Endangered Species in California
Introducing endangered animals including California Condor, Salt-Marsh Harvest Mouse and Arroyo Toad
Introduction
Our StoryMap presents an insightful journey into the lives and challenges of the California Condor, Salt-Marsh Harvest Mouse, and Arroyo Toad, all endangered species in California. We exhibit their habitat distribution and current population status through a series of detailed maps. The StoryMap not only explores the causes behind their endangerment, such as habitat loss and climate change but also proposes some possible actions to prevent endangered. This interactive tool serves as an educational resource, aiming to raise awareness and inspire both the public and policymakers to participate in conserving these vital species.

Point Edith Wildlife Area
Salt-Marsh Harvest mice are found in the Point Edith Wildlife Area, which is part of their critical habitat. This area provides the specific conditions needed for their survival, including high marshes with pickleweed, which is a key component of their habitat.

San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge
In the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge, the salt-marsh harvest mice inhabit the high tidal marshes, which provide a crucial habitat for their survival. These areas are characterized by dense vegetation, primarily pickleweed, which is essential for their diet and shelter.

San Bernardino Mountains, San Bernardino County
Nestled within the diverse and expansive landscapes of San Bernardino County lies the San Bernardino Mountains, a region of ecological significance and natural beauty. This mountainous area, characterized by its rugged terrain, lush forests, and meandering streams, forms an ideal habitat for a variety of wildlife, including the Arroyo Toad (Anaxyrus californicus).

San Diego County
San Diego County, renowned for its varied landscapes and rich biodiversity, is a mosaic of coastal areas, inland valleys, mountains, and desert regions. Particularly noteworthy are its riparian habitats – areas adjacent to streams and rivers, which makes it a vital area for wildlife, including the endangered Arroyo Toad (Anaxyrus californicus).

Blue Ridge National Wildlife Refuge
Blue Ridge National Wildlife Refuge is located in the Sierra Nevada, in Tulare County, California. The Blue Ridge National Wildlife Refuge is part of the cooperatively-managed Blue Ridge Wildlife Habitat Area, an 11,000-acre (45 km2) area set aside as an important roosting area located close to historic nesting and foraging habitat for the California condor.

Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge
The Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge is located in the foothills of the southwestern San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. The refuge is one of four units of the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex for California condors.

Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge
Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge is located in the Topatopa Mountains of Ventura County, in southern California. It is bordered by the Los Padres National Forest and the Sespe Condor Sanctuary to the north.
California Condor
The California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is the largest land bird in North America. These majestic creatures historically ranged from California to Florida and Western Canada to Northern Mexico. By the mid-20th century, condor populations had dropped dramatically, and by 1967 the California condor was listed as endangered by the federal government. In 1982, only 23 condors survived worldwide. By 1987, all remaining wild condors were placed into a captive breeding program in an effort to save the species from extinction.
Weight
Adult condors stand at 3 to 3.5 feet and weigh 17 to 25 pounds. Males are generally slightly larger than females.
Color & Pattern
Males and females are similar in appearance. Adult condors have a mostly bald head and neck. The skin of the head and neck is colored in shades of pink, red, orange, yellow, and light blue, and becomes more intensely pinkish orange during times of excitement and during the breeding season. Feathers are mostly black except for white underwing linings. Juvenile birds have dusky black feathered heads and bodies with limited white underwing linings. At hatch, chicks have light pink and orange skin and are covered in off-white down which is quickly replaced by gray down.
Size & Shape
California condors have a wingspan of about 9.5 feet. Unlike birds of prey, condors do not have sharp talons capable of killing or grasping objects.
The habitat range
- California
- Nevada
- Arizona
- Utah
- Baja California in Mexico
Before 2010 vs. After 2010
- This sliding map is sourced from eBirds, and these data points are condors' appearance locations recorded by citizen scientists.
- The left sliding map is the dataset recorded before 2010.
- The right sliding map is the dataset recorded after 2010.
- By comparison, even though the amount of recording is larger than that before 2010, the range of the condor's habitat is still shrinking, where they are mostly located in natural refuges.
Thread 1: Lead Exposure
Lead poisoning presents a major risk to condors currently. Lead ammunition, when discharged from a gun and striking an animal, tends to fragment into numerous small pieces that disperse throughout the body. Condors and other scavengers, while feeding on these carcasses, unintentionally consume these lead particles. Accumulation of sufficient lead in their system can lead to poisoning and potentially fatal consequences for these birds.
Thread 2: Microtrash
Microtrash ingestion is a major cause of mortality in condor chicks. In their initial six months, they rely solely on food provided by their parents, including regurgitated meat and bone chips for calcium. Unfortunately, adult condors occasionally mistake small trash items like bottle caps for bone chips and feed them to their chicks, leading to fatal consequences if consumed in large amounts.
California Condor Recovery Program
In 1967, the California condor was declared endangered, leading to the establishment of the California Condor Recovery Program by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1979. The program aimed to upgrade the condor's status from Endangered to Threatened by creating two independent, self-sustaining wild populations with 150 birds each, and maintaining a third captive population. Originally widespread across North America, condor numbers had plummeted by the mid-20th century, leaving only 22 in the wild by 1982. This dire situation prompted the capture of all remaining wild condors for a captive breeding program. Thanks to concerted efforts by various partners, the wild condor population has since surpassed 300, with significant milestones achieved in 2004 and 2008, including the first wild chick hatching and more condors flying free than in captivity for the first time since the program's inception.
Salt-Marsh Harvest Mouse
The tiny little creature living among the bushes in San Francisco
Introduction
The salt-marsh harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys raviventris; SMHM) is endemic to the San Francisco Bay Estuary, and is found generally only in the marshes surrounding the Bay. The SMHM is small, about 10 grams, and probably lives less than a year in the wild, on average. The species was listed as federally and state endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in the early 1970’s due to habitat loss, as over 90% of the historic marshes in the San Francisco Estuary have been lost or altered.
Diet
Salt-marsh harvest mice are known to eat leaves, seeds and stems of a variety of plant species and are considered to prefer pickleweed and salt grass, as was noted in the 2013 recovery plan. In 2019, researchers recorded salt marsh harvest mice in Suisun Marsh eating insects, including beetles and amphipods, as well as leaves, seeds and stems from a variety of both native and non-native plant species. This suggests a more flexible diet than previously thought. The northern subspecies can drink sea water, but prefers fresh water. The southern subspecies can't live completely on sea water, but it prefers moderately salty water over fresh. In general, they adapt to the nearby environment and rely heavily on the local food resources.
Habitats
For decades, researchers believed that the salt-marsh harvest mouse (SMHM) was almost completely dependent on tidal marshes dominated by pickleweed. Over time, they found SMHM in other habitat types, such as diked and/or managed marshes, and marshes dominated by plants other than pickleweed. Researchers also recorded SMHM moving into adjacent upland habitats during high tide events. Over the years, captures of SMHM have been correlated with a variety of different plant cover types, heights, and structures, but a taller, complex mix of plants with abundant pickleweed and fat hen seems to be highly preferred by the SMHM. Today, it is understood that the habitat use of SMHM is more flexible than biologists believed in the past.
Predicted Habitats in 2016
