Bruce Bratton

Migrating Butterflies

Monarchs, painted ladies, and tortoise shell butterflies are three kinds of butterflies that migrate to and from the Monterey Bay area. Each has its own story.

Butterfly Life History, Reviewed

To understand the rest of what I have to tell you, you’ll have to recall some basics about butterflies. The flying creatures you see are just one of the life history stages of these insects. These flying ones are called ‘adults’ because they are the ones that are reproductive. They mate and the females attach eggs to just the right plant where their hatchlings will want to feed. The eggs sit a while before hatching. When they hatch, out comes what is called a larva, or caterpillar. The caterpillar feeds on certain kinds of plant leaves, gets bigger, and one day finds itself yearning to change. At that miraculous point, the caterpillar morphs into an entirely different-looking thing: a chrysalis. The chrysalis hangs apparently doing nothing, but actually it is using stored food to change into an adult. A chrysalis can move a little. Once the chrysalis has developed it morphs once again, this time emerging as an adult.

Co-Evolution

Plants and butterfly larvae co-evolve, plant genetic diversity creates new generations increasingly well-guarded against caterpillars that eat them. Plants evolve caterpillar toxins, better hairs to clog the mouths or throats of larvae, changed leaf shapes or colors so that they are less recognizable to ovipositing female butterflies, and modifications for food and homes for ants that guard against caterpillars. There are countless other evolutionary strategies to avoid what is called predation by caterpillars. On the other side of the playing field, butterfly species also evolve so that new generations are better adapted to those strategies.

Food Plants

Each of the butterflies I focus on in this essay have co-evolved with plants as outlined above. Monarchs eat milkweed, a highly toxic plant that a few other closely co-evolved species can eat. Painted ladies eat a wide variety of plants with many complex adaptations to herbivory – they are super-eaters! California tortoiseshell butterflies eat Ceanothus, a widespread shrub genus with its own chemistry to ward off herbivores.

Butterfly Maps

Monarch butterflies travel west to the Monterey Bay area in large numbers for the winter to avoid inland frost. Painted ladies travel north as their food dries up in the desert and new food is still edible further north. Tortoiseshell butterflies travel west from high elevations in the Sierra Nevada, also to over winter in our more temperate clime. Those are the simple overviews, but the details are much more complex.

Monarch Life History

In Spring through Fall, four generations of monarch butterflies enjoy life across much of the US before returning to their overwintering spots in Mexico or coastal California. That means there are four batches of fattening caterpillars munching away on milkweed, metamorphosing into chrysalises, and emerging again as those beautiful orange and black, big butterflies to move north. That last generation somehow knows that it must move south (or West to CA), where to avoid the frosts that would kill them if they didn’t leave their succulent patches of milkweed.

Many monarch butterflies have been traveling to high elevation northern Mexico where the climate has been just right for their winter respite. People have been harvesting wood from those forests, reducing habitat. Also, climate change is creating hotter, drier conditions, which might be negatively impacting the quality of that habitat. The only other place that monarch butterflies know to go is coastal California.

On California’s coast, there have been approximately 400 historic overwintering locations from Mendocino County to San Diego County. Only a small subset of these overwintering spots are on land managed by conservation organizations. Most people around here know to check out Natural Bridges State Beach, but there are other spots, as well. The UCSC Arboretum’s Eucalyptus Grove has been home to large numbers of overwintering monarch butterflies in the past. And, overwintering sites #3009 and #3010 are in groves of eucalyptus near Davenport on BLM’s Cotoni Coast Dairies property.

Painted Lady Life History

Painted lady butterflies have a slightly more complex life history and some populations travel much farther than monarch butterflies. The African population flies back and forth 9,000 miles! That’s twice the monarch butterfly migration length.

One late spring, I watched as thousands of painted ladies flew by me, moving south to north in the high elevations of Big Sur’s wildlands. They had originated in the deserts near California’s border with Mexico and were headed as far as they could fly, with an ability to fly most of the length of California in about a week. When one uses up their body fat, which they made as caterpillars, they stop, mate, and lay eggs. The next generation hatches, caterpillars eat as much as they can, then they metamorphose through to chrysalis and adults, which then fly, fly, fly, towards the Pacific Northwest. Come August, wherever an adult painted lady might be, they turn to fly south again. You can see painted lady butterflies all summer long here, but they are more numerous in the Spring when you, if you are lucky and it’s a good year for this species, you can spy hundreds moving north.

California Tortoiseshell Life History

8 years after the Lockheed Fire, California lilac was head-high and abundant in the footprint of that fire. As I led a University field trip in late June, the students were tittering and I couldn’t get their attention. They gleefully pointed out that the shrubs around me were twitching and dancing. I was astonished to see the frantically wiggling chrysalises of hundreds of California tortoiseshell butterflies shaking denuded Ceanothus shrubs all around us. Above the shrubs, clouds of newly emerged California tortoiseshell butterflies were sailing about. Soon, they would be taking flight to the mid-elevation Sierra Nevada to lay eggs on a different species of Ceanothus; they’d run out of tasty leaves here on the coast! After that generation similarly denuded those patches of Ceanothus and made that same wiggle-frenzy of excited chrysalises, those adults fly to the highest elevations in the Sierra Nevada to eat yet a different species of Ceanothus. Running out of Ceanothus and elevation, it is that generation that flies all the way back to Monterey Bay to lay eggs on our Ceanothus and start the cycle again.

Originally published by Bruce Bratton in his famous BrattonOnline.com blog

Abandon Hope

Pema Chodron suggests we put the statement “Abandon Hope” on our refrigerator doors as a reminder. She shares the teaching that hope and fear are two sides of the same coin and reflect feelings that we lack something essential. I sense that those of us who care about the Monterey Bay’s environment are unnecessarily burdened by a philosophy of resource limitation, of lacking what we need.

Presidential Hope

You may recall that “HOPE” was the meme used in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. When Sarah Palin ridiculed that slogan with ‘How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?’ it turned my stomach. More than a decade later, it is ironic that the political left wing uses similar ridicule for the ‘thoughts and prayers’ refrain used after mass shootings.

Obama once emphasized the ‘reality’ of his ‘Hope’ slogan by saying, “Over the past 2 and a half years, the hope poster starts fading. But I tell you what, you travel around the country and talk to the American people, that spirit’s still there.” According to the wisdom of Chodron, Obama was reinforcing the widespread notion of powerlessness. In dealing with environmental issues locally, I see clearly what Obama meant. The feeling of hope is a terrible affliction around the Monterey Bay.

Thoughts and Prayers

As each new environmental battle unfolds around us, as too few of my community does anything to help, I keep hearing the response: ‘Thoughts and Prayers!’ When UCSC moves forward with bulldozing Santa Cruz’ iconic East Meadow, folks who claim to care for the environment seem to be saying, ‘Thoughts and Prayers!’ As the Bureau of Land Management plows ahead with slipshod management of Santa Cruz County’s only part of the California Coastal Monument, people seem to be saying, ‘Thoughts and Prayers!’ As the Coastal Commission pushes maximum public access on every beach and coastal open space despite dwindling wildlife impacted by poorly managed recreation, the refrain ‘Thoughts and Prayers!’ seems to emanate from so many beatifically smiling, caring people who ‘Love Our Coast!’

Louder Paralysis

Action is louder than words, but what prevents action? The most common response I get from folks who are so full of hope but don’t do anything for our local environmental crises is that they don’t have time. To be sure, the bills need paying and we are all So Very Busy. “How are you doing?” someone asks. The reply so frequently is “Busy!” to the point of being funny (peculiar). When the conversation runs longer and one of the many environmental plights gets discussed, the conversation ends when the ‘hope’ word gets trotted out: “I hope it turns out well!”

Seeding Confusion

Greed lies at the root of all seven deadly sins, and that greed is working well with cultivating confusion across the world, resulting in environmental degradation. Let’s examine how each of the following statements has been used to sow confusion in our community. “UCSC needs to house more of its students!” “Cotoni Coast Dairies should be open to the public!” “Our beaches should be for everyone to enjoy!”

