Natural Perspectives

On July 30, the City Council Committee on the Bolsa Chica held a joint

meeting with the Environmental Board to discuss the preferred alternative

restoration plan, the one that will bring life-giving seawater back to

the Bolsa Chica for the first time in 100 years. Vic was unable to attend

due to his teaching schedule, but I gave testimony about what restoration

of tidal flushing would mean to a very rare bird.

The light-footed clapper rail is a medium-sized, chicken-like bird

that inhabits coastal salt marshes. It is the single most endangered bird

in southern California. Of the countless bird, fish, and invertebrate

species that would benefit from full tidal restoration, this rail might

benefit the most.

The clapper rail must have cordgrass habitat in order to survive.

Cordgrass grows well only in fully tidal mudflats. Cordgrass in muted

tidal systems, such as Inner Bolsa Bay, grows poorly.

When I was Research Director of the Bolsa Chica Conservancy in the

early 1990s, volunteers and I monitored the cordgrass patches in Inner

Bolsa over a couple of seasons. We found that the patches grew at one

end, but died at the other. The patches were migrating, but not

expanding. The stem density per square foot was low and the grass was

weak and sickly compared to grass growing in the fully tidal Outer Bolsa.

We observed that cordgrass does not thrive in a muted tidal system.

Vic and I helped plant cordgrass in Talbert Marsh in 1992. This

cordgrass, which receives daily tidal flushing, is thriving. However, the

amount of cordgrass habitat at Talbert Marsh is too small to support a

population of clapper rails, which require from 1 to 18 acres of cordgrass per breeding pair, depending upon the quality of the stand.

Clapper rails used to be an abundant species in southern California.

In 1898, biologist Joseph Grinnell wrote that clapper rails were a

“tolerably common resident in the salt marshes along the coast.” But by

the 1930s, trouble was already on the horizon for the rail. Biologist

George Willett noted in 1933 that while the bird had been formerly common

in all coastal marshes, “now, because of drainage of some marshes and

pollution of others by oil, (the bird) is much more restricted in

distribution.”

A 1981 census of clapper rails showed that only 203 pairs remained.

Numbers have hovered at this dangerously low level for two decades. In

1996, Doug Willick and Rob Hamilton wrote that the last major populations

were in Orange County’s Upper Newport Bay and Seal Beach National

Wildlife Refuge. But due to predation by red fox, numbers at Seal Beach

dropped to a mere two individuals in 1985. This prompted U.S. Fish and

Wildlife to control the nonnative red fox population at the refuge and

begin construction of artificial clapper rail nesting platforms. These

structures were a huge success in helping the population at Seal Beach

recover.

Working with U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Dick Zembal, local

birders Jim Robins and Phil Smith helped build and place artificial

platforms at the Bolsa Chica wetlands in 1993. However, there currently

is not enough cordgrass habitat at the Bolsa Chica to support a breeding

population of rails and the platforms remain unused.

Clapper rails are in serious trouble. This spring, a census showed

that only 211 breeding pairs live in all of Southern California, mostly

at Upper Newport Bay. So few birds remain in such isolated patches that

scientists have established a captive breeding program for clapper rails

in San Diego. The first chicks hatched this spring and were fed with hand

puppets in a program similar to that for the California condor. They will

be released soon at Point Mugu. But captive breeding is expensive and is

no substitute for viable natural habitat. That is why we must restore

additional cordgrass. The rail is one reason why Bolsa Chica needs full

tidal flushing.

During the hearing, Councilmember Connie Boardman asked a good

question about the impact of restoration on another endangered species at

the Bolsa Chica, the Belding’s Savannah sparrow. In the process of

restoring the Bolsa Chica, some degraded pickleweed habitat where some of

these sparrows live will be converted into cordgrass habitat. The concern

is that the sparrows will temporarily lose some habitat during

construction. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will investigate ways to

improve some of the existing sparrow habitat in back Bolsa before

construction begins. After restoration, improved sparrow habitat should

support almost double the number of sparrows that live there today.

There are about 2,000 pairs of Belding’s Savannah sparrows in Southern

California compared to only 200 pairs of clapper rails. The rails are by

far the more endangered species and more in need of additional habitat.

We were pleased that Councilmembers Peter Green and Ralph Bauer and

Planning Commissioner Ed Kerins voted in favor of the ocean inlet.

The Bolsa Chica needs a new inlet to bring in seawater. Without

adequate tidal flushing, cordgrass will not grow. Without additional

cordgrass acreage, the fragmented population of the light-footed clapper

rail will remain poised on the brink of extinction. Full tidal

restoration of the Bolsa Chica is the best hope for survival of the rail

and for the many other water-dependent bird, fish and invertebrate

species that will benefit from this project. We’re glad the majority of

the committee agreed.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at o7 vicleipzig@aol.comf7 .