The SMHM has historically been most threatened by habitat loss. The vast majority of the tidal marshes that existed in the San Francisco Estuary and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have been filled, diked, or otherwise modified or destroyed. Marshes that remain are smaller, fragmented, and isolated. These degraded marshes support smaller populations of SMHM that have little to no genetic connectivity, which is a large threat to the continuity of the population. Left is the raster map of salt-marsh harvest mouse predicted habitats based on the data of 2016.
Recovery
The SMHM has been addressed in two separate USFWS federal recovery plans, the California Clapper Rail Recovery Plan and the Recovery Plan for Tidal Marsh Ecosystems of Northern and Central California. These plans outline threats to the species, actions that should be taken to help the species rebound, and criteria that must be met for the species to be down-listed from Endangered to Threatened, or de-listed completely. The original recovery plan recommended protecting large existing marshes, restoring diked marshes to tidal action, restoring upland transition zones, performing research on human activities that could impact habitat, performing research on marsh accretion and erosion dynamics, and to perform habitat management.
Keep improving...
Our updated plan to help recover the ecosystem of these species suggests several key actions: safeguarding, reviving, and overseeing the current tidal wetlands; keeping a close watch on the SMHM across their entire living area; carrying out necessary studies like checking population trends and finding the best ways to fix and take care of their habitats. It also emphasizes better teamwork and communication among scientists and those in charge of land and wildlife areas, along with making more effort to inform and involve the public. We still have a long way to go...
Arroyo Toad
The arroyo toad (Anaxyrus californicus) is a species of true toads in the family Bufonidae, endemic to California, U.S. and Baja California state, Mexico. It is currently classified as an Endangered species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species because of habitat destruction.The arroyo toad is at the intersection of ecological significance and conservation concern.
Adult vs. Juvenile
The male toad will choose a spot near a river or water bank where he will make mating calls to attract a female toad. They mate in an amplexus position, and the female toad returns to the location to lay her eggs by the water. The eggs are laid in a two-row formation with an average of 4,700 eggs.
Arroyo toads have a beautiful call compared to other Anurans. Their call is known for being a long, fast, musical trill that typically lasts about 10 seconds. Although their sound is unique compared to other Anurans, some insect and other toads make similar sounds such as the cicada (Cicada spp.) and the redspotted toad (Bufo punctatus). To the untrained ear, such calls may sound identical, but the essential difference lies in the pitches of the calls, helping experts distinguish singing arroyo toads from other species.
Since the arroyo toad can be found along the coast of central California to Baja California, Mexico, toad populations occupy different locations, often constrained by elevation. In central California, toads can be found in foothill canyons and intermountain valleys where low-elevation hills reside as well as second to fifth order low-gradient streams. In southern California and Baja California, toads can be found in coastal planes and some deserts with rivers and streams in proximity.
Before 2000 vs. After 2000
The total estimated breeding population is less than 3,000 individuals. In 1994 when the species was listed, only six of the 22 extant populations south of Ventura were known to contain more than a dozen adults. It has been extirpated from an estimated 75% of its former range in the U.S.
The most important threats to the arroyo toad stem from human activities. These activities include encroachment by agriculture, construction of roads, off-road vehicle use, grazing by livestock and mining. All can result in substantial habitat destruction and/or alteration of river hydrology. Other smaller threats are due to introduced non−native predators such as bullfrogs and predatory fish, non−native invasive plants, drought, wildfire and wildfire suppression, unseasonal water releases from dams, and light and noise pollution from adjacent developments.
The arroyo toad has been the subject of litigation related to its conservation status. Conservation initiatives are in place to mitigate the decline of the arroyo toad. In 2000, developer Rancher Viejo, which wished to build on a site that the toads used as a habitat, sued the Secretary of the Interior over whether the department was constitutionally authorized to apply the Endangered Species Act to prevent the development in order to protect a species that never crossed state lines. The developer's challenge to the law failed, but in his dissent to the ruling then-Judge and later-Chief Justice John Roberts famously expressed his puzzlement that "regulating the taking of a hapless toad that, for reasons of his own, lives its entire life in California constitutes regulating ' commerce...among the several states '."
On March 27, 2014, the Department of Fish and Wildlife recommended the arroyo toad's status be downgraded from Endangered to Threatened. The agency stated that the arroyo toad still faces "significant threats", in particular operation of dams and water diversions, urban development, introduced predator species, and drought. However, they felt that conditions had improved, saying, "The overall magnitude of threats impacting the arroyo toad has decreased since the time of listing, due in part to implementation of conservation and management actions."
Summary
What should we learn?
In conclusion, our project is more than just a collection of maps and data; it's a call to action and a beacon of hope for the California Condor, Salt-Marsh Harvest Mouse, and Arroyo Toad. This project has revealed the significant impact of human activities on their habitats, underscoring the urgent need for establishing protected areas as a crucial conservation measure. By bringing their stories to light, we aim to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation for these endangered species and their habitats. We believe that through informed awareness and collective efforts, including the establishment of reserves, we can make a significant impact in preserving these precious creatures and the natural beauty of California. Together, let's embrace the responsibility of safeguarding our environment and the diverse life it sustains.