| Additional videos: |
|
Getting in tune with the ecosystem |
|
Battling invasive species |
|
Replay first video |
Blue Oak Ranch is the kind of place that gives environmentalists night terrors.
With 3,260 acres of scenic woodlands and streams within commuting distance of Silicon Valley, the former cattle ranch was a perfect candidate for suburban sprawl. Think picturesque vineyards, artificial ponds, maybe a few cows grazing in the distance for special effects and clusters of multimillion-dollar McMansions dotting the ridges.
That, at one time, was the direction Blue Oak Ranch was heading. An investment group was pursuing plans to develop the spread for upscale housing, forever changing the ecosystem and depriving Californians of an important natural habitat.
Thank Mother Earth for fault lines. The Calaveras Fault runs right under the spot where the investment group hoped to build a reservoir. With earthquake potential stalling the development, the nonprofit Nature Conservancy alerted an anonymous donor who bought the land in 1991 and preserved it. Then in 2007, that generous donor gave the ranch – valued at $5 million – to the University of California, making it the newest addition to the roughly 135,000 acres that comprise the UC Natural Reserve System.
Mike Hamilton, the Blue Oak Ranch Reserve director, is telling the new reserve's story from the top of a ridge overlooking a verdant slope dotted with gnarled oaks and rock outcroppings. A stream with river otters and trout gurgles at the bottom of the hill. In the distance, the skyline of San Jose rises out of the haze.
 |
| High school students get close to nature during a UC reserve class. |
The reserve, permanently protected by a Nature Conservancy easement, lies about seven miles east of the city and is surrounded by 180,000 acres of parks and open space in the Mount Hamilton Range.
"What makes this reserve unique is it's so close to a large urban area," says Hamilton. "You can study the effects of climate change that result from that proximity."
For Blue Oak Ranch, like all the 36 reserve sites in the UC system, is much more than a thing of beauty.
"The mission of the reserve system parallels the mission of the university – research, teaching and community service," said Alexander Glazer, reserve system director.
| Living on the land |
| Mike Hamilton, a conservation biologist, took his first UC reserve position in 1982, thinking it would be a perfect job for a couple of post-doc years. He's spent 27 years as an onsite UC reserve director, most of that time at the James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve in Riverside County. "It's turned into a dream job for me being in the field all the time and being involved with academics," Hamilton says. "It's been a great career. It's one of the best jobs at UC." In August he moved into the barn at Blue Oak Ranch to become its live-in director, the reserve's single full-time human inhabitant. A reserve steward, Jeff Wilcox, drives into the reserve every day, braving five miles of single-width, death-wish dirt road. His job is physical maintenance, including chopping firewood, clearing trails and keeping the wild, non-native pigs out. Hamilton lives full time in an apartment in the cedar-plank barn. His goal is to make the reserve completely sustainable. Solar panels provide electricity, a well gives water, propane fuels the cook stove and a wood stove heats the place with fallen limbs culled from the property. Hamilton has rigged a wireless Internet connection through a small relay tower aimed at the UC Lick Observatory at the top of Mount Hamilton. "You can't overlook Silicon Valley and not have high tech," he says. Hamilton has been a researcher with the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing. The UCLA-based project develops wireless embedded sensor networks, a tool researchers use throughout the reserve system to monitor soil, air and water quality and plant and wildlife habits. He'd like to install wireless networks throughout Blue Oak Ranch to transmit real-time data to researchers. Blue Oak Ranch is a work in progress while space for overnight visitors is being planned. Hamilton envisions a dorm in the hayloft to accommodate up to 25 students. A few camping spots are being laid out behind the barn, and, if a grant comes through, a cluster of yurts will be installed for faculty researchers on a hill across from the barn. "Right now I'm enjoying the solitude," says Hamilton, but he looks forward to that changing when research at the ranch gets into full swing. |
At any given time, he said, more than 150 UC courses are offered in the reserve system with 50 or more doctoral thesis projects in progress. In addition, classes from community colleges and California State University campuses use the reserves. More than 10,000 K-12 students visit each year for field trips and environmental science classes.
The variety of terrain and natural wonders are as diverse as California itself: coastal habitats, islands, salt marshes, high deserts, prairie lands, mountains and forests. The system, established in 1965, began with seven sites the university already owned. Today, through donations and collaborations, it is the largest university-managed land preserve in the world. UC owns about 23 percent of the reserve land it manages. State and federal agencies and the Nature Conservancy own the rest. Access is restricted to research and education uses.
Field trips. For researchers, the reserves serve an essential role for long-term monitoring of environmental change impacts on California's wild lands, said Todd Dawson, a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology and environmental science. Dawson is the faculty director of Blue Oak Ranch and uses the reserve system for his own research and teaching. He is a principal investigator with the Keck HydroWatch project based at the Angelo Coast Range Reserve and the Sagehen Creek Field Station. The project is studying the life cycle of water.
"Most of my graduate students spend some time during their graduate tenure working at and enjoying these amazing resources," said Dawson. "They are priceless.
In the future they are likely to become even more important as they may be the places we can take students of all ages as well as the public to show them what real wild spaces can be and can be used for."
These natural habitats have become a proving ground for hundreds of long-term research projects. Those studies include everything from the deep-water habits of elephant seals at Año Nuevo Island Reserve, off the south coast of San Francisco, to climate change at the Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center outside Palm Desert.
The onsite reserve directors like Hamilton, typically scientists with doctoral degrees, screen all research applications and issue permits to selected researchers. They make sure projects don't interfere with each other and that they are appropriate to the site. The directors are also involved with community outreach and act as liaisons with local schools and environmental groups.
Oak mystery. Blue Oak Ranch supports populations of black oak, coast live oak, valley oak and its namesake blue oaks. That makes it an ideal place to study the mystery of why California's oak trees aren't reproducing. The habitats support more than 130 species of birds. Hamilton says he sees golden eagles soaring overhead every day, and mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes and herds of mule deer roam the hills. Three rare species live in Blue Oak Ranch: the California tiger salamander, the foothill yellow-legged frog and the red-legged frog.
Blue Oak Ranch Reserve currently has 25 project permits issued, Hamilton says, and many researchers have visited to scope out the potential to set up long-term projects.
Hamilton expects this reserve to become one of the busiest in the system since it's within driving distance of so many university campuses including UC Santa Cruz, UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley.
Donna Hemmila is editor of Our University.