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Egret Atlas

Annotated Atlas and Implications for the Conservation of Heron and Egret Nesting Colonies in the San Francisco Bay Area

The Heron and Egret Atlas Project is the result of ACR's continuing commitment to the protection of nesting herons and egrets in our region. This commitment began in 1962, when ACR was established to protect an important heronry on Bolinas Lagoon. In 1967, we began our ongoing study of nesting herons and egrets at the Bolinas Lagoon heronry, and in 1990 we expanded our scientific efforts to study the health of regional heron and egret populations.

The atlas covers an area of nearly 14,000 square kilometers, extending from the outer Pacific Coast to the Central Valley of California in the north and the Santa Clara Valley and interior East Bay subregions in the south, including most of Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Solano, Contra Costa, and San Francisco, Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties. The work evaluates the regional status, trends, distribution, and reproductive performance of herons and egrets, as well as habitat values and conservation concerns. The Atlas includes individual accounts of all known heronries in the region (over 150 sites) based on field studies conducted by Audubon Canyon Ranch and the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory over the last 15-37 years (you can also view the heronries in Google Earth). Numerous photographs by Philip Loring Greene illustrate the report.

All the Atlas files are hi-res pdfs and will require Acrobat Reader.

Download the Atlas by section:

  1. Contents and Acknowledgements (568Kb)
  2. Regional Analysis (1Mb)
  3. Colony site accounts Introduction (5.1Mb)
  4. Russian River Laguna de SR (4.1Mb)
  5. Northern Napa County (2.8Mb)
  6. Outer Pacific Coast (4.8Mb)
  7. San Pablo Bay (6.7Mb)
  8. Suisun Bay (5.5Mb)
  9. Central SF Bay (2.7Mb)
  10. Interior East Bay (2.2Mb)
  11. South S F Bay (5.4Mb)
  12. Santa Clara Valley (3.5Mb)

Or download the entire Atlas in one file:

To purchase a hard copy of the Heron and Egret Atlas, visit Amazon.com. 

To request a CD of the Atlas by mail, contact CGRC@egret.org.

To request GIS data (heronry locations and recommended buffer zones), contact CGRC@egret.org.