In the San Francisco Bay, CA a complicated situation continues to play out from the purposeful introduction of the Atlantic Spartina alterniflora, which hybridized with native California cordgrass, Spartina foliosa. The hybrids spread rapidly into the open mud where migratory shorebirds forage. This led to a large-scale herbicide campaign that is a success in saving shore bird habitat, but that also brought collateral damage to the endangered California clapper rail, which had apparently flourished in hybrid Spartina. The US Fish & Wildlife Service curtailed the herbicide campaign in 2011. The state of the situation is in flux as hybrid cordgrass is again spreading at the sites where spraying was curtailed, funding for the campaign is not assured, and the clapper rail is yet to recover over 2010 numbers.
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