Undisturbed areas become islands of habitat surrounded by development, and habitat islands become smaller and more isolated as developments expand. Animals requiring large patches of woodland to survive must be able to move among remnant habitat patches to find adequate resources and avoid population inbreeding. In an effort to conserve wildlife populations in fragmenting landscapes, managers and conservation biologists have proposed the use of habitat corridors, strips of intact habitat between two or more otherwise disjunct habitats. Despite theoretical assumptions, few studies provide empirical evidence that wildlife use corridors. Of the existing corridor studies, few examine spatial scales large enough to be relevant to landscape management.
Few studies focus on mammals, such as carnivores that exist at low population densities.
Most large mammals need corridors to survive. Without knowing if wildlife preferentially use riparian corridors in highly modified landscapes, developing appropriate management practices for maintaining riparian corridors as a means of ensuring habitat connectivity for wildlife movement is difficult. A pilot study was initiated in Sonoma County in July 1998 to begin testing wildlife use of corridors on a landscape scale. Several recent land-use issues in the region made a riparian wildlife corridor study appropriate and timely. Decline of anadromous fisheries, invasion of exotic plant species into riparian zones, and increased hillside vineyard expansion has prompted concern about protecting and restoring riparian corridors.