Avian Study Shows Success of Urban River Ecosystem Restoration
Lee Marlowe1
1Sustainable Landscape Ecologist, San Antonio River Authority; lmarlowe@sara-tx.org, 210-302-3624
The Mission Reach Ecosystem Restoration Project is designed to provide beneficial ecological functions along eight miles of the San Antonio River just downstream of the city’s urban core, and it is one of the nation’s largest urban ecosystem restoration projects. Construction was completed in 2013; however, it will take decades for some of the restoration goals to be achieved. Though it is still young in its development as a riparian woodland ecosystem, monitoring data is already demonstrating success for a diversity of wildlife as a result of the mosaic of habitat types that have developed through active restoration and adaptive management activities. The San Antonio River Authority began a multi-year avian study within the Mission Reach during 2015 to document avian species and support trend estimation over time. The study consists of a combination of fixed-point count and incidental avian surveys. To date, a variety of notable avian records and identification of species indicative of the project’s success have been documented by the study. An overview of the project and avian study will be presented, as well as the latest findings and uses of the data.