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The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and its collaborators released endangered birds vital to the health of our wetlands.
The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has worked with Living Coast Discovery Center and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 2000 to help reinvigorate the population of light-footed Ridgway’s rails. The conservation allies recently celebrated another victory in their collaborative efforts when they released seven juvenile birds at Naval Base Ventura County Point Mugu, three of which were hatched at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
The hen-sized marsh bird, identifiable by its brown chest, gray and light-brown feathers, and long legs, was listed as a federally endangered species list in 1969 after the population dropped to fewer than 100 pairs, mainly due to habitat loss. Their numbers rose to 656 pairs in 2016 but have since declined by more than half.
The destruction of the wetlands and coastal marshes that the birds inhabit was in part a result of natural disasters, says Aiyana Reissman, a marine biologist involved with the Ridgway’s rails program. In both 2008 and 2016, there were steep drops in the bird’s populations after El Niño events caused sea-level rise.
According to an EPA report on threats to wetlands, human activity is also to blame: “Human activities cause wetland degradation and loss by changing water quality, quantity, and flow rates; increasing pollutant inputs; and changing species composition as a result of disturbance and the introduction of nonnative species,” the report states.
“About 90 percent of this appropriate habitat for these birds in California no longer exists,” says Terri Haines, a senior wildlife care specialist at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.
In order to support the reintroduction of the Ridgway’s rails, the team at Naval Base Point Mugu has focused on restoring their wetlands, giving the new releases the best chance of survival.
“Over the years, we’ve done a lot of wetland restoration on base to try to create more habitat for the rails,” says Martin Ruane, the natural resource manager of the Naval Base. “We protect the habitat as closed so there is minimal disturbance to the rails. We do a lot of habitat enhancement through invasive plant control.”
Habitat conservation and restoration is key to saving the Ridgway’s rail, and in turn, their reintroduction to local wetlands supports a healthy ecosystem that provides flood protection, water quality improvement, and shoreline erosion control.
“They’re very important to the ecosystem,” Haines says. “These places aren’t going to be healthy without birds like rails. You might not know it by looking at them, but they are predators, and as we all know, predators help keep things in balance. Because of their foraging activity—their big feet, their long curved bills—walking around these shallow waters, they stir up the mud. They put oxygen in the mud, they put nutrients back in the mud, and that’s important to keeping the whole ecosystem healthy.”