Thoughtful, pro-environmental Monterey Bay citizens want to better understand situations before taking action, even if that action is speaking out, talking to their friends or workmates, or voting for the right candidate. To them, they lack the time…they say that having enough understanding costs time, and they don’t have that time. Time is lacking! Maybe the only thing to do is to hope for the best!

There is Enough Time

We don’t have to know more to be engaged citizens and there is enough time to act now. It takes a fraction of a fraction of a second for your neurons to arrive at your personal most pressing question about environmental conservation in the Monterey Bay area. It takes a similarly miniscule amount of time to place that question on your mental checklist of cherished treasures. With those two in place, you will find the moment to ask that question until you arrive at a well-informed conclusion. Asking the questions, sharing your conclusions: you will not notice the time that it takes to do these. These are the easiest, essential actions that go beyond the empty, lacking things notion of ‘hope.’

Working Together, We Are Successful

The list of accomplishments is long: Lighthouse Field, Gray Whale Ranch, Cotoni Coast Dairies, Upper UCSC Campus, the Glenwood Preserve, Arana Gulch, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, State Parks Ecologist positions, City Parks lands managers, pesticide bans…None of those would have taken place by hope alone. We have resources. Our community is strong and capable. There is no need for hope, but there is a need for action. Local history shows that when we take action, we can do great things. When we don’t take action, priceless environmental resources are lost. Already, there are no more breeding local badgers, burrowing owls, or roadrunners. Santa Cruz kangaroo rat, Santa Cruz tarplant, Ohlone tiger beetle, and Point Reyes Horkelia, are slipping towards extinction (on our watch!).

Start by Asking

Recently, I urged readers to write an email to California Bureau of Land Management’s Director Karen Mouritsen and to cc me for my records. Guess how many notes I got? Let’s see…population of Monterey Bay what- 100,000 (+)? Readership via BrattonOnline, my website, Facebook, and shares…maybe 2,000?

I got four notes! Four. 4. (Loud sigh)

Its not too late, folks. Your very brief to create email would still be timely- see the link above.

But, as usual, I heard praise from many people about my writing. I am compassionate about the root of people’s “hope” – that it seems we lack time, understanding, or focus.

I want to cultivate curiosity and see where that leads. What does this political cartoon make you wonder about? Why not ask? I know enough not to hope; I know that, together, we are making a difference. Thanks Friends of the North Coast!

-this post originally published by Bruce Bratton at his weekly blog BrattonOnline.com – I updated it slightly to account for the FOUR letters I got from my recent call for environmental assistance. (sigh again)

The US Bureau of Land Management- Species Conservationists?

The California division of the Bureau of Land Management suggests that it is concerned about rare species, but what evidence is there for those of us considering their management of Cotoni Coast Dairies? It is crucial that public land managers take care of rare wildlife and plants – doesn’t it seem like public lands are the right place for species conservation? Let’s consider what we’ve seen…

Background

The BLM has some great policies to guide its management of rare species. It has a guidance manual, Manual 6840 “Special Status Species Management,” that says that BLM will manage not only for species on the USA’s list of threatened and endangered species, but also for species that are candidates for listing as well as those which State wildlife agencies consider priorities for conservation. The manual directs each BLM State office to keep a list of State Sensitive Species (both wildlife and plants) and to update those lists every 5 years in collaboration with State wildlife agencies.

BLM California has published the following lists of sensitive plants and wildlife.

California BLM’s Sensitive Species: Problems

Although BLM’s policies are good, somehow their implementation at Cotoni Coast Dairies, designated as one of 5 onshore units of California’s Coastal National Monument, has been faulty. For instance, plant species listed by the State as rare (Rank 1B) are automatically considered sensitive according to BLM policy, but the BLM California sensitive plant list is missing three of the California rare plant Rank 1B species that have been documented at Cotoni Coast Dairies: Choris’ popcornflower, Santa Cruz manzanita, and Monterey pine. In addition, although BLM’s State Sensitive Plant List has Point Reyes Horkelia, it is not noted as occurring under the management of the Central Coast Field Office, which oversees Cotoni Coast Dairies. Moreover, the last time BLM’s sensitive wildlife list was updated was 2009; it is missing many species recognized by California Department of Fish and Wildlife as rare, including some that occur at Cotoni Coast Dairies. Here are the Cotoni Coast Dairies’ wildlife species that would have been included on BLM’s sensitive wildlife list if the BLM California State Director Karen Mouritsen were following her mandated actions under Manual 6840:

*Common name*	*Latin name*	*Rarity Status*

Grasshopper sparrow	Ammodramus savannarum	CA Species of Special Concern (nesting)
Northern harrier	Circus cyaneus	CA Species of Special Concern (nesting)
Olive-sided flycatcher	Contopus cooperi	CA Species of Special Concern (nesting)
American badger	Taxidea taxus	CA Species of Special Concern
San Francisco dusky-footed woodrat	Neotoma fuscipes annectens	CA Species of Special Concern

BLM Central Coast Field Office: Problems

The staff at BLM’s Central Coast Field Office have described themselves as being ‘conservationists.’ If this is so, then they are prevented from carrying out their self-professed ideology by someone higher up in BLM, perhaps at the State BLM level under Director Mouritsen’s oversight. In 2021, Michael Powers is listed as the author of the “Biological Monitoring Plan, Cotoni-Coast Dairies unit of the California Coastal National Monument, Updated December 2021.” It is odd that there is a monitoring plan in absence of the science plan mandated by the 6220 Manual, which provides policy for managing units of National Monuments under BLM’s stewardship. This oddness continues when one more closely peruses Mr. Powers’ monitoring plan.

Section V of the monitoring plan is titled “Special Status Species,” but the section fails to mention the majority of wildlife and plants on California BLM’s sensitive species lists. The only species listed in this section are the California red-legged frog, steelhead trout, and coho salmon – these noted as ‘Federally Listed’ at the top of that section. The section of the monitoring plan fails to list the monarch butterfly, which was published by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a candidate for listing as endangered a year before the monitoring plan, in 2020. According to BLM policy in the 6840 manual, federally published candidate species are to be considered sensitive species with such monitoring plans.

BLM Natural Resource Impacts

Some would suggest that plans are just plans and lists are just lists, but how do these things really matter? Someone in one of the California BLM offices ordered candidate species monarch butterfly habitat to be destroyed at Cotoni Coast Dairies (one day, we’ll know who!). Destroying that habitat makes it more difficult to restore healthy populations of monarch butterflies on Planet Earth. The increasing rarity of monarch butterflies that BLM has created places more burden on other landowners, both public and private to help monarchs not become extinct.

More broadly, someone evidently told BLM’s Mr. Powers not to consider the entirety of California State BLM-listed sensitive species in the monitoring and, presumably, management of Cotoni Coast Dairies. Since BLM State or local officials have not asked for help with budget, there must be some other issue, but political issues don’t seem logical. BLM’s policy states the following reason for analyzing, monitoring, and planning for the conservation of sensitive species: “to promote their conservation and reduce the likelihood and need for future listing under the ESA.” The majority of Americans on either side of the political divide support wildlife conservation. It is in everyone’s interest for species not to qualify for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

Without concerted collaborative effort, it is likely that at least one of the sensitive plants or animals at Cotoni Coast Dairies will face listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the next 30 years. The Point Reyes Horkelia is probably the most likely species, but the Monarch butterfly is also quite likely. The BLM has no plans to monitor those species, so the agency won’t know if its management of Cotoni Coast Dairies is helping or hurting those species.

