Can San Francisco Parks Support the Reintroduction of California Quail?

California quail family in the Presidio of San Francisco before they became locally extinct.

Presidio Trust

November 2021 - It’s ironic: the official bird of San Francisco and the State of California, the native California quail, is locally extinct within the city of San Francisco. Land managers have mused about reintroducing the iconic species. But what would it take?

To seriously consider reintroduction, agencies needed to know which factors support healthy quail populations, and whether they exist in city parks. So researchers at the San Francisco Estuary Institute and the Presidio Trust turned to community science records from eBird, where anyone can log observations of birds spotted in urban parks across the state. Using mathematical modeling of quail occupancy, colonization, and extinction, they identified several features that parks with continued quail presence have in common.

Larger parks that are connected to other undeveloped areas and contain less pavement seem to be most suitable for quail. This makes sense, as quail are not good flyers and likely need corridors of natural habitat to move to new areas.

But a more surprising factor also came up: active coyote populations. One might assume that carnivorous coyotes would make a habitat less likely to support quail. But in fact, researchers found that that parks with coyotes had a 73% higher likelihood of quail presence than similar parks without coyotes. Researchers hypothesize that coyotes may keep populations of smaller urban predators, like rats, raccoons, and skunks (that could pose far greater threats to ground-nesting quail eggs and chicks), in check.

This research offers solid evidence that large urban parks, such as Golden Gate Park and the Presidio, would be big enough to support California quail so long as they offer abundant unpaved areas, plenty of shrubby vegetation for shelter, and predator populations are kept in check. Thanks to the Presidio Trust's continued investment in habitat restoration and the return of coyotes to the area, conditions in San Francisco’s Presidio are now better suited for supporting quail than they were previously.

But this is still just the first phase of bringing California quail back to SF parks: agencies will still have to crunch the numbers in order to develop a more specific action plan. We know quail cannot return on their own: park staff would have to physically relocate them. But how many releases per year over how many years will it take to jumpstart a population? Can corridors connecting the Presidio to other suitable city parks be enhanced or created? Will these efforts make sense practically?

Ultimately, this idea will need strong support from the public to succeed. The value of bringing an iconic native species back to an urban park is hard to quantify. What would it be worth to live alongside these birds as they raise families, forage for food, and live their lives in the city we call home?

Further Reading

• Read the full publication:
  • Iknayan, K. J., Wheeler, M. M., Safran, S. M., Young, J. S., & Spotswood, E. N. (2021). What makes urban parks good for California quail? Evaluating park suitability, species persistence, and the potential for reintroduction into a large urban national park. Journal of Applied Ecology
• Presidio Trust:
• Press Release: Can San Francisco’s Official Bird be Brought Back to the City? Newly published research sheds light on the future of the California quail
• Active Projects
• San Francisco Estuary Institute
• eBird - Discover a new world of birding
  

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