Species Status Assessments

The California Sea Otter Stranding Network is part of the USGS effort to monitor southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) and provide data to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. WERC's sea otter team works with multiple institutions and partners to report, recover, and examine stranded sea otters. In addition, instructions on how to report a stranded sea otter are included in this webpage.

WERC collaborates with other research scientists to conduct annual population surveys of the southern sea otter -- a federally listed threatened species. In coordination with the California Department of Fish and Game and other institutions, ongoing surveys and research continues to inform the southern sea otter recovery plan for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and contributes to our...

At the population level, Dr. Amy Vandergast and her team estimates important population parameters such as effective migration (or gene flow) and the number of breeding adults (or effective population size), and quantify the impacts of landscape changes and disturbance on these parameters. This work informs individual species management.

The coastal California Gnatcatcher ( Polioptila californica californica ), a federally threatened species, is considered a flagship species for southern California conservation planning. Dr. Barbara Kus collaborates with Dr. Amy Vandergast and local agencies to provide information to managers that can be used to conserve this species and its habitat.

Dr. Kathleen Longshore’s goal is to understand how predator/prey relationships, disease and human-caused disturbance work separately and synergistically to impact bighorn sheep populations under variable ecological stress. Information from this project will provide managers with an understanding of specific and regional impacting factors that contribute to impact variation in population trends.

Pacific Coast fisheries information is currently available only from wildlife agencies in disparate databases. To maximize the value of these data, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement and U. S. Geological Survey have combined data from several of these sources into a single, comprehensive database. This gives resource managers a tool to easily extract species or...

Landscape ecology has only a short history as a recognized discipline, but it has transformed our thinking about the interplay between pattern and process. We now understand that many smaller-scale phenomena are driven by spatial processes, such as the proximity of different habitats to one another, the ability of organisms to move through landscapes, and the dynamics of natural disturbance such...

Environmental stressors such as contaminants and disease can cause physiological imbalance in all types of wildlife. WERC’s Drs. Lizabeth Bowen and A. Keith Miles develop gene transcription profiles to detect organisms’ physiological responses to environmental stressors and provide resource managers with early warnings for potential effects on wildlife and ecosystem health.

Federally-listed as threatened since 1986, the Atlantic Coast Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) population comprises fewer than 2,000 breeding pairs, according to the most recent census data. These breeding pairs are the target of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) species recovery plan.

Over the past 20 years, Alaskans have witnessed a startling increase of beak deformities among Black-capped Chickadees and other species of resident birds. This disease, called avian keratin disorder (AKD), is characterized by debilitating beak overgrowth and other abnormalities of keratinized tissues. Affected birds have difficulty feeding and preening, and may suffer high rates of mortality.

Biological production represents the total amount of living material (biomass) that was produced during a defined period of time. This production is important because some of it is used for food and some is valued for recreation, it is a direct measure of total ecosystem processes, and it sustains biological diversity. Production is a measure of energy flow, and is therefore a natural currency for...

Impact of UMESC Science This research aims to estimate the fraction of mussels that are able to avoid short-term mortality during a water level drawdown by burrowing or moving horizontally into deeper water. Resource managers can use this critical information about mussel behavior and survival to make informed river management decisions.