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v I (Fernald 1989). Much of the remaining parcels of scrub are fragmented and in various states of degradation due primarily to widespread fire suppression. The City of Sebastian experienced rapid human population growth during the 1980's (Fernald 1989; Fernald et a/. 1992). Reflecting the increase in the human population has been a precipitous expansion of commercial retail businesses and large residential communities. From 1991 through 1998 individual family lots throughout the Sebastian Highlands residential subdivision continued to be cleared for house construction while the remaining patches of xeric oak scrub and scrubby pine flatwoods continued to grow taller and denser in the absence of wildfire or prescribed habitat management. All of these changes in the landscape have reduced the spatial extent of suitable scrub habitat in the Sebastian Highlands, precipitated a deterioration in habitat quality, exponentially increased habitat barriers and presented myriad potentially fatal scrub -jay encounters with roadway traffic, domestic pets, and toxic pollutants. As demonstrated by the documented decline in the HCP study population, each of these human -induced changes has a negative influence on the demographic success of Florida scrub -jays. Demographic studies of the Florida scrub -jay populations in Indian River County began in 1988 (Toland 1991, 1993, 1996, unpubl. data). The Indian River County scrub -jay core population is concentrated within the boundaries of the City of Sebastian and adjoining scrub properties. Two subpopulations, as described in Section 2.2 above, have persisted in Sebastian during this long-term study (Toland unpubl. data). These subpopulations are separated by less than 3 miles (4.8111) of predominantly built -out residential neighborhoods. As discussed above, the study population is part of the South Brevard County/North Indian River County metapopulation. This metapopulation, which extends from Winter Beach in Indian River County north to Malabar in Brevard County (Fitzpatrick et at. 1994a; Breininger and Toland unpubl. data), is composed of several subpopulations that are within the normal maximum Florida scrub -jay dispersal distance (Stith et al. 1996) of one another. A scrub -jay subpopulation of at least a dozen pairs exists on the St. Sebastian River State Buffer Reserve ISM and extends over the Indian River -Brevard County Line to provide a linkage between the South Brevard and the Sebastian HCP study population (Breininger and Oddy 1998). Data collected during the 1993 Statewide Census (Fitzpatrick et at. 1994b), in conjunction with recent studies (Toland 1996; Breininger and Oddy 1998), provided the basis to rank this Florida scrub -jay metapopulation as the fourth largest in Florida and the most important metapopulation for species recovery along the Florida's Atlantic Coast (Breininger and Oddy 1998). A total of 240 individual scrub -jays were colorbanded to support demographic studies conducted by Toland (1991, 1993, 1996, unpubl. data) within the W. incorporated limits of the City of Sebastian. This colorbanding facilitated the identification of 35 territories between 1989 and 1991 (Toland unpubl. data). Data relating to nest site selection, nesting success, survival, helper influence, dispersal, 0 36