-
·
NAWCA: Preserving Working Wet Meadows in SONEC
In the Intermountain West, two landscapes stand out for their continental-scale significance to migratory birds: 1) the Great Salt Lake–Bear River watershed, and 2) the Southern Oregon–Northeastern California (SONEC) region. The North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) program was signed into law in December of 1989 as a new continental conservation funding mechanism and…
-
·
Conservation Easement Funded in Northeastern California
By Ed Contreras Over the last five years, the IWJV and its partners have been working to enhance and protect wetlands in the Southern Oregon-Northeastern California (SONEC) region. SONEC supports over six million wetland-dependent birds by providing important staging habitat for waterfowl during spring migration. Many large ranches in the remote and vast region have made…
-
·
Intermountain Insights: A Case Study of the Bi-State
On the California-Nevada border there is a genetically unique population of Greater Sage-grouse that lives in the far southwestern limit of the species’ range. Since 2002, Bi-State sage grouse, as they are informally known, have been petitioned for Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing several times. Although concerned for the species, many in the region feared the…
-
·
Wet Meadow Improvements at Carey Ranch, Modoc County (CA)
In northeastern California, many of the working ranches that provide key habitat for waterfowl, waterbirds, shorebirds, and songbirds operate on shoe-string budgets. An unfortunate byproduct is that when critical infrastructure begins to fail, ranches are often forced to implement short-term fixes to hold things together rather than enacting proper, but more expensive, reconstruction projects. Such…