What You Can Do

Would you please help? Please write State Director Mouritsen and ask her to protect sensitive species at Cotoni Coast Dairies as well as throughout California. You might mention that she should:

Order the Central Coast Field Office to consider BLM California’s sensitive plants and wildlife at Cotoni Coast Dairies as required by BLM’s 6840 Special Status Species Manual.
Publish an updated State BLM sensitive wildlife list in collaboration with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as mandated by the BLM’s 6840 Special Status Species Manual.
Publish an updated State BLM sensitive plant list to include the State ranked 1B plant species documented at Cotoni Coast Dairies, as mandated by the 6840 Manual.
Respect those who care about natural resource protection as much as she respects those clamoring for access for mountain bikes at Cotoni Coast Dairies.
Publish a Science Plan for Cotoni Coast Dairies as required by BLM’s 6220 National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, and Similar Designations (Public) Manual

That could be a short email note….it would be fast to write! It could even be a cut-and-paste of the those bullets. What we need is numbers of notes to show the Director that there are lots of people who care. Here’s her email address: kmourits@blm.gov It would be great if you could cc me, so I have a record of the communications: coastalprairie@aol.com

-this article originally published in Bruce Bratton’s impactful weekly blog BrattonOnline.com

Oaks, Terrestrial Coral Reef Analogues

This past weekend, I had occasion to gaze for hours on end up into oak trees, reminding me of an analogy I’ve thought about where oak trees are like terrestrial coral reefs. When snorkeling around an atoll with patches of coral, I glide over vast sea grass beds, which hide flounder, conch, rays, and serve as habitat for many more species. Ahead, I see a tall, dark shadow looming and slowly coming into view is a coral patch. As I draw near, many species of colorful fish dart in and out of crevices and caves formed by the coral. Far from those tropical waters, I hike through extensive grasslands startling grasshopper and savannah sparrows, snakes, and a resting fawn. As I draw closer to the oak forest that rings the grasslands, I see new species of colorful birds and many butterflies popping out and flying back into the protection of the oak canopies.

The long-lived evergreen oaks of the central coast serve super-important roles supporting wildlife, and their canopy structure lends for spellbinding entertainment.

Towering live oak near Santa Cruz, California – epiphytic mosses and lichens regularly abound

Our California Sister

I want to tell you about an oak-related butterfly that often catches my attention. California sister, Adelpha californica. If you spend much time around one of our live oaks right now, chances are good that you’ll see one of these strikingly beautiful butterflies. They can be very, very energetic fliers with bursts of energy followed by short glides, and lots of sudden turns. They behave more like predacious dragonflies than nectar-loving butterflies. Flying in and out of each hole in an oak canopy, they sometimes dart down the top of each branch, methodically seeming to examine every bit of structure. Why?

I have many hypotheses about this high energy ‘patrolling’ of oaks by California sister butterflies. Are they guarding their eggs or larval babies? It takes more than 60 days for an egg to reach its adult stage, growing from tiny to larger caterpillars along the way. During the caterpillar stage, they are vulnerable to predation or harassment by many things, though apparently neither the young or the adult butterflies are tasty due to concentration of toxic oak-leaf compounds. So, perhaps they are looking for just the right place, and just the right time, to glue one of their eggs to the oak. Back and forth the colorful butterflies go, flitting in and out of shade, deeper into the canopy or out from it in the full sun. Maybe they are thermoregulating through this behavior. I also wonder if they might not be clearing spider webs from their territory, to make it safer for their young to learn to fly after they emerge from chrysalis with their tender young wings and clumsy first flights.

Do the California sister butterflies fly around the trees where they grew up, or do they move around more? Are there generation after generation of the same families in the same trees? Do they guard the flower patches near their trees, to maximize their access to nectar? So many questions…

Other Oak Denizens

While watching the California sister antics, I saw a bright yellow swallowtail butterfly cruise rapidly by. Was it a coincidence that it didn’t slow down or was it wary of the danger of trespassing into California sister territory?

In the heat of the day, a high buzzing noise fills the air around the oak groves; during the morning and evening, there are clicks. Both of those sounds are cicadas. The buzzing noise are male adult cicadas. In the soil beneath the oak leaf duff, unwinged young cicadas are sucking on roots for a living. One day, they emerge as winged adults, shedding a hideous exoskeleton that you can sometimes find laying around. Female cicadas lay eggs in holes they cut into an oak tree’s pencil-thin twig bark.

Occasionally, some say especially at the onset of droughts, oak moths flitter around the canopies of oaks by the hundreds. They look like large, animated confetti. Their larvae drop so much poop in those episodic years that it sounds like it’s raining. They don’t kill the oaks, generally- perhaps they help defoliate the trees to keep them from using too much water…or perhaps they help cycle nutrients with all of their rich poop.

Still More Oak Friends

More than once, I saw dragonflies perching on the outermost tips of oak branches. So many bugs jet in and out of the oak canopy that there are plenty of chances for those dragonflies to grab one up and make a meal of it.

I recently encountered an oak tree that buzzed. Looking into the canopy, I noticed that yellow jacket wasps were animating the entire tree with buzzing movement. The wasps were eating an outbreak of oak pests, or just lapping up sweet insect exudates, from scale or aphids, I couldn’t tell – they were too high up.

Some of the oak associate insects make odd looking structures called “galls.” There are lots of different things that do that, and that previous link is a great place to explore the amazing variation of species. I add a photo of one I found this past weekend here, next to a canyon live oak acorn cup.

Birds in the Mix

Oak trees also provide for many birds. Acorns are important food to California scrub jays, which have been shown to store 7,000 acorns in the soil and subsequently forgetting about some that germinate and grow. Acorn woodpeckers store their acorns in holes in tree trunks. Lots of other birds eat acorns.

The most colorful oak bird is the Townsend’s warbler, which (unlike many other of its warbler relatives) overwinters along the coast in California. It is a real treat to see this yellow-streaked bird darting around an oak canopy in the otherwise drab winter.

As oaks get older, they drop limbs, leaving behind cavities that provide nesting locations for other colorful birds, such as the Western blue bird. Such nesting cavities are a limiting factor for the survival of many bird species.

A rare stand of a special live oak – Shreve oak, Quercus parvula shreveii, near Davenport, California

Help the Oaks

Besides the many species of life that oaks support, oak trees make great shade, are drought tolerant, and grow nice firewood. The entertainment value of having an oak close to your home is well worth it. You can grow an oak tree almost no matter what kind of soil you have near your house. So, why not plant one? Or not…if you are lucky enough to live near oak trees, you can bet that a scrub jay will plant one for you and all you need do is help the sprouted young plant along.

If you pick a nursery oak tree, make sure that it is less than a year old and that the roots aren’t swirling around inside the pot: messed up roots are terribly detrimental. If one of those early roots goes around in a circle inside the pot, the mature root will follow its path, a disadvantage to long-term tree health.

You’ll want to water a new oak regularly through the first summer, but not thereafter. Try to avoid summer water if at all possible past the first year.

Oaks grow faster than you think! Get ready to plant one this fall by scoping out the right spot…

-this post originally published by Bruce Bratton at BrattonOnline.com

Never Cry Wolf? A Situation of Subservience

Whenever I wonder why more people aren’t protesting, I think of debt. We owe, we owe, so off to work we go. The income gap widens with constant reminders of homelessness and sick friends/relatives reminding us of the fragility of our lives and the expenses of medical care. Workplaces warn us that we represent The Corporation, even when we speak out as citizens. It is news and some laugh when a Jan 6^th protester gets fired because of their illegal actions, but the same holds true for lesser, legal protests on the other side of the political spectrum. Most people find they can no longer afford to protest. The wolf is in the house…and no one is saying anything!

Submit, Move

Even if you aren’t protesting, if you are a federal employee, your work is subject to political whims.

I was working with some brilliant grants officers with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) just before the last president was elected from the Republican side of the aisle. These employees had good experience navigating the complex Washington DC bureaucracy to help disperse and manage federal funding for the most competitive proposals. Republicans ordered that their USDA office move from DC to Kansas City, and all of those grants officers left, retiring early or finding other jobs. They couldn’t leave their communities, their homes, or their histories behind.

Similarly, but with Democrats at the helm, someone, for some reason, ordered our regional Bureau of Land Management office to move from Hollister to Marina. This put the main office many more miles distant from most of the land their staff managed and, if a BLM employee wanted to stay with the agency, now they had to move or commute a long distance to work.

You can speculate about why those administrations moved the agency offices. We are lucky to have a US Government Accountability Office report showing that the rationale for the USDA move was ludicrous, and so was clearly politically motivated. We don’t have any such study about the Central Coast BLM office, but I’m guessing that it was similarly politically motivated…but why?

Shut Up or Move!

Politically motivated office moving isn’t the only way a public employee might be ordered to pack their bags for a new location or leave. State and Federal public employees working for organizations like State and Federal Parks, the Bureau of Land Management, and State and Federal Wildlife agencies are very shy about saying anything substantive at all about their work. Saying the wrong thing to the wrong person can get you transferred to an unpleasant area doing unpleasant work.

You have to understand that in order to disentangle anything one of those employees says on record.

Puzzling Quotes

I want to present a couple of puzzling quotes from the media from some State and Federal employees working on issues crucial to conservation in California. Two things to keep in mind: 1) democracy depends on an informed citizenry, and a free press is key to that; 2) reporters sometimes get quotes wrong or use them out of context.

State Wildlife Agency Speaks

The first quote is verbatim from a recording from KCBS 740 a.m. from 6/2/2023; you can listen to it here. The story was on the remarkable documentation of one of the state’s most endangered wildlife species, a wolverine. The reporter, Holly Quan, asked how the State is monitoring the wolverine population, and this is the reply from California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW’s) David Gammons:

“That’s the $10 million question right there. It’s a pretty difficult thing to do. Estimating the number of any wild animal is a difficult thing to do whether it’s a mule deer where there is a lot of them or something like a wolverine that’s a very rare species.”

The wolverine is protected under California’s Endangered Species Act. CDFW’s mission is to “manage California’s diverse fish, wildlife, and plant resources, and the habitats upon which they depend, for their ecological values and their use and enjoyment by the public.” CDFW has a long history of underfunded monitoring programs and too few well-trained wildlife biologists to adequately manage the State’s increasingly dwindling wildlife. Mr. Gammons not only did not answer the reporter’s question, but also failed to help the public to understand how woefully inadequate the funding is for his agency to do its job. Shame on Ms. Quan for not following up to get a better answer from him.

Federal BLM Talking

Here’s another puzzling paraphrase and quote. This is from a Lookout Santa Cruz article published on 5/30/2023 by Christopher Neely. Mr. Neely asked Zachary Ormsby, BLM’s Central Coast Field Manager, about how he plans to move forward with controversial management dilemmas, including poor access planning and, given expected high visitor numbers, a lack of a science-based approach for wildlife conservation at Cotoni Coast Dairies.

Neely paraphrases the beginning of Ormsby’s answer here:

“The federal government will consider public comment and sentiment on the plan and alternatives, but BLM has the power to unilaterally decide the path forward, Ormsby says. Ormsby says a parking lot is not guaranteed or required before BLM opens the land to the broader public.”

And this is a direct quote:

“My perspective is that we’ll come up with a plan and list of options that will allow this community to move forward with confidence and comfort without filing any more appeals,” Ormsby said. “The common element among all the groups is that we love this land. The only thing we’re trying to reconcile is that we all love it collectively.”

Huh? What Did BLM say??

The paraphrased part seems like a quote from BLM’s legal counsel, basically “We can do anything we want.” The second part is more puzzling. It says a lot that he starts with ‘my perspective,’ which gives him an out for potentially not representing BLM. That last bit about ‘love’ is impossible to disentangle- enjoy trying!

Cotoni Coast Dairies is protected as a part of a National Monument as well as being part of the National Conservation Lands network. Both designations come with a regulatory framework that provides strong protections for the primary purpose of these lands: conservation. The land in question lacks the requisite science plan, which should work in tandem with a management plan, allowing management to adapt approaches to protect wildlife from the impacts of public visitation. There are no (ZERO) staff assigned to the property. There is ample evidence that the current, overstretched staff cannot adequately manage the property, even without public use.

As with the prior CDFW example, BLM’s Mr. Ormsby lost an opportunity to stress the importance of more staffing and more funding to adequately protect the property. Instead, he intoned that it would be just fine to allow the public to access the property without those resources. His dodginess isn’t unique: it would seem that there are unwritten dodginess policies coming from at least as high as the BLM California’s state director, Trump-era appointee Karen Mouritsen. All planning documents for Cotoni Coast Dairies have been reviewed at her level and none reference key conservation policies providing National Monument or National Conservation Lands protections or other policy protections for sensitive wildlife and plants. That is considerable politics, amazing with its official subservience to even prior administrations. That’s how far this culture of fear reaches.

The Dilemma of Submission

History reflects poorly on those saying anything like “I was just doing my job.” State and Federal conservation personnel have access to great power, but they walk a tight rope with the political nature of their jobs. If either Mr. Gammons or Mr. Ormsby suggest that their agencies aren’t able to execute their mandates, there might be reprisal. On the other hand, I’m sure that both of these individuals have good intentions and want to be on the side of wildlife conservation. What can they do?

There are outside organizations that can help, but are they doing enough? I’m very impressed with the work of the nonprofit organization Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. BLM has a similar organization, but one that seems a lot less functional, the Public Lands Foundation for American Heritage. CDFW’s Mr. Gammons unfortunately has nowhere similar to turn, but there are two nonprofits left that are pointed primarily to wildlife conservation in California.

Other Avenues

Defenders of Wildlife and The Wildlife Society are two organizations that might help speak out for the heartfelt concerns of public wildlife conservation employees like Mr. Gammons and Mr. Ormsby. I’m sure that many public employees who support conservation are members of these organizations. You might consider supporting them, too! If you have to choose, I suggest you support Defenders of Wildlife. At least the local chapter of the Wildlife Society has proven much more dysfunctional in my experience, refusing to advocate for what is a mandated, routine update of California BLM’s sensitive wildlife list, whereas Defenders of Wildlife has an excellent track record of tangible wildlife conservation outcomes in California.

-this column originally appeared in Bruce Bratton’s BrattonOnline.com weekly blog

California’s Coastal Bluff Diversity

A walk on the ocean bluff is invigorating, so close to many amazing natural phenomena, but these areas see too little ecological protection. Ecotones- the area between two habitats- are well known to host the most species. Birders understand the delight in exploring the edge of riparian or other forest habitats to encounter the most species. Likewise, humans are drawn to the edge of the ocean, and if they are aware of the life around them they have the opportunity to see layers upon layers of life.

Picture the many individuals and groups of people enjoying West cliff drive, strolling the bluffs at Wilder Ranch, gathering at the cliff edge across from Davenport, and driving Big Sur’s Coast Highway. Millions of people a year along the edge of the Pacific Ocean are standing, walking, or driving on a biologically precious part of our landscape.

Mostly obliterated: Agriculture takes a bite out of the near-ocean natural environment

Ocean, beaches, bluffs, and more

In the span of very few yards, many things come together. The ocean dynamically intersects with the beach, which in turn interdigitates with bluffs, creeks, rivers, and lagoons. At each of those intersection sites, biological life explodes with diversity. The ocean’s movement back and forth at the edge of the land is an engine of life, mixing air with water, stirring saltwater with fresh, mixing together and grinding up life, redistributing nutrients and lying bare new areas for colonization by new life. The saltwater spray soaks sand dunes and nearby soil, coating nearby leaves, and limiting what life can thrive to those species which can take the salt, a harsh drying mineral. As you back away from the bluff and beach, each yard gets less salty, less windy, less harsh. The plants at the bluff edge have evolved to be nearly flat but just a bit back the same species is short, but upright. Way away from the coast, a species that was ½” tall at the bluffs is 5’ tall in the understory of an oak forest. Seeds grown from each population of those plants will produce plants that are similarly flat, short, or tall. The forces of the ocean drive individual species’ genetic diversity while forming more macro habitat diversity.

A windy north-facing dune face has short mostly perennial vegetation with an understory of moss and ferns to remind us of the cool, sunless moisture. A south-facing dune slope has taller, more drought resistant plants – more flowers, many annual plants. The slightest depressions in dunes and adjacent grass- and shrub-lands are moister and less windy; the slightest elevation gets more wind and is drier. A 6” elevation difference profoundly influences what plants grow where on the flat terraces behind the windswept bluffs. Those differences have been levelled off in farm fields focused on agricultural production as well as in developed urban areas. Unfortunately, this precious ocean interface has been largely obliterated by humans.

