|
The California Clapper Rail (Rallus longirostris obsoletus) is a federal and state listed endangered species restricted primarily to San Francisco Bay, Suisun Bay, and wetlands near the mouth of San Francisco Bay (Gill 1979, Foin et al. 1997). The historical distribution of rails ranged from Morro Bay northward to Tomales Bay and possibly Humboldt Bay (Applegarth 1938, Gill 1979). The US Fish and Wildlife Service is currently revising the species recovery plan for California clapper rails while critical information on this species' movements, habitat use and survival are not well understood. Widespread habitat conversion, nonnative predators, and contaminants have been implicated in the dramatic decline of Clapper Rails, whose populations may have been in the tens of thousands (Foin et al. 1997). By the early 1990s, Clapper Rails may have numbered as few as 200 and are currently thought to number around 1,800 (USFWS, unpublished data).
|
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey