Establishing baseline conditions to inform adaptive management of South San Francisco Bay salt ponds: A comparison of waterbird abundance from the 1980s to the 2000s

The 30,000 acres of wetlands within the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge (Refuge) provide critical habitat for over one million waterbirds annually (Page et al. 1999, Warnock et al. 2002). These wetlands consist largely of tidal marshes and open water ponds. Salt evaporator ponds have been in this landscape for over 150 years (Ver Planck 1958) and are heavily used by shorebirds, waterfowl and other wildlife species (Anderson 1970, Accurso 1992, Takekawa et al. 2001, Warnock et al. 2002). Salt ponds, and former salt ponds now managed as wildlife habitat, provide the majority of the roosting and (for some species) foraging habitat for waterbirds in the San Francisco Bay. The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project (Restoration Project), of which the Refuge and California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW, also CDFG) Eden Landing Ecological Reserve are a part, is implementing a large-scale plan to convert 15,100 acres of former salt ponds into tidal and managed wetland habitats (SBSPRP 2007)