Roads and well-used beaches are a common ocean-beach-bluff interface issue

Impacts

Trampling at the ocean-beach interface, trails through the dunes and bluffs, roads and trails as close as possible to the bluffs, housing with nearby ocean views, agriculture where houses have yet to be built. All those well-known human activities have obliterated this biotically rich interface.

Walking and Thinking

Whenever anyone visits me from far away, the ocean-beach-bluff interface is where we want to go. There are legions of humans that rarely get to experience the beauty of our beaches or the wonder of our bluffs. As we hike bluff trails, I see a wide swath of bare ground underfoot, right where I would otherwise look for the most interesting plant life. On the inland edge of the trail, where the trampling peters out, less frequent foot traffic maintains a level of disturbance that fosters interesting plant diversity. Here I find 5 species of showy red, purple, and yellow native clovers, unusual bright white popcornflowers, fluffy lavender annual paintbrush, dainty native dandelions, and many more species. Further from the trail still, where few ever tread, the plant diversity plummets: a few tall shrubs or a sea of a handful of grass species. This is a good place to see the effects of varying disturbance regimes and to dream of what is best for species conservation.

On the oceanward side of the trail, too perilous for most people to step, there is a different array of native diversity. Yellow-orange fiddleneck flowers twine with seaside daisy, large-leaved strawberry plants, mat-forming perennial lupines, flat-growing meadow barley and brome grass, and the white-sappy-sticky buds of bright yellow flowering gumweed. In that narrow strip, I regularly count 25 showy native plant species in a hundred feet of walking. Soon, those plants will have no where to go, as the ocean chisels the soil from under them and the trampling prevents them from migrating inland.

Highway 1 and trails are common impacts on the retreat of ocean interface biodiversity

The Wide, Flat First Terrace

Outside of the trail edge and out into the few ‘pristine’ native places near the coast, unmanaged prairies are a sea of weeds. On a tour with conservationists recently, I sensed surprise that such places needed management attention. A subsequent hike across the old growth (untilled) prairie north of Año Nuevo illustrated how some types of prescribed burns can help some native plant species proliferate- there were huge patches of tiny blue native iris, grand displays of white native hyacinth, and other wildflowers all integrated into a complex tapestry of native grasses, sedges, and rushes. Bumblebees, long-horned bees, and a wealth of native pollinators bounced between flowers. That’s what the west side Santa Cruz and the expansive brussels sprout fields used to look like.

Interface Restoration

As much as we ‘know’ about the terrible impacts to the ocean-beach-bluff interface, we are doing little to correct the situation. We know that sea level rise is accelerating with climate change. We understand that armoring (sea walls, tide gates, levees, and the like) are not viable solutions to the sea level rise crisis. Public parks managers are aware that recreational use of the ocean interface zone poses grave threats to increasingly endangered wildlife and plants. Conservationists all agree that the natural, intact habitats on California’s first ocean terrace are critically imperiled, having been almost entirely eradicated by development. This knowledge provides a rich opportunity for restoration solutions, if only there was any kind of leadership.

As our society retreats from sea level rise, “green infrastructure” IS the solution. Ecological restoration of the ocean-beach-bluff zone is the only sustainable way to address accelerating sea level rise. The beautiful salt and wind resistant native plant species found in the few remaining natural areas of the bluffs and beaches provide the template for the restoration we need. However, hikers and bikers are literally trampling those templates to death across the entire length of California’s coast. The seeds of plants adapted to this critical habitat are disappearing under foot and tire. Tragically, the California Coastal Commission, which would be the natural lead in protecting these few remaining areas, is increasingly providing pressure to increase visitor use and the consequent negative impacts that recreational access brings.

Where will the City of Santa Cruz retreat? No one knows.

In a parallel situation, the brackish water species that inhabit the far reaches of our lagoons and estuaries are the same ones that we will rely on to keep the salty ocean water from flooding into every low-lying place along the coast. Those backwaters have largely been destroyed: Highway 1 on the North Coast obliterated the back portions of every lagoon – Laguna and Lidell Creeks, San Vicente Creek, and many others. Agriculture cuts deep into these low-lying brackish areas, destroying soils and habitats of the back of the Elkhorn, Tembladero, and Moro Cojo Sloughs. We need to learn how to restore the plants and plant communities in those systems, which are essential at moderating the combination of outgoing freshwater flooding and incoming tidal surge waters, which would otherwise erode massive new channels, carrying sea level rise further inland into built areas and across low-lying agricultural fields.

Stop the Stomp

You can mainly address much of what I mention above through voting for candidates that talk about facilitating “managed retreat” and “green infrastructure” solutions to sea level rise. But, you can also help by pressuring managers to better address recreational use of the beaches and bluffs. If you live in Santa Cruz, there are active discussions about the bluff erosion along West Cliff: are there any politicians talking about long term solutions, managed retreat, and green infrastructure…or, are they just passing the inevitable exorbitant costs to future generations? Your vote matters there or wherever you live- these issues are pervasive.

If you visit parks along the coast, notice how they are managed at the precious ocean-beach-bluff interface. In the last month, I have encountered two people that have reported problems to parks managers. In one case, parks maintenance personnel bulldozed and added gravel to an ocean-side trail, obliterating wetlands occupied by photo documented endangered California red-legged frogs. In another case, an individual reported parks maintenance personnel driving through saturated soils, degrading endangered coastal prairie habitat and associated wetlands. We need to pressure managers to move ocean-side bluff trails away from the bluffs to allow for the expansion and migration of coastal bluff vegetation. Agricultural fields on parkland need likewise to retreat. Oceanside trails should never be graveled, paved, or otherwise hardened. If you care about these things, let’s make some noise! It is high time that State, County, and City Parks create restoration plans for this critical life zone, and those plans should work out solutions to recreational impacts that prioritize conservation.

-this essay originally published by Bruce Bratton at his amazing BrattonOnline.com weekly blog, the only place to get the skinny on the haps in Santa Cruz, California- tune in and keep up!

The Land We Encounter

What if there never was any wilderness? What if the story of Adam and Eve is a myth about a legendary distant wilderness, before humans were human, before animals created homes?

What if the land we encounter has always been tended by humans?

And, what if wildlife, clean running streams, pollinators, badger and fish, all need us to do that tending?

How might that change your relationship with Nature? How might that change your notions of the importance of stewardship for Mother Earth?

In My Travels

In my travels to jungles to experience Earth’s biodiversity, I find the handiwork of humans, even deep in parks. In the Andean cloud forest, on the sides of Machu Pichu, the fog clears, and the bright sun reveals the corduroy of ancient agricultural terraces across impossibly steep slopes for miles around. A guide points to hidden complex irrigation systems that kept these farmed terraces watered. On one such hillside, I discover oca plants, Oxalis tuberosa, with their buttery sweet starchy roots; these were as important a food to the Inca as potatoes. Still they hang on.

In the mountains overlooking the Caribbean on Costa Rica’s coast, I followed red and yellow variegated leaves through dense thickets after passing through a tropical-tree shaded cacao plantation. We discover a mango tree and then a patch of bananas, and then more seemingly wild forest. Along this variegated leaf-marked trail, we find a couple rubber trees scarred from tapping 50 years ago. Finally after 6 hours of hiking, the crow of a rooster, the barking of a handful of dogs, and a clearing announces my arrival at an Indian outpost, the closest one to ‘town.’

A little North, on Belize’s low coastal plain, I am guided to ‘wild’ cacao plants deep in the rainforest. It takes hours of blazing hot, sweat drenched bug-bothered hiking through dense forest to get to the first few cacaos. Along the way, on the river floodplain in a fallen tree light gap, I find diverse hot pepper plants, some with blindingly hot spherical fruit, some elongated and a little sweeter. The hill in the distance is being explored as a jungle-covered pyramid and archeological site. A giant ceiba tree we pass is cherished by the local Mayans as a bridge between the spiritual and physical worlds.

