The ecological function of rangelands generates productivity, