Distribution, Relative Abundance and Status of the California Black Rail in Western North America

Uncloaking a cryptic, threatened rail with molecular markers: origins, connectivity and demography of a recently-discovered population

“…High differentiation of both mitochondrial sequences and microsatellites alleles suggests a different origin than the northern populations and is consistent with a polyphyletic colonization of California. This situation is particularly intriguing because rail habitats were created relatively recently by leaks along the All American Canal, an irrigation system that was completed in 1942, and colonizers presumably originated from populations nearby on the Colorado River (Repking and Ohmart 1977;Evens et al 1991;Conway and Sulzman 2007). Analyses of additional samples from the Colorado River, Central America, and elsewhere in the range will be necessary to determine the origins of these birds.…”

“…The California subspecies (L. j. coturniculus) is listed as threatened by the California Department of Fish and Game (1989) due to habitat loss and degradation and to grazing (Eddleman et al 1988;Eddleman et al 1994). Population size of California Black Rails is thought be much larger in the wetlands of northern SF Bay (Evens et al 1991;Evens and Nur 2002) than in the Foothills (Richmond et al 2008).…”

Habitat preferences of breeding Water RailRallus aquaticus

“…Despite being used widely in North America on many rail species (Evens et al 1991, Gibbs & Melvin 1993, 1997, surveys using playback have not been systematically employed for rails in Europe. Here we use results from the first regional survey of Water Rail in the UK to provide information on habitat preferences.…”

California black rails depend on irrigation-fed wetlands in the Sierra Nevada foothills

“…The speed with which suitable habitat can be created and then colonized by rails suggests that mitigation for wetland habitat loss from, for example, canal lining projects, may be effective. The lining of irrigation canals to improve water efficiency can adversely affect black rail habitat (Evens et al 1991); a balanced approach to such projects should simultaneously address water efficiency and wildlife habitat needs, perhaps through a rotating short-term water-leasing program (Peck et al 2004).…”

“…It is the smallest rail in North America and has a patchy and poorly understood distribution. In western North America, it is found in saltwater, brackish and freshwater marshes along the Pacific coast from Bodega Bay to northwest Baja California, in the the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary (where it is most abundant), inland in small numbers in the Salton Trough and along the lower Colorado River, and in the northern Sierra foothills of Butte, Nevada, Placer and Yuba counties, where it was recently discovered (Aigner et al 1995;Conway and Sulzman 2007;Eddleman et al 1994;Evens et al 1991;Richmond et al 2008).…”