Santa Clara County Parks invited the public to a free educational workshop (and free lunch hosted by the tenant cattlemen!) on Saturday, Oct. 17th, to learn about how to interact safely and share public lands with livestock, and cattle in particular. Interacting with Cattle in Santa Clara County Parks Cattle are grazed on many Santa Clara County (SCC)…
Livestock-Recreation Interactions Elkhorn Slough Coastal Training Program Workshop
“Grazing is not only compatible, it is mandatory.” – Consultant On September 29th, cooperative extension specialists, public land agency managers, consultants, and graziers met in Santa Clara for a workshop I led on compatibility of livestock grazing and recreation on public lands. As livestock grazing on the coast moves increasingly into the public land forum and recreational…
Lunar eclipse beauty
This isn’t a research post for once, just a fun post about the lunar eclipse! I wanted to share some photos we got last night. Some are blurry and the actual full eclipse photos are not as good because it was slightly cloudy and we were still working on the camera settings, but they are…
Clarifying the presence, invasive status, and weedy attributes of bluegum eucalyptus in California
9/25/2015: Status Update – Final revisions have been submitted and the handling editor says it looks pretty ready to go! As soon as it is In Press, I will post the finalized manuscript. I am quite happy with the reorganization after responding to reviewer suggestions, and I can’t wait to share it! 8/20/2015: Status Update – The…
Livestock-recreation interactions on public lands: a complex emerging issue of conservation, economics, and social responsibility
Livestock grazing and recreational pursuits are often concurrent on California rangelands, but on rare occasions conflicts between recreationists and livestock or graziers arise. I am conducting a comprehensive Literature Review (Part One) regarding issues surrounding simultaneous livestock grazing and recreation on public lands. To investigate region-specific issues regarding livestock-recreation issues on coastal California public lands, I am also conducting…
Artisans of the Grasslands – Seriously discounted conference rate through September 8th!
Join me October 2-4 in San Francisco at the Artisans of the Grassland conference at a discounted rate ($250 off!!!), now through September 8th (as of right now, less than 6 days left)! See more about this amazing conference here: Artisans of the Grasslands 2015 Conference And get your $250 discount (bringing the price down…
Raptor Surveys and more!
We continued to survey raptors at the four locations we visited previously on three other occasions, and this time we even got an owl and some fun pictures of other (passerine and water birds, and non-avian) species. Click on any of the photos below to enlarge them and see more detail – Enjoy! All photos by Sara Remmes or myself (Kristina Wolf):
Cal-Pac SRM Range Camp!
Beginning Father’s Day every June, the California-Pacific section of the Society for Range Management (Cal-Pac SRM) puts on a 5-day range camp for high school students (see Range Camp for registration information, and Terilyn talks about her Range Camp experience) to teach them about many aspects of natural resource management on rangelands at Elkus Ranch in Half Moon Bay. I…
Ecosphere paper is out!!
Exciting news today that our Ecosphere paper is out! Burning reveals cryptic plant diversity and promotes coexistence in a California prairie restoration experiment Citation: Young, D. J. N., L. M. Porensky, K. M. Wolf, S. E. Fick, and T. P. Young. 2015. Burning reveals cryptic plant diversity and promotes coexistence in a California prairie restoration experiment. Ecosphere 6(5):81….
Restoration Practicum with Truman Young
I started TA’ing my first class at UC Davis this quarter for Truman Young’s Restoration Practicum (PLS 164), and I am having a great time learning about restoration in a variety of contexts outside of grasslands! I did have to come up with the field trips on my own, so I suppose it is up…
Summer watering and fire to control weeds in restored grasslands
Today I had the opportunity to present at the SER-Cal Conference (Society for Ecological Restoration – California) some of my research crossing summer watering/grass flushing with burning to control annual grass cover in restored perennial grasslands in the Central Valley of California. Here you can find the abstract (below), and a PDF version of the presentation…
U.C. Davis’ Restoration Practicum Course at Hedgerow Farms in The Davis Enterprise!
Truman Young leads PLS 164, the Restoration Practicum course at U.C. Davis, every quarter for students interested in learning more about the ins and outs of restoration. It gives them a chance to tour local restoration sites and contribute (get their hands dirty) to the work being done to conserve California’s native flora and fauna. As the…