeling, research, and genetics) and 10 taxa (fungi, lichens, bryophytes, vascular plants, arthropods, mollusks, amphibians, red tree voles [Phenacomys longicaudus], great gray owl [Strix nebulosa], and bats). We tallied 96 projects initiated in this timeframe, with almost $5 million spent for their implementation. From 63 projects, 123 products, (e.g. publications and reports) were compiled and are now available in a regional archive. Although all project types significantly contributed to advancing our understanding of rare species, numerous lessons learned from this effort will be important considerations for future conservation programs.