HighLighted Projects
Land Trust of Santa Cruz County
In 2009 we were asked to provide monitoring and supervision of grazing management at Glenwood Open Space Preserve in Scotts Valley, California for the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County. As part of this project we have provided quantitative, qualitative, and photo monitoring of RDM and herbaceous height by
sampling and zone mapping of special habitats and all grazed lands.
The work expanded to advising about grazing-related infrastructure development, erosion, and leasing. We successfully met management plan objectives while supervising the grazing lease by aiding with decisions about rotations and deferals.
To this day, this preserve has the best remaining population of Ohlone Tiger Beetle and quality habitat for several other listed species and has become the standard management practice for beetle habitats.
Contra Costa Water District
We developed a grazing management plan and grazing lease terms for the water district when they were acquiring about 10,000 acres of grazed grassland habitat across San Joaquin, Alameda, and Contra Costa Counties as mitigation for reservoir expansion. We focused on several listed species on these lands including the San Joaquin Kit Fox, California Tiger Salamander, and California Red Legged Frog.
We subsequently provided rangeland monitoring and helped the District and lessees interpret the monitoring results within the context of an historic drought. We also recommended where to put watering troughs and fences based on
where ranchers were having the hardest time meeting specific conservation objectives.
We helped all parties identify temporary solutions while they worked towards permanent ones.