Type: report

Article abstract: As part of a continuing effort to better understand and enhance wildlife movement within San Diego County, the U.S. Geological Survey?San Diego Field Station (USGS), in cooperation with the San Diego Management and Monitoring Program (SDMMP) and the San Diego Association of Governments (SanDAG), has been evaluating wildlife linkages between core conserved areas within San Diego County, California, USA. The SDMMP identified 16 linkages connecting core conserved lands in the document “Connectivity Monitoring Strategic Plan for the San Diego Preserve System?2011” (SDMMP, 2011) which were based on an original assessment made by Ogden (1996). Considerable construction and urbanization have occurred subsequent to the original identification of these linkage areas, along with considerable build out of the reserve system. These changes within the conservation landscape across San Diego County warranted a reevaluation of the potential wildlife linkages within the region. In coordination with the SDMMP, USGS evaluated each of the 16 linkages with a multi?step process (Rochester and Fisher, 2013 and 2014). Geographic information system (GIS) and imagery tools were used to identify points within each linkage where wildlife potentially may move between the core conserved lands. This included identifying landscape factors available as spatial data as well as taking behavioral responses to the environment into account to hypothesize the likelihood that focal wildlife taxa would be able to move from one core area to the next. Recommendations were made as to potential management actions that might increase the success of wildlife movement or prevent or discourage wildlife from entering roadways. The next phase of this evaluation addressed herein was to further develop and test efficient and effective monitoring techniques and to test a linkage hypothesized to be functional.