Yuma Ridgway's Rail (Rallus obsoletus yumanensis) Population Surveys, Rail Movement, and Potential Habitat at the Salton Sea of California

Data were obtained as part of a project assessing risk to the federal and California listed endangered Yuma Ridgway's rail (Rallus obsoletus yumanensis) populations resulting from selenium contaminated agricultural runoff and to inform habitat restoration and management decisions. Four data sets were produced and used to analyze patterns of Yuma Ridgway's rail (Rallus obsoletus yumanensis, renamed from Rallus longirostris yumanensis [R. longirostris yumanensis retained in taxonomy section until further updated in ITIS system, https://www.itis.gov/submit.html]) occupancy and inter-marsh movements and to estimate rail abundance and regional population size to assess extent of selenium exposure of Yuma Ridgway's rail and support management of rail and their habitats at the Salton Sea. These data include site information for call count stations used to monitor secretive marshbirds, specifically Yuma Ridgway's rail, at and near the Salton Sea and Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge (SBSSNWR) in 2016 and complete count information for four species of secretive marshbird [Yuma Ridgway's rail, Virginia rail (Rallus limicola), Sora (Porzana carolina), American bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus)], detected among surveys at those sites. The data for call counts conducted between March 8 and April 17, 2016 for the four species is included in the file named Call Count Data.csv and data for call count stations is included in the file name Call Count Station Data.csv. Also included in this release is location information between April 4 and November 17, 2016 for 15 Yuma Ridgway's rails at the Salton Sea marked with radio-downloaded GPS transmitters (YURIRA Locations.csv). Additional data includes potential Yuma Ridgway's rail habitat classified from concurrently occurring land satellite (USGS Landsat) imagery recorded on March 20, 2016 corresponding with telemetry field studies of and call count surveys for Yuma Ridgway's rail (yurira_hab.tif). For more information about methods relating to these data please refer to the subject USGS Open-file Report (Ricca and others, 2022).