- Author: Anne Lombardo
A University of California wildlife research team working in the Sierra Nevada near Oakhurst, Calif., is asking the public to donate clean, gently used socks for research on a rare weasel called the Pacific fisher. The team is part of the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP), which is examining the effects of forest thinning, as currently done by the U.S. Forest Service, on the health of local wildlife, the forest and water resources. The U.S. Forest Service implements these treatments out of concern for excessive fire risk. Eighty years of fire suppression, reductions in logging and drought conditions have left the forest increasingly overcrowded and excessively...
- Author: Kim Ingram
The University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) recently co-hosted a field trip with the U.S. Forest Service to view the implementation of a forest fuels reduction project on the Tahoe National Forest.
Over 45 stakeholders, including representatives of state, federal, and local government, industry and environmental groups and local residents attended to see the project, known as the "Last Chance Project," which involves thinning the forest by removing small and medium-sized trees, masticating or mowing down brush, and burning dead material through prescribed fire. The work, being done by Sierra Pacific Industries, under contract to the U.S. Forest Service, should be completed by fall 2012.
University...
- Author: Rick Sweitzer
The UC Berkeley Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP) Fisher Team has just finished closely monitoring reproductive-age female Pacific fishers living in the Sierra National Forest near Bass Lake for the spring 2011 denning season. Each year the denning season for fishers starts around late March and ends in mid June.
The fact that one of the study's radio-collared female fishers moved her kit from a natal den tree (where the kits were born) in the Sierra National Forest to a maternal den tree in the Mariposa Grove area of Yosemite National Park was a highlight. The event was significant for the park service because it represents the first known fisher den tree...
- Author: Kim Ingram
Adult and juvenile California spotted owl
During a Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP) public meeting, a participant brought up the idea that California spotted owls preferred to nest near forest edges to be closer to foraging habitat and their prey. Principal investigator for the SNAMP Owl Team, Dr. Rocky Gutierrez, charged research fellow Casey Phillips and SNAMP Owl Team project leader Doug Tempel to research this question at SNAMP study sites in the Tahoe and Eldorado National Forests to see if this was...
- Author: Kim Ingram
A new wireless data collection system deployed at Duncan Peak, located near the town of Foresthill on the Middle Fork of the American River basin, is part of a new water information system for California. This extensively distributed sensor network will allow for better characterization on the amount of water stored in the snow and the soil throughout the watershed.
This wireless system is part of the research being conducted by University of California researchers as part of the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP) to investigate the impacts of fuels treatment projects on water quality and quantity and how water is routed through catchments. Information collected from...