Bibliographic Details
| Title: |
Evaluation of Social Attraction Measures to Establish Forster's Tern (Sterna forsteri) Nesting Colonies for the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, San Francisco Bay, California--2017 Annual Report. |
| Authors: |
Hartman, C. Alex, Ackerman, Joshua T., Herzog, Mark P., Yiwei Wang, Strong, Cheryl |
| Source: |
United States Department of the Interior. Geological Survey. Open-File Report; 2018, pi-25, 34p |
| Subject Terms: |
FORSTER'S tern, POND preservation, NEST building, BIRD breeding |
| Geographic Terms: |
SALT Pond (Mass.) |
| Abstract: |
Forster's terns (Sterna forsteri), historically one of the most numerous colonial-breeding waterbirds in South San Francisco Bay, California, have had recent decreases in the number of nesting colonies and overall breeding population size. The South Bay Salt Pond (SBSP) Restoration Project aims to restore 50-90 percent of former salt evaporation ponds to tidal marsh habitat in South San Francisco Bay. This restoration will remove much of the historical island nesting habitat used by Forster's terns, American avocets (Recurvirostra americana), and other waterbirds. To address this issue, the SBSP Restoration Project organized the construction of new nesting islands in managed ponds that will not be restored to tidal marsh, thereby providing enduring island nesting habitat for waterbirds. In 2012, 16 new islands were constructed in Pond A16 in the Alviso complex of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, increasing the number of islands in this pond from 4 to 20. However, despite a history of nesting on the four historical islands in Pond A16 before 2012, no Forster's terns have nested in Pond A16 since the new islands were constructed. In 2017, we used social attraction measures (decoys and electronic call systems) to attract Forster's terns to islands within Pond A16 to re-establish nesting colonies. We maintained these systems from March through August 2017. To evaluate the effect of these social attraction measures, we also completed waterbird surveys between April and August, where we recorded the number and location of all Forster's terns and other waterbirds using Pond A16, and monitored waterbird nests. We compared bird survey and nest monitoring data collected in 2017 to data collected in 2015 and 2016, prior to the implementation of social attraction measures, allowing for direct evaluation of social attraction efforts on Forster's terns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| Database: |
Complementary Index |
