The western migratory monarch population collapsed to less than 2,000 overwintering butterflies in the winter of 2020-21. This rapid and steep decline emphasized the need to quickly strengthen existing conservation efforts by leveraging our collective resources to protect this iconic species. In response, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is working with a diverse array of partners, including members of the public, non-profits, and agencies, to restore key habitat and develop educational materials in an effort to support Monarch recovery.

Many federal and state environmental protection laws were passed in the 1970s, and with new regulations arose a burgeoning field of regulatory staff and environmental consultants. Collaboration between government agencies, NGOs, and consultants is now necessary and common. Trust and professional reputation between individuals in these organizations is crucial for effective implementation of regulatory programs, and ultimately for conservation. However, there is often mistrust between regulators, environmentalists, industry, and consultants. There are a number of factors that have led to this atmosphere. We explore the possibility that typical US university programs for the wildlife, conservation, or environmental sciences majors do little to prepare students to understand the roles, restrictions, and regulations guiding different sectors. We also propose that many of the apparent ethics issues and violations that arise come not from intentional deception, but from biologists, in all entities, working in positions where they aren’t trained in all of the regulations, protocols, and permits that are now part of this work. Moving forward, we see solutions for this through improving undergraduate preparation for the modern job market (e.g. exposure to regulations, value of different types of roles), improving professional certifications, and improving cross-entity team-building at professional societies.

Local, State and federal agencies develop policies and regulations that protect wildlife and their habitat. Cities, land managers, utilities, and developers must comply with these regulations when constructing projects or maintaining existing infrastructure such as dams, power lines, or other facilities. Some regulations are clearly defined and easy to understand. Others require extensive agency coordination, surveys, and monitoring. Even then some regulations may be unclear or difficult to implement during construction. Does this mean the regulations are wrong? Where they not properly vetted by academics or field biologists? Nesting bird regulations including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act require that active nests are avoided. However, they do not provide required buffers or give guidance on how to protect active nests. In an effort to protect nests, regulators and applicants often suggest non-disturbance buffers which impede construction or restoration activities while not benefiting the bird. Join us for a discussion of how academia, consultants, applicants, and the resource agencies worked collaboratively to interpret nesting bird regulations and develop science and behavior based non-disturbance buffers that protected nesting birds when construction was conducted in the nesting bird season.

The Motus Wildlife Tracking System (motus-wts.org) is an international collaborative research network of automated radio-telemetry receiving stations spearheaded by Bird Studies Canada. This network of more than 1200 receiver stations, from the Canadian Arctic to South America, is operated by more than 1100 collaborators. It facilitates landscape- and local-scale research on the ecology and conservation of migratory animals.?In 2018, the Partners In Flight Western Working Group (PIF-WWG) began the Western Motus Initiative. The goal is to fill significant knowledge gaps about migration ecology of species in western portions of North and South America, to inform conservation actions within the next decade.?In this presentation, we will describe the Western Motus Initiative, but will focus on our installation of 11 stations to facilitate research by The Nature Conservancy and Point Blue Conservation Science on the effects of drought and wetland management on shorebirds that migrate through California’s Central Valley. We will use these new stations to talk about choosing sites and budgeting for tower deployment. The network collaboratively serves many projects by collecting location data on animals tagged across the Western Hemisphere. We will also cover how to join the PIF-WWG to help build the Motus network in the west.

Securing the right conservation landscape is more than just finding ground with critters on it. The changing landscape of regulatory criteria, mineral and water rights, and climate change make selecting long-term viable properties more complicated than ever. Changing land uses makes it imperative to move quickly when sites become available. How then to fold the planning process into strategic land purchases? What are key tips to good negotiations? This talk by Westevelt Ecological Services Land Acquisition Director will touch on lessons learned from over a decade of conservation acquisitions for mitigation banking and land trusts.

California is known for strong laws that protect the environment from the adverse effects of development and resource extraction. However, the laws designed to protect natural resources can unintentionally slow down beneficial ecosystem restoration projects. The state has undertaken innovative initiatives to streamline environmental review and increase the pace and scale of ecosystem restoration. The Cutting Green Tape initiative (CGT) focuses on improving interagency coordination, partnerships, and agency processes to allow ecological restoration to occur more quickly, simply, and cost-effectively. Governor Newsom underscored the importance of this initiative by committing California to achieve conservation of 30 percent of the state’s land and water by 2030, part of the national movement called “30 by 30”. Also, SB 155 was enacted in 2021 to create a new statutory exemption for qualifying, biodiversity-beneficial restoration projects. To advance CGT, California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is developing strategies to incorporate environmental review and project approval efficiencies into its grant and permitting programs. Ascent worked with CDFW to assess options to streamline CEQA compliance including the preparation of Program EIRs and a within-the-scope approval process, proposals for new or modified statutory or categorical exemptions, and the consideration of a certified CEQA regulatory program.

The wolverine (Gulo gulo) was historically a member of the carnivore community of California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range. In the early 20th century their population was reported in decline, likely due to combined pressures of trapping and carnivore persecution. Despite extensive monitoring, the only verifiable records in the Sierra Nevada since 1922 was a single male, which likely immigrated from Idaho, observed on trail cameras from 2010-2016. Because habitat components necessary to support a wolverine population appear to be available in the Sierra Nevada, and the primary suitable habitat is located within protected areas, a translocation is likely to be successful at reestablishing a healthy wolverine population. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is actively developing a reintroduction implementation plan and is working in cooperation with other stakeholders to bring this project to fruition. The initial goal is to establish one or more focal groups of wolverines within their historical range, with the end goal of a self-sustaining population. Satellite GPS tracking and ground follow-up of released animals would be conducted to determine survival, spatial organization, habitat use and to document any successful reproduction. These data would also be used to determine if additional population supplementation was merited.