Statewide Habitat Fragmentation and Habitat Inventory Assessment for California, Gambel's and Mountain Quails
The three species of quails native to California (California, Gambel’s and Mountain quails) are iconic game birds of the American West. Each of these three species attracts the attention of upland game bird hunters, as well as birders across the state, yet each of these three species of quails faces threats related to loss of their habitats from the impacts of urbanization and industrial development, expanding agricultural land use, and changing forest and rangeland management.
The goal of this project is to provide a quantitative basis for prioritizing areas for quail population and habitat conservation on a state-wide basis for California. This proposal has three primary objectives for all three species of quails native to California: (1) quantify how changing land uses related to urban development, forest and rangeland management, and agricultural land uses have impacted broad-scale and localized population changes; (2) use broad-scale landscape databases to compile an inventory of habitats that have the potential to sustain populations of these three species of quails, and (3) develop predictive landscape-level models to identify how project increases in urbanization and development are likely to impact quail populations in California over the next 50 years.
Data compilation and analyses will take place at the Geospatial Technologies Laboratory at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University – Kingsville, in Kingsville, Texas and utilize geospatial data, including:
- Breeding bird survey
- US Census of Agriculture
- Road network data
- US population and housing
- LANDSAT coverage
- National Agriculture Imagery Program. Digital orthophoto quadrangles
- Percent impervious surface and housing density projections
To achieve the goals of this project, we will use a hierarchical approach with three spatial scales: state, county, and home range to link the broad-scale population dynamics of three species of wild quail in California to statewide landscape metrics.
Our results will provide spatially-explicit information on places throughout the state where stewardship of these populations and for other grassland shrubland birds will most likely be successful. Our results will also provide upland game bird hunters with spatially-explicit information on places where they are most likely to maximize their chances of hunting success and satisfaction.