APPENDIX D POPULATION VIABILITY ANALYSIS FOR PACIFIC COAST WESTERN SNOWY PLOVERS Nadav Nur Gary W. Page Lynne E. Stenzel Point Reyes Bird Observatory 4990 Shoreline Highway Stinson Beach, CA 94970 March 1999 e-mail:
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Acknowledgments We thank Mark Stern, Carole Hallett, and Abby Powell for providing and summarizing data used for parameter estimation in the population viability analysis. We thank all the members of the Western Snowy Plover Recovery Team Technical Subcommittee, as well as numerous outside reviewers, for helpful comments and discussion on earlier drafts of the population viability analysis. Introduction In 1993 the Pacific coast population of the western snowy plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) (western snowy plover) was designated as threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (16 USC 1531 et seq.). To aid D-1 the Western Snowy Plover Recovery Team in developing recovery criteria, the authors developed this population viability analysis for the Pacific coast population of the western snowy plovers. Population viability analysis is used increasingly as a tool for developing conservation, management or restoration strategies for threatened, endangered, or potentially threatened species. The method is reviewed by Boyce (1992), Burgman et al. (1993), Beissinger and Westphal (1998) and Nur and Sydeman (1999). Examples of its use include Haig et al. (1993), Maguire et al. (1995), Akçakaya et al. (1995), and Bustamante (1996). In particular, population viability analyses have been developed for the congener piping plover Charadrius melodus (Great Plains population: Ryan et al. 1993; Atlantic coast population: Melvin and Gibbs 1996).