Project Description
Masked bobwhite (Colinus virginianus ridgewayi) is one of the most endangered birds in North America. With fewer than 100 birds estimated in the wild on Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge and a suspected population of 300 birds in Mexico, this species is at its lowest numbers in decades. Prolonged drought conditions accompanied by continued grazing of its desert grassland habitat have made this species vulnerable to extinction in the heart of its range in Mexico. A Mexican biologists will be hired to survey/monitor known populations of the endangered Masked Bobwhite and to investigable historical and rumored bobwhite locations to verify their existence in northern Sonora, Mexico. Project outcomes will include a report and database of numbers and locations of birds surveyed, locations of new populations discovered or verified, and an assessment of the potential for habitat enhancement and conservation. We will also locate areas of appropriate habitat to which birds could be translocated.