The attached pdf, from Katie Delbar, provides initial info on assistance for ag producers with property in the recent Mendocino & Lake fires.

I've just begun to work on a smartphone app that I hope will make it easy to assess acreage damaged by the fires, economic value of the forage losses and reseeding requirements and cost assessments. I'll keep you posted on that progress.

Below are quite a few links for UC information on fire recovery that Ken Tate put together:

http://ucanr.edu/sites/postfire/

http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=18117

http://ucanr.edu/sites/forestry/Wildfire/

http://ucanr.edu/News/Wildfire/

http://www.cafiresci.org/announcements-source/category/postfirerecoveryucanr

http://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8446.pdf

http://ucanr.edu/sites/forageloss/files/74150.xls

http://ucanr.edu/sites/forageloss/files/74149.xls

http://ucanr.edu/?impact=997

http://cesutter.ucanr.edu/Fire_Information/

http://ucanr.edu/?blogtag=wildfire&blogasset=60503

http://cecentralsierra.ucanr.edu/files/220420.pdf

http://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8386.pdf

http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=19424

http://calag.ucanr.edu/archive/?article=ca.v007n03p3

http://cecentralsierra.ucanr.edu/files/224720.pdf

Announcement reprinted from California Wool Growers' Association newsletter. I was part of the team and it reflects input from Mendocino and Lake County ranchers as well as the rest of the state.

California has experienced five large-scale, multiyear droughts since 1960; however, the current event is considered the state's most severe drought in at least 500 years. Each year of the current drought has presented different challenges; for example, much of California received no measurable precipitation December 2013 through late January 2014. In the following year, the Sierra Nevada snowpack was just 5% of normal. As California ranching is largely dependent on rain-fed systems, as opposed to groundwater or stored water, it is very vulnerable to drought. In fact, rangeland livestock ranchers were among the first affected by the abnormally warm, dry winters at the beginning of the current multiyear drought.

In this article, we highlight lessons learned so far from past droughts, as well as California's unprecedented and ongoing multiyear drought. We draw on ranchers' perspectives and experiences, including research results from a statewide mail survey of 507 ranchers and semistructured interviews of 102 ranchers, as well as our own experiences. The mail survey (the California Rangeland Decision-Making Survey) included questions on operator and operation demographics, goals and practices, information resources, and rancher perspectives. Semistructured interviews are part of a larger ongoing project (the California Ranch Stewardship Project) examining rangeland management for multiple ecosystem services.

The publication is available at the following link - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019005281630027X

In managed rangelands and agricultural areas, feral or wild pigs are a significant pest species. However, estimates of total damaged area occurring on these lands are ill-defined and subject to a high degree of variability. Wild pigs can be important vectors of disease, can cause forage and crop loss and set up sites for erosion effecting water quality and allow

Wild pigs at HREC

UCCE Livestock and Range Advisors and Wildlife Specialists need your help by filling out a short statewide survey on wild pig damage found at: http://ucanr.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=16522. It should only take about 15 minutes to complete. Individual identities and survey responses will be kept confidential. Participation in the survey is entirely voluntary.

In conjunction with the survey we have developed a smart phone or tablet app that will help landowners and managers identify and record feral pig damage so that we can estimate the land area and economic impacts of feral pig damage over a longer time period. If you are interested in participating in data collection using our mobile application, please fill out the survey and indicate your interest at the end.

If you have questions about the survey or would like a paper copy, please contact either UCCE Livestock & Natural Resources Advisor, John Harper, at 707-463-4495 or jmharper@ucanr.edu or UCCE Wildlife Specialist, Roger Baldwin, at (530) 752-4551 or rabaldwin@ucdavis.edu.

The following appear in CA&ES Currents Newsletter, August 13, 2015. Congratulations Ken!!!

UC Cooperative Extension specialist Kenneth Tate is the 2015 recipient of the James H. Meyer Distinguished Achievement Award. The award recognizes a distinguished career of achievement by an Academic Federation member. A secondary but important consideration is voluntary service to the campus, UC community, or state, regional, or national bodies.

Tate has compiled an impressive record of collaborative and solution-oriented research addressing agricultural and environmental issues across California's 57 million acres of rangeland. He provides science and education leadership to California's diverse rangeland stakeholders and the campus community and has been repeatedly recognized for his work on surface water quality on rangelands. He has given more than 400 extension presentations, published more than 100 journal articles, served as principal investigator on 37 research and extension grants ($6.3 million), and as co-principal investigator on another 43 research and extension grants ($5.7 million).

Tate works with private landowners, agency land managers, and regulatory agency staff to understand the fate and transport of surface water pollutants. Early in his career he helped identify management practices to reduce drinking water contamination risks by livestock-borne Cryptosporidium parvum and other pathogens, which enabled ranching families to continue sustainable grazing practices on watersheds east of San Francisco. He has also worked with these groups to identify and implement realistic management practices to reduce pollutants. Tate is known for his ability to build consensus among diverse audiences on controversial topics related to range livestock production. In 2011, he developed the biennial UC Rustici Rangeland Science Symposium that features scientists, policymakers, and ranchers working on key rangeland issues.

“Dr. Tate has advanced a remarkable and productive research and extension career in range management and environmental stewardship,” said Department of Plant Sciences chair Chris van Kessel in nominating Tate for the award. “His program has been exemplary in bringing together diverse research and management collaborations to evaluate scientific information relevant to targeted issues, contribute new scientific knowledge, and extend tools and knowledge to serve the needs of society."