Cory Overton (Former Employee)

We studied the causes of mortality for the California Ridgway’s rail at multiple tidal marshes in the San Francisco Bay Estuary, California. We radio-marked 196 individual rails and examined the evidence from 152 recovered California Ridgway’s rail mortalities from our radio-marked sample and determined plausible cause of death from a wide array of evidence. We also included 10...

Management actions to protect endangered species and conserve ecosystem function may not always be in precise alignment. Efforts to recover the California Ridgway’s Rail (Rallus obsoletus obsoletus; hereafter, California rail), a federally and state-listed species, and restoration of tidal marsh ecosystems in the San Francisco Bay estuary provide a prime example of habitat restoration...

The clapper rail (Rallus longirostris) recently was split into two sister groups (Chesser et al. 2014) on the basis of phylogenetic analyses (Maley and Brumfield 2013). The original grouping is now represented on the East Coast of North America by the Clapper rail (Rallus crepitans) and on the West Coast by the Ridgway’s rail (Rallus obsoletus). The California Ridgeway’s rail (Rallus...

Predictive species distributional models are a cornerstone of wildlife conservation planning. Constructing such models requires robust underpinning science that integrates formerly disparate data types to achieve effective species management. Greater sage-grouse Centrocercus urophasianus, hereafter “sage-grouse” populations are declining throughout sagebrush-steppe ecosystems in North...

Context: The band-tailed pigeon (Patagioenas fasciata) is a migratory species occurring in western North America with low recruitment potential and populations that have declined an average of 2.4% per year since the 1960s. Investigations into band-tailed pigeon demographic rates date back to the early 1900s, and existing annual survival rate estimates were derived in the 1970s using...

The California Ridgway's rail Rallus obsoletus obsoletus (hereafter California rail) is a secretive marsh bird endemic to tidal marshes in the San Francisco Bay (hereafter bay) of California. The California rail has undergone significant range contraction and population declines due to a variety of factors, including predation and the degradation and loss of habitat. Call-count surveys...