AN UPDATE ON THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE’S CLIMATE AND BIODIVERSITY MONITORING SENTINEL SITE NETWORK

Nicole Cornelius; California Department of Fish and Wildlife; nicole.cornelius@wildlife.ca.gov; Whitney Albright, Levi Souza, Phillip Smith, Michelle Selmon, Dena Spatz, Shannon Sinkovich, Nicole Cornelius Jim Stilley

The establishment of a long-term statewide climate and biodiversity monitoring network is crucial to the successful implementation of Governor Newsom's Nature-Based Solutions Executive Order N-82-20 which is commonly referred to as the 30x30 initiative. As a result of this executive order, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is working with several partners to establish a Climate-Biodiversity Sentinel Site Network to monitor ecosystems and wildlife throughout California. CDFW has established 39 sentinel sites on select Wildlife Areas and Ecological Reserves across the state. The network will conduct annual biodiversity inventories, real-time climate monitoring, and migratory species tracking via Motus. Resulting data is processed using automated and machine learning tools. The intention of the data is two-fold with (1) to be a resource for land managers to make informed management decisions in light of climate change and its impact on biodiversity and (2) to be a transparent and inclusive open-source data set for public use. This presentation will discuss the results of data collected during the 2023 field season, some preliminary results of the 2024 field season, and future directions for the network.

Restoring/Monitoring Wildlife Populations and Habitats III