Back In the Santa Cruz Mountains

What if the expansive coastal prairies, hazelnut and buckeye groves, old growth redwood stands, patches of endangered Santa Cruz tarplant, and diversely colored iris clusters are not ‘natural?’ What if they are legacies of Native American stewardship? My eyes were once more open to that kind of encounter when traveling out of the country. Now, I am starting to look at my home landscape with the same kind of curiosity.

California’s coastal prairie on the Santa Cruz North Coast

Coastal Prairies and Endangered Tarplant

Salads of clover greens, nourishing seed cakes of red maids, sweet roasted bulbs…the prairies grew a valued diversity of foods. Digging sticks were used to remove the bigger tasty bulbs, aerating propagation beds for the following year’s bulbs. Small groups carried baskets of seeds for restoration following correctly timed prairie fires. On a few occasions, tarplant seed traded from the Central Valley is carefully sprinkled into wetter parts of the coastal meadows in hopes of providing a favorite tasty and nutritious snack.

The earliest logbooks of Old World peoples traveling along this coast described extensive coastal prairies, all burned. For generations, the dominant cultural belief of the invading people denied Indians the advanced intelligence that they clearly practiced in tending the land. Kat Anderson, who researches and writes about the complexity and expansiveness of Native Peoples’ land care, is slowly helping our culture to overcome such ignorance. She and I still encounter well educated people who have difficulty believing that the native peoples ever managed entire landscapes like these expansive coastal prairies. None of those grasslands would have been open, grassy ecosystems without regular burning, tree and shrub removal, and a wealth of other tending practices that we still must (re-)learn. Check out any patch of coastal prairie that isn’t burned, grazed, or mowed, and you’ll see it closing in from trees and shrubs: it takes just a few years.

Those coastal prairies have many rare native annual wildflowers; Santa Cruz tarplant is an especially endangered species that is barely hanging on in a few last places. Tarplants produce protein rich seeds, a staple food of the indigenous peoples of California who developed efficient techniques for harvesting large numbers of the seeds involving specialized harvesting and tote baskets. The Santa Cruz tarplant is a recently speciated taxon, a species that evolved over just the last 12,000 years – a time frame allowing for native peoples to have played an important role in its creation.

A crowd working with State Parks and the Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association, including members of local tribes, walk drip torches, starting a blaze through the grassland at Wilder Ranch. Needlegrass stands proliferate. 5^th generation ranchers guide cattle through pasture gates, tinker with water troughs and maintain fences. The next spring there are immense stands of lupines, native clovers, sheets of white popcornflower, and patches of Santa Cruz tarplant.

How is it important to you that we have coastal prairies? Do you enjoy the soaring of hawks and eagles across the Monterey Bay? Are the stunning poppy displays this spring inspiring? Have you considered that prairies can help slow the spread of catastrophic wildfires, making them less intense and dangerous?

Iris fernaldii, a native iris with phenomenal floral diversity

Hazelnut and Buckeye Groves and Iris Gardens

Cracking the hard shells from hazelnuts in midsummer revealed a smooth pale nut: roasted or raw, it was a valued delicacy. The second year after burning an individual hazelnut bush, the long flexuous stems are now ready for making baskets or fish traps. Hazelnut groves must have been replanted and tended, some bushes for nuts, some for baskets. Nearby were similarly tended buckeye groves, producing nuts that were leached of toxins and ground into flour on the same grinding stones used for acorns. But, acorns were less predictable with some years yielding poor crops.

In the understory of oaks, buckeye, and hazelnut were mats of native iris plants. Each spring, vast displays of iris flowers were picked to decorate costumes for spring ritual dances. The best colored iris plants were marked and propagated the following winter. Iris beds responded well to periodic low intensity ground fires, throwing up many more blossoms and longer leaves that were a favorite for making twine and rope.

Nuts! When I find hazelnut and buckeye, if I look around enough, I’ll find remnants of Indian camps or village sites. Dark soil pitched up from gophers reveals flakes of abalone and clam or trail/road clearing reveals some flakes of worked chert. I have planted both species: they aren’t difficult to grow. Once established, they don’t seem to die. Our hedgerow of hazelnuts was only 10 years old when the 2020 fire swept through and roasted them. The following year, those hazelnut bushes rebounded vigorously; 3 years later, they are bigger than ever. This is the first year that they will make nuts. Almost all of the buckeye trees in the CZU Lightning Complex Fire footprint now have 6’ tall new stems; they will flower and make nuts in a few more years.

That 2020 fire cleared the ground for a resurgence of native iris. People throughout Bonny Doon have been reporting a surprising array of flower colors, including unexpected blues, emanating from what is supposed to be a single species (Iris fernaldii).

A Western gray squirrel forages under the canopy of an ancient hazelnut grove for one of the very few nuts produced this year. The hazelnut bushes have few leaves and few stems, the shade from the dense, young Douglas firs too much for their liking. At the base of a nearby bank, piles of buckeye fruits lie among dry leaves. The forest floor is criss-cross strewn with dead branches from the windy winter, adding dangerously to the fuel load for future wildfires. Iris leaves poke up between this array of cast off branches, a single iris seed pod rattles in the afternoon breeze.

Large, recently burned coast redwood trees

Old Growth Redwood

It took special attention to burn understory of the groves of giant redwoods. After the fires, prized morels sprung up in the spring to be followed by Prince mushrooms in the summer. The peaceful trees provided shade and peace in the hot summer. The towering trees sometimes lost easily gathered branches for firewood.

Redwoods appear in the pollen record of a local lake near Big Basin State Park around 12,000 years ago. This is the time that the native people were tending the land with fire. In the wake of their fires, the bare soil would have provided the right conditions for redwood seedlings to establish, but from where did those seeds blow? Redwood seeds do not travel far on their own. Over the last two thousand years, native peoples burned the redwood forests every 4-6 years. This was often enough to burn up the thick duff and branches while keeping the understory more open, without crowding shrubs and small trees that could add to the danger wildfires posed to the ancient trees.

Across the scar of the CZU Lightning Complex Fire, a few people struggle to clean up the fuels around the remaining redwoods. They hope to save the remaining big trees from the next wildfire, now more dangerous than ever from the immense fuel loading of hundreds of fire-killed trees. Meanwhile, prescribed fires are beginning to be lit in the understories of redwoods once again.

Reflections

If you believed in wilderness before reading this, did I change your thinking about how you see this landscape? Do you believe that humans are responsible for our diverse prairies, for Santa Cruz tarplant itself, for forming groves of hazelnuts and buckeye, for creating iris beds and a diversity of iris flower colors and for stands of old growth redwood? If you are not convinced, what evidence would you need to change your point of view? Who would you trust to provide or deliver that information? Please let me know.

-this post originally appeared in Bruce Bratton’s BrattonOnline.com blog

Snakes on the Monterey Bay

As with most species, we have a wealth of snakes in the Monterey Bay region, and I want to help you to know them…and to encourage a young person to become a wildlife biologist.

April is Snake Month

April is usually the month that you can see the most snakes. With the weather this year, it seems the snakes waited a little while so maybe May will also be rich with snake sightings. Most people I know see snakes crossing roads and trails. Too many people see snakes that were killed by vehicles on roads. Not many people get the opportunity to walk off trail to see snakes. If you can get out off trail, you might walk with a few friends side-by-side in a line through a meadow- an efficient way to see snakes. Another place most folks aren’t afforded to look is along bodies of water. A foray along the edge of a marsh or pond will likely net a snake sighting. And yet another unusual activity is a good way to see snakes: turn over ‘cover’ – logs, boards, bark, tin roofing, or anything else that is big enough and has touched ground enough to provide a hiding place for snakes. The rule is to put that piece of cover back gently and exactly like you found it. Looking for snakes is a good way to get in touch with wild nature around here, and it is also a viable and fascinating career. There aren’t enough local wildlife biologists: can you name one? We need to encourage more children to seek careers in wildlife conservation. There are a variety of nice jobs for people who know their snake ecology.

Wildlife Careers

I’ll briefly outline the places one might work as a wildlife biologist, and then I’ll get to discussing what cool snakes there are around here. Parks and other conservation lands agencies employ ecologists to help conserve wildlife. There is also an abundance of ecologists working in research around the Monterey Bay. College and University wildlife careers come with teaching and research while jobs at other research institutions might not have the same teaching roles. There are also careers just doing outreach: think folks in museums, aquaria, on whale watching boats, and leading tours on land. Because of the environmental laws in our nation and in California in particular, there are a host of jobs as consultants, either in private business or as advisors working with Resource Conservation Districts or other such entities. While wildlife ecologists might not earn as much money as engineers, doctors, or lawyers, I know many who love their work and are leaving amazing legacies for future generations: peregrine falcons or condors that would otherwise have gone extinct, restored ponds hosting rare California red-legged frogs and tiger salamanders, wildlife corridors that support the movement of badgers and cougars, and many other such things. Next time a child or young adult mentions a love of birds, mammals, reptiles, or any wildlife, I hope that you will pause a moment and tell them how amazing it would be if they sought a career in wildlife biology. Perhaps they will be the ones to help conserve our rarest local snake, the San Francisco gartersnake.

Snake List

Here’s the list of the 13 local snakes:

San Francisco garter snake
Santa Cruz garter snake
California red-sided garter snake
Coast garter snake
Gopher snake
Northern Pacific rattlesnake
Ring-necked snake
California king snake
California mountain king snake
Forest sharp-tailed snake
Northern rubber boa
Wester yellow-bellied racer
California striped racer (whipsnake)

Seeing Snakes

How many of these snakes have you seen? Traveling as I do through grasslands, I see gopher snakes every week. I once had a dog that for some reason wanted to gently pick up ring necked snakes in the forest. Now, I only see forest snakes (rubber boas, ring necked, and sharp-tailed snakes) when I go with a gaggle of folks doing surveys. There used to be more rubber boas on the north coast before the 2020 fire- a lot of them and other forest snakes must have died in that conflagration.

The Most Beautiful Snake

I don’t get around water much, but when I do, I have always seen garter snakes and then I have to remember how to tell them apart. Your location matters if you are trying to see San Francisco garter snake. That endangered species has never been documented south of Waddell Creek, but you supposedly can find them from Año Nuevo north and east to the urbanized areas. It ought to be called the San Mateo County garter snake at this point, but maybe someone has seen one in the many wetlands of San Francisco. I include them here because they do occur on the northern boundary of the Monterey Bay, which is around Pigeon Point. The San Francisco garter snake with its blue, yellow, and red stripes has been called the most beautiful snake in the world.

Santa Cruz’ Garter Snake

We have a namesake garter snake which is much plainer, the Santa Cruz garter snake. This one like most garter snakes has a dark blackish background and a single yellow or orangish line down its back. This species overlaps a lot with the San Francisco garter snake but its range extends south to Watsonville.

The coast garter snake is midway in coloration between the colorful San Francisco garter snake and the not so colorful Santa Cruz garter snake. This one has the gold line down its back but also has a red checks down its side, mixed with browns and blacks.

The Santa Cruz garter snake, a local endemic

Smelly Snake

I like garter snakes for their smell. When you pick them up, they emit a ‘foul musk odor’ – apparently a defense. The smell washes right off, it is water soluble.

Handling Snakes

I don’t recommend picking up snakes unless you know what you are doing. If you are older than 16, you shouldn’t handle them without a fishing permit from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. If you do handle a snake, even the non-venomous ones might bite you. If they bite, you have to let them stay attached to you until they let go: if you pull away, you could dislocate their jaws. It is no fun to have to watch a snake chew on you until it is done. Some snakes, like mountain king snakes, have razor sharp teeth that will then make you bleed a bunch after they chew awhile.

Snake Summary

Remember please to encourage young people to pursue careers in wildlife conservation. If you have a place for someone to live more affordably, you might pitch in for conservation by advertising it for a wildlife expert. Whatever you do, I hope you can appreciate our area more – our amazing snake diversity is just another example of how special our region is. Let’s conserve it!

-this article originally published in Bruce Bratton’s amazing weekly blog BrattonOnline.com – sign up to receive it and you won’t be sorry.

Conservation Grazing for Grassland Diversity

My dissertation research, others’ research, and years of observation supports a need to seriously consider conservation grazing as a tool for managing the incredibly diverse grasslands of our region.

Ancient Habitat

We owe the existence of almost every bit of our local grasslands to human management of ecological disturbance regimes. For millions of years, California’s grasslands co-evolved with megafauna. 20,000 years ago, the prairies near Santa Cruz would have had herds of mastodon, mammoth, bison, ground sloth, elk, pronghorn, as well as camel and horse relatives. There were probably mastodon and mammoth trails the size of highways; like their African kin, these critters pushed over trees when drought or fire deprived them of ground-based forage.

The biomass of those herbivores was enough to evolve some amazing predators: saber tooth cats and their bigger kin the scimitar cats, a lion very close to the African lion, wolves, short-face bears, grizzly, jaguar, coyote and cougar.

About 15,000 years ago, most of that fauna disappeared, but the native peoples were stewarding the grasslands with frequent fire. Fires kept the grasslands open.

Without fire or grazing, our coastal grasslands turn to shrublands and the shrublands to forest.

Here Come the Shrubs!

First comes the coyote bush, seeds blown on the wind way downstream. First one shrub, then the next and soon there is more coyote bush than grass. As the shrubs thicken, coast live oaks take root, and they look like shrubs for years and years until they get wide enough that the deer can’t reach the center shoot, and that becomes a tree. Meanwhile, while oaks get shrubbier, here comes the poison oak and their injector friends the blackberry vines. Now, things are getting pretty impenetrable. After about 15 years, we start to see some more diversity: coffeeberry, California sage, sticky monkeyflower, honeysuckle, and others.

All the coastal prairies that aren’t on nearly pure, soil-less rock disappear to shrubs after 15-40 years. There are fencelines and aerial photos aplenty to show you this.

And Next…the Onset of Trees

As the shrub community closes in, the tree seedlings escape deer browse. Coast live oaks and Douglas fir rocket up from the shrub layer. Some toyon start getting tree like, too. Madrones join in.

Check out a mixed hardwood/Douglas fir forest next time you happen across one. Look at the understory and see if you can see shrub skeletons- they are likely there as a reminder from whence the trees emerged.

So, What’s the Problem? Trees are GOOD! “never enough trees….” (sigh)

California’s grasslands support the vast majority of rare plant and animal species. Globally, grasslands have been underappreciated for their diversity and function. California’s coastal prairies are one of the top ten most endangered habitats in the US. These grasslands have been converted to urban areas more than any other plant community. I bet we are still more likely to see grasslands developed locally than any other habitat type. For instance, the meadows at UC Santa Cruz are constantly under threat.

Many of your favorite wildlife species love our meadows. Deer, bobcat, fox, weasel, badger, eagle, hawk, kite, falcon, kestrel, owl, and tule elk are grassland friends. Predators require the vast production of mice, voles, gophers, and moles that grasslands create.

Even if wildlife aren’t your thing (and you’d be very much in the minority there), you might appreciate the functions that grasslands play. Grasslands can break up and cool down wildfires that would otherwise move catastrophically across the landscape. Prairies can be huge carbon and water sponges, soaking up climate change pollutants and soaking in precipitation to replenish groundwater and meter out rains to keep springs, creeks, and rivers flowing later in the season. Many folks love grasslands for recreation: picnics, lying in the sun, walking through them – all worthwhile and important activities. Grassland openness makes way for many of those favorite views. Masses of spring wildflowers create giddy laughter and attract tourists.

Oh, and grasslands raise cows…

Cows on the Prairie: Moooo!

After the genocide of native peoples, after they were driven from their ancestral homes, the prairies would have disappeared were it not for cows. The next era of grassland disturbance was the ranching era. Yes, there was a prohibition against fire. No, there were no limits to grazing. The early ranchers put way too many cows on the landscape: there were famous drought incidents early in California where dead cows littered the landscape. There is a huge slug of sediment in the Monterey Bay that is thought to be erosion from poor grazing and agricultural practices of that era.

