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Audubon RWiPoint Blue Conservation Science’s Watershed Rangelands Initiative staff and ranchers are using soils to help assess land health (pictured).  RWI Director Wendell Gilgert will present a slide presentation on the RWI at the Mariposa Methodist Church in downtown Mariposa Thursday, October 13, at 7 p.m.  The public is welcome.

Working lands—both public and private lands used for agriculture—make up the bulk of California’s land base.  Threats such as climate change and urbanization make it imperative these lands be managed sustainably to allow farmers and ranchers to produce food while providing habitat for wildlife.

Recognizing this imperative, Point Blue Conservation Science (PBCS) launched a statewide collaborative program, the Rangeland Watershed Initiative, several years ago to improve foothill rangeland watersheds in California’s Great Valley, Sierra meadows and the Modoc Plateau, areas that have experienced surface soil compaction, increased bare ground and shifts in vegetative cover now dominated by annuals.

Through this program, PBCS partner biologists, including two in Mariposa and Madera counties, are now working closely with ranchers, land trusts and public-agency field conservationists to plan, design and apply rangeland grazing and management practices that increase soil-water retention, increase livestock forage, improve water-supply reliability, enhance ranching productivity and expand riparian corridors and wetland habitat for wildlife.

PBCS Working Lands Program Director Wendell Gilgert will be in Mariposa on Thursday, October 13, to present an overview of this initiative and its achievements to date at the monthly meeting of the Yosemite Area Audubon Society.  His slide presentation, “Rewatering California, One Ranch at a Time,” will be held at 7 p.m. at the Mariposa Methodist Church at Bullion and 6th streets in downtown Mariposa.

With financial support from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Farm Bill programs, cooperating ranchers are capitalizing on technical assistance from the PBCS partner biologists, NRCS conservationists, resource conservation districts and other conservation partners to realize the benefits of this effort.

Additionally, PBCS is partnering with and mentoring ranchers and other land managers as land stewards to ensure long-term stewardship of ecological and production benefits on their properties.  Gilgert’s presentation will share “success stories and case studies of partnerships and collaborative efforts to conserve grasslands and/or promote rangeland health through rancher-supported initiatives.”

Gilgert was raised on a fourth-generation family farm in eastern San Joaquin County.  He enjoyed a 34-year career with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, serving as a soil scientist in Nevada and as a soil conservationist, district conservationist and area conservationist in Northern California.  For six years, he was the staff wildlife biologist for the NRCS Wildlife Habitat Management Institute, stationed at the Department of Fishery and Wildlife Biology at Colorado State University.

He returned to California to serve as NRCS state biologist, where he was program manager for the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP), which emphasized work on anadromous fish, native pollinator conservation, habitat corridor and endangered species habitat conservation.

He concluded his NRCS career by serving as the West Region wildlife biologist for the NRCS Technical Support Center in Portland, Oregon, providing technical assistance and training to NRCS conservationists for the 13 West Region states and territories in wildlife focal areas that included Sage Grouse habitat, native pollinator conservation, ecological site description development for fish and wildlife, and western land uses affecting wildlife.

Upon retirement from the NRCS, he returned to California to lead Point Blue’s Rangeland Watershed Initiative.

Like all YAAS programs, Gilgert’s presentation is open and free to the public, although donations to defray program costs and to support the chapter’s local activities are welcome.

Call (209) 742-5579 for more information about the program or visit YosemiteAudubon.org.

YAAS also offers field trips to various destinations.  Visit YosemiteAudubon.org to learn about the next available field trips.

The mission of the National Audubon Society, the namesake of noted 19th-century naturalist and bird painter John James Audubon; its state affiliate, Audubon California; and local chapters such as the Yosemite Area Audubon Society is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biological diversity.

Visit the Yosemite Area Audubon Society on their Facebook page.

Contributed by Len McKenzie, YAAS