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• Saving the Everglades
• New: Blair Audubon Center (Florida)
• Creating Wildlife Habitat on Farms (California)
• Great Backyard Bird Count
• Profile: Gary Pearson (North Dakota)
• Spotlight: Dave Miller (New York)
• Calendar
• Briefs

Restoration Ecology

Sowing New Wildlife Habitat,
Seed by Seed

Audubon's innovative conservation program is a big hit with California farmers and ranchers.

By Jane Braxton Little

©John Anderson

Jeanne Wirka and Judy Boshoven are on their hands and knees, pawing through yellowed stalks of dried oats strewn across a hillside west of the Sacramento River in California. Wirka sinks her fingers into the bare dirt, plucks out a dark-green stem, and holds it out to Boshoven with a triumphant grin. "Purple needlegrass," she says. "It's coming back." Some sheep grazing nearby sidle closer and stare at the pin-size seedling. It could be their future.

©John Anderson

Wirka, Boshoven, and this slip of a native species are part of an ambitious project to restore the watershed of Union School Slough, a seasonal creek that drains the slopes of Edgar Peak in western Yolo County, near Davis. Audubon-California, in partnership with seven local ranchers and several government agencies, is working on 30 square miles of private land to control weeds, reduce soil erosion, and revegetate the edges of farms and rangelands.

Inspired by John Anderson, a Yolo County farmer and a National Audubon Society board member who grows native plants for seed, Audubon-California teamed up with the Yolo County Resource Conservation District, a farmers' information and technical support network, to win a $636,000 grant from CalFed, a state and federal effort to resolve water conflicts. The partners hired Wirka as the restoration ecologist and Boshoven as the watershed coordinator. Their goal is to create habitat for raptors, waterbirds, and other wildlife in the midst of the row crops and pastures that blanket the rolling hills. If they can reestablish perennial native grasses as forage for livestock, it will have a profound effect on the entire watershed, which feeds the Sacramento River.

In 18 months Audubon and its partners have built fences to exclude cattle from streams, dug ponds to trap sediment and filter runoff from fields, and planted native shrubs and trees along sloughs and creeks. "This is conservation one square meter at a time," says Dan Taylor, executive director of Audubon-California.

©John Anderson

The project grew out of Audubon's goal of improving wildlife habitat in California's Central Valley. Private ranches that produce beef, wool, vegetables, fruits, and grains dominate the vast area, which lies between the Sierra Nevada and the Coastal Range.

A decade ago many environmentalists believed agriculture was the enemy. But water--and the ongoing battle over who gets how much of the state's limited supply--has changed attitudes on both sides of the fence. When cities and environmentalists began joining forces against agriculture, farmers realized they needed to build some bridges. "And we learned that to do habitat restoration in California, we needed farmers," Taylor says.

Wirka and Boshoven have spent much of the past two years bouncing over rutted roads to meet with landowners on stream banks, in pastures knee-deep in invasive yellow star-thistle, in farmhouse kitchens, and in community centers. Many ranchers are interested in new management techniques that benefit the environment, but often they don't have the time or money to implement them. Wirka and Boshoven offer ideas, as well as technical and financial assistance. The landowners themselves make the decisions.

It's a painstaking process; determining where to locate fences on one ranch took months. Convincing a sheep rancher to burn her 170-acre pasture and reseed it with native grasses was a risk that had even Wirka and Boshoven holding their breath. No one was sure if the effort would produce enough forage for the sheep. But within months, seven native perennial grasses began flourishing, including purple needlegrass, blue wild rye, and California onion grass. "Building relationships is as important as building habitat," says Boshoven. "Everything we do is collaborative." Their patience and persistence have earned Boshoven and Wirka the ranchers' trust and respect. "Neither of them will take no for an answer," says Scott Stone, co-owner of the 7,400-acre Yolo Land and Cattle Company ranch and a participant in the program. "If there's a way to get something done, they're going to find it and get it done."

©Jeanne Wirka

Stone is digging decades of silt out of a pond on his family ranch. He envisions a haven for songbirds, wood ducks, mallards, and deer. Among the century-old valley oaks above the muddy pit, Stone is installing a fence to keep his cattle out. To water his herd, Stone is replacing the pond with troughs filled by solar pumps. "More and more guys are looking over the fence this way," he says. "If this works, it could bring the neighbors out."

None of the projects will succeed if they are not cost-effective for the ranchers, says Wirka. "The jury is still out on how best to manage a sheep or cattle graze with environmental benefits." Audubon-California has applied for another CalFed grant, for $1.8 million, to monitor the nutritional values of native plants and to expand the chapter's activities elsewhere in the watershed. Interest in creating ponds and planting riparian areas is so high that Wirka and Boshoven can barely keep up with the demand. The momentum for ranchland restoration has attracted an additional $300,000 for related projects from public and private donors, as more ranchers realize the ecological benefits.

It is these new partnerships and the landowners' willingness to take management risks that will have the greatest impact on the watershed. "A couple of native-grass plugs won't change the world overnight," says Wirka. "People might."