Pepperwood

"Through the art of grazing, I have learned that we are not the intelligent ones. Rather, we are just small pieces of an incredibly intelligent system. I ask myself, 'How can I be helpful?' Like herdsmen of old, shepherds and cowboys, we manage the movement of our animals. Using temporary electric fences, we aim to influence time. The amount of time beasts spend on plants and the time plants have to recover before being grazed again." Chad Mitchell is the CEO of Levity Land Management, and he’s been a student of the art of grazing for a long time. In this article, Chad draws our attention down beneath the soil, to the superstars of healthy native grasslands – the hundreds of millions of microorganisms living their lives beneath the surface… Read the full blog: https://lnkd.in/ehzmhj_R

Micralictoides ruficaudus. These words are not a magical spell, though with some flair they may roll off the tongue that way. No, not a spell but indeed something equally fantastic. This is the name of a bee: one of the more than 1,600 native bee species found in California, that we know of. Worldwide, there are 20,000 bee species, and of those only eight are honeybees. Most people don’t realize that the call to “Save the bees!” refers not only to honeybees but to these wild species as well. Beekeepers don’t keep any of the other 19,992ish wild bee species. There’s no money in it. The vast majority of bees are solitary, meaning they don’t operate as part of a hive. From a honey-making standpoint, this is inefficient. But still, scarcity of product could lead to a higher-priced commodity – a “delicacy,” perhaps – except that most bees don’t produce honey. But honey-making is not the benchmark of importance by which we should select which bees to care about or protect. If we care about plants – or if we just care about our food – we should care about wild bees. “Managed honeybee colonies supplement the work of natural wild pollinators, not the other way around,” notes Gwen Pearson, an entomologist with Purdue University... Read the full blog: https://lnkd.in/etmHbeK5

In this webinar, Pepperwood’s Climate & Fire Resilience Coordinator, Kai Henifin presents on the Wildfire Fuel Mapper – an online application that supports fuels reduction efforts, with a focus on reducing hazardous wildland fuels that threaten lives and homes. To reduce fire risk we need a coordinated regional approach to manage fire fuels and protect local communities, ecosystems, and infrastructure from wildfire. The Wildfire Fuel Mapper provides detailed maps and reports of property-specific fuel hazards, support in implementing a vegetation management plan, as well as supplementary resources. Learn what this amazing tool can do for you! https://lnkd.in/e5GuC6EZ

They're biofluorescent, they have pockets in their cheeks, and they'll take out your broccoli in the time it takes to say “Thomomys bottae.” They're quite possibly... the most interesting rodent in the world! Anne Carol Mitchell is a dedicated food gardener with years of experience and a fierce attachment to her carefully tended plots. She's no stranger to the notorious pocket gopher, whose reputation for food-related infractions has made it one of the least liked and most maligned of grassland species. But did you know that the pocket gopher is actually a keystone species? Like the mighty gray wolf whose reintroduction to Yellowstone's ecosystem resulted in a trophic cascade of epic beneficial proportions, pocket gophers are a very important grassland native. In this brief summary, we won't touch on gophers' biofluorescence, their curious friendship with the endangered tiger salamander, or the very real argument that they might be one of the most intelligent species in the world... but you can learn all that and more in Anne's blog. https://lnkd.in/e4JyqiRP

It's that time of year... well, I guess it's always the right time of year to take action on invasive species BUT what strategy to implement in each season? 🤔 Assistant Preserve Manager, CA-certified Burn Boss, and Invasive Species expert, Devyn Friedfel has the answers. Learn more in this webinar: https://lnkd.in/eSB33eYh

You've seen our wildlife cams that catch in action the pumas, bears, coyotes, badgers, burrowing owls and more that criss-cross the expanse of Pepperwood and surrounding areas. You know we're out there tracking herpetofauna, those flagship species whose behavior and population patterns tell us so much about our changing climate, not to mention our stewardship practices. But now, Julianne is here to show you how we're monitoring the rest of the terrestrial critters that escape detection from these other methods: using drift fences! https://lnkd.in/ef3HeNNz

Just curious...

An Endemic Bay Area Beauty The Pacific Ring-necked Snake (Diadophis punctatus amabilis) looks like it could live in the ocean for its sleek appearance, ringed-neck, and orange-y underbelly. But this shy serpent is terrestrial through and through. They prefer dark and moist places like the underside of a rock or, as it so happens, the real estate we create under our coverboards – used for monitoring herpetofauna like this one! 11-16 inches in length on average, this is a smaller snake in every sense, but its modest profile makes it the perfect predator for its ideal prey: salamanders, frogs, worms, slugs, and insects. The mild venom that they produce may stun their prey but it will not harm humans, and therefore they're not considered dangerous. Ring-necked snakes are oviparous, which means they lay eggs. Females sometimes lay their eggs in communal nests – a little-understood behavior that is not uncommon in reptiles. Did you know that not all snakes lay eggs? Some, like rattlesnakes, are viviparous, which means they give birth to live young that have developed inside the body of the parent.

Herpeto-Treasure Hunting: Adventures from the Field of Coverboard Monitoring “Helping out with coverboard monitoring is like a giant treasure hunt where we search for rarely seen critters that live hidden throughout the preserve,” says Bruce De Terra a volunteer on the surprisingly thrilling coverboard monitoring project. Oh the critters you find beneath a coverboard! Find out why this research is so valuable to conservation and climate change resilience, in Bruce's story from the field: https://lnkd.in/eTG6gv-B

Pepperwood is currently looking for a dedicated conservationist to serve as our Conservation Science Manager. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gGGtAeKq and please share! Sonoma Resource Conservation District, Sonoma Land Trust, Sonoma County Ag + Open Space District, Land Trust of Napa County, Napa County Resource Conservation District