Gradually, we have adapted cattle management to this variable climate. Our grasslands create beef. Some of that is grassfed/grass finished beef where cattle live their entire lives on open range. That beef production keeps the meadows open. And the fact that cows make money keeps the land grazed.

What About Elk?

Tule elk graze much like cows, and so would keep the meadows open if they could. Studies at Point Reyes where tule elk roam show that that species does about the same thing as cows: they keep open areas where grasses and wildflowers flourish.

The trouble is, we don’t have any elk on the Monterey Bay. Why not?

There are tule elk just east and south of us- not very far if they wanted to get here. But, apparently tule elk don’t like going through forest…not like their close relatives Roosevelt elk. At the same time, some of those tule elk already crossed 101 down along Coyote Creek in the Coyote Valley south of San Jose, but they turned back. Those elk are closer than the ones across 101 from Prunedale or the ones at Ft. Hunter Liggett. If the tule elk crossed the highway in Coyote Valley and kept going westward, they would have to get around a bunch of houses here and there, but they’d have lots of good grasslands across the east range of the Santa Cruz Mountains. If they tried going more west, there isn’t a good chance that they would find a grassy corridor to our coast side grasslands. So, it will be many, many years until we get elk, unless someone finds a way to truck them here, and then they’d have to want to stay. Meanwhile, let’s find a way to support the types of grassland management we need to keep our meadows open.

-this post originally a part of Bruce Bratton’s BrattonOnline.com web blog, where I often contribute columns of ecological information from the Monterey Bay region.

See, You Know This!

You’ll soon be familiar with one of this area’s most important native shrubs and its ecological interactions. The best poets, writers, and film makers have intimate familiarity with plants and ecosystems, enabling them to transmit their hearts and imaginations realistically. To be part of this place, to appreciate the nature around us, you might consider doing the same. Most start with the dominant trees – those are easy…aim for 10 species, and you’ll have a great start! The next step is to name and know the stories of the top 10 dominant shrubs. In this case, you’ll certainly include a shrub with a confusing array of common names: California lilac, blue blossom, wood tick bush, soap blossom, or (in yesteryear) blue myrtle (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus).

Whatever you call it, this shrub is starting to blossom right now with long fat clusters of tiny pale blue flowers, shaking with pollinators, and filling the air with incredible perfume.

Syringia vulgaris, common lilac, a denizen of gardens and native to Eastern Europe

Wild Lilac?

California lilac isn’t even closely related to the ‘normal’ lilac, but it is easily as commonly found in gardens. The European lilac is related to olives, has medium-sized leaves, and 4-petaled flowers with heady, sweet perfume. Our native wild lilac has a dusty-sweet scent, but you’ll have to squint or use a magnifying glass to see that the tiny flowers have 5 petals.

Garden Plants

There are many relatives of blue blossom, and you can even find some side-by-side in our area. My favorite is warty leaved Ceanothus, Ceanothus papillosus, which likes to grow in chaparral. This warty-leaved type has sapphire-blue flowers and a very memorable, sweet-resinous smell emanating from its leaves, especially when it is hot out. This diversity of Ceanothus types and their stunning beauty have made them very popular as garden plants. If you have well-drained soil and some space in your garden, you might consider adding one not only for their flower beauty, but for their evergreen beautiful leaves, as well as their attractiveness to wildlife. You can find forms from tight ground covers to tall and treelike with flowers from white to deep, dark blue. The flower scents are that variable, too- from very sweet to very musky.

Twenty Years Ago

Twenty years ago, it was a much more unusual treat to encounter California lilac in the natural landscape around Santa Cruz. The same can still be said of the areas that haven’t burned in anyone’s memory. Big, burly blue blossom could hardly be called a shrub back then; they seemed more like small trees, with 1’ thick, gnarly trunks and barely organized canopies festooned thickly with pale blue flowers. Those powder blue puffs stood out singly or in small groves, poking up through old manzanitas or coyotebrush, visible a half mile away for their brief flowering period and then disappearing for the remainder of the year, blending in perfectly.

And Then There Was Fire

California lilac is a pyrophile. How can life love fire, such a destructive force, cooking and searing plants and animals alike as the wind-fanned flames race across hill and valley, crackling and hissing, turning everything to smoking char? For blue blossom, there is naturally no next generation without fire and adults are lucky to live 50 years. These shrubs make a lot of seeds, which sit in the soil waiting for the winter after fire to germinate. Sleeping seeds awaken when they feel the sun and the sun-warmed soil, then seeds that have accumulated in the soil for years germinate. Carpets of blue blossom seedlings spring up, and 3 years after the fire are 6’ tall and blooming, soon raining seeds in preparation for the next fire birthing.

Getting Around

Blue blossom seeds don’t appear adapted to dispersing far from their parent shrubs. The seeds don’t have maple seed wings or dandelion fluff to disperse on the wind. And, the seeds don’t have obviously attractive fruit like acorns or avocados. But, when the seed pods explode on hot days, cracking and popping seeds loose from the mother plants, wildlife become alert to the new availability of food. Quail have been known to gobble them up, as they scratch and peck in the shrubland understory. But quail and other birds don’t digest the seeds completely: the result, perfectly viable seeds being spread across the landscape, far from mother plants.

Not Just Fire

California lilac doesn’t require fire. Any disturbance that churns up the soil and shines new sunlight onto the seeds will work just fine. So, you can find new shrubs germinating in the wake of road or trail building, logging, and even suburban gardening. There are many other sneaky species like this: ones that appear abundant after fire, almost as if they require fire to germinate. There are many fewer species that do actually require fire to germinate- many of those are triggered to sprout by chemicals leached out of charcoal in the winter rains following wildfire.

Such nice flowers on that California lilac: I wish you could smell them!

California Lilac Uses

What good is this shrub? The vigor of this species in germinating after wildfire may be important for a few reasons. First, the shrubs might help to cover and then hold soil in place after fire. Second, the species has special roots that allow it to capture atmospheric Nitrogen and make it available as a plant nutrient. Adding this fertilizer to the ecosystem may help adjacent plants to grow and recover after wildfire. Blue blossom tends to grow especially well on poor soils, so it may be assisting many other species to make it in this soil-inhospitable situation.

Moths, Butterflies and Other Insects

Besides being good bird seed, moths and butterflies depend on California lilac. Ceanothus silk moth feeds on this species (its cocoons were used ceremonially by tribal peoples); many other species of butterfly and moths likewise raise their young on blue blossom. Tortoiseshell butterflies migrate from the Sierra Nevada to raise their young on blue blossom here along the coast. Somehow, the young know how to get back to those mountains to raise their children, which in turn fly higher in the Sierra and that high-mountain-raised generation is the one that comes to the coast.

Besides the post-fire explosion of tortoiseshell butterflies, one of my favorite phenomena are the annual gatherings of what I call blue blossom dancers. Thousands of tiny beetles fly in clouds above the blossoming shrubs at sunset, their silver-shining silhouettes are fascinating to watch pulsing and undulating in their fantastic annual ritual dance. Throughout the day, you can see those dancers feasting on pollen in the flower clusters, preparing for their energetic sunset display.

Where to See Blue Blossom….and a Cleaning Trick

Head for the post-fire ecological footprint! I hear that some Big Basin trails are open as are the trails in the Fall Creek Unit of Henry Cowell State Park. Both areas have huge rafts of California lilac just starting to flower. It is worth going before the winds on a warm day to immerse yourself in the scent. Do yourself a favor and get close to the flower clusters to see the awesome diversity of pollinators. If there is water nearby, grab a big hank of flowers and get to the water. Holding the mass of flowers between your wet hands, rub them together and you can experience the sudsy nature of soap blossom. Like apricot scrub, it has just the right amount of abrasiveness to help the nicely scented suds help clean your hands.

See, you know this! Ceanothus. You are on your way.

-this post originally made available via Bruce Bratton at his BrattonOnline.com blog; check it out…weekly updates…the BEST local news source in the Monterey Bay area.