Download or read book Tracking the California Clapper Rail written by Tobias McClain Rohmer and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tidal marsh habitat of the California clapper rail (Rallus longirostris obsoletus) in San Francisco Bay is currently undergoing alteration due to the efforts to eradicate invasive hybrid Spartina, which the rails use for nesting substrate and cover from predation. In contrast, large tracts of commercial salt production ponds are being restored to tidal marsh, which could substantially increase potential new rail habitat. To determine rail space use and movement patterns, we conducted a radio telemetry study on clapper rails in three South San Francisco Bay tidal marshes over 16 months. A total of 60 rails were trapped, radio-marked and tracked on a daily basis. Seasonal and annual home ranges were developed using Least Square Cross Validation (LSCV) adaptive kernels, and results indicate that California Clapper Rails utilize approximately 1.16 - 1.75 ha on a seasonal basis, and 2.04 - 4.04 ha on an annual basis. No significant differences for home range estimates were found on the bases of sex, marsh site, season or marsh x seasonal interaction. The study-wide average seasonal home range was 1.5 ha, indicating that rails may benefit greatly from current tidal marsh restoration efforts on both small and large scales. Future conservation practices must maintain a focus on small scale phenomena that could benefit populations such as small scale restoration, local predation control and mitigation of contaminant sources.