News

A Note from the Directors

Dear Community, In this time of uncertainty and transition, we would like to reassure you that the Santa Lucia Conservancy is continuing to adapt to the circumstances and make changes to our operations to help ensure the continued health of our team, our community, our conservation grazing herd and the land we all love. Consistent
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Posted on March 25, 2020March 31, 2020 by scillyshrew

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Decoding Our Nine Owl Species

The Preserve is home to a stunning diversity of over 150 different bird species. Nine of those feathered residents are owls. What may come as a surprise is that they are wildly different in appearance, habitat use, and in the night-time calls they make. For instance, only one of the owls has a “hoo-hoo-hoohoo” call.
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Posted on March 24, 2020March 25, 2020 by Santa Lucia Conservancy

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Shaping the Future of the West

In February, the Conservancy’s Grazing Team attended the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meeting. Trading The Preserve’s mild winter and ocean views for a snowy Denver, we spent a week connecting with and learning from the greater range community. For those of us who spend our days out on the grasslands, and their grazed
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Posted on March 19, 2020March 25, 2020 by Santa Lucia Conservancy

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Fueling Biodiversity

Managing the Fuel Management Program across the Santa Lucia Preserve’s 20,000 acres is no small feat. Facilitating site visits, reviewing plans, coordinating approvals, consulting with implementors and following up on treatments is a full-time job, and only one of many responsibilities under the Conservancy’s Conservation Program Manager, Lindsay Cope. In the midst of the fuel
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Posted on March 4, 2020March 19, 2020 by Santa Lucia Conservancy

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Sharing the View

Welcome to the holiday edition of our newsletter. As the rains return to The Preserve and snowberries and hollyleaf cherries highlight the subtle beauty of the winter woods, this is a wonderful time for reflection and for looking forward with hope and excitement. 2020 will be our Silver Anniversary, and we are planning on a memorable year ahead. The Conservancy was
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Posted on December 14, 2019 by Santa Lucia Conservancy

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Can You Map a Sense of Place?

The oldest recorded map in human history is from 6th Century Babylonia, but we have likely been using mental and depicted maps for much longer. Holding far more information than ‘x marks the spot’, maps have been critical to early civilizations finding and revisiting food sources, explorers sailing around the world, a landowner showing the
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Posted on December 14, 2019December 17, 2019 by Santa Lucia Conservancy

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The Little Things that Run the World

I can’t believe the day we just had. Emerging from the pond, I reflect on our successful haul: California newts, aquatic garter snakes, vulnerable California red-legged frogs, hundreds of Pacific chorus tadpoles, a gorgeous alligator lizard I snatched from the grass at the water’s edge and too many giant water bugs to keep count. In
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Posted on December 14, 2019 by Santa Lucia Conservancy

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A Year of Looking After Our Land

The world’s most prominent scientists warn that globally, the ecosystems that provide all the elements needed for the human civilization to thrive are in great peril. For the first time in history, a single species, rather than geological shifts or planetary catastrophes is fueling the world’s sixth mass extinction. But there are hope spots, like
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Posted on December 14, 2019 by Santa Lucia Conservancy

Posted in Newsletter

Wild Preserve

Nature’s Engineers and the Return of the Burrowing Owl The California ground squirrel is a wonderous and critically important component of a healthy grassland. You may not think of them as nature’s engineers, and may even have some other choice names for them! But, in fact, they are essential ecosystem engineers that increase water infiltration
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Posted on December 14, 2019December 17, 2019 by Santa Lucia Conservancy

Posted in Newsletter