It will also indicate how the location and management of habitats affect their use. Many partners are involved including the California Department of Fish and Game, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Waterfowl Association, Ducks Unlimited, Grassland Water District, Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and The Rice Foundation. Scientists from WERC, Ducks Unlimited's Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research, and the California Waterfowl Association are using satellite telemetry to track spring migration of female northern pintails that winter in the Central Valley, California. They are striving to discover why the North American breeding population of northern pintails has declined over the last 30 years. In 1999, the breeding population was 3.0 million, well below the long-term average and objective level established by the North American Waterfowl Management Plan of 5.6 million.
Recent evidence indicates that amphibians are declining globally.
This decline may be one of the most serious conservation problems in the U.S. today because it is occurring in our largest park and wilderness areas where healthy, seemingly well-protected populations have disappeared for no obvious reason. These losses are important both because of the reduction in biodiversity and because amphibians are sensitive biological indicators of the health of the environment. WERC research with state and federal partners is designed to evaluate the status of amphibians in California, identify potential causes of decline, investigate selected factors for their role in declining amphibians, and conduct experimental reintroductions of selected species. The current prescribed burning program in the Sierra Nevada national parks is based on sound research conducted over the past two decades. Better information is needed to determine whether specific areas need to burn, and if so, how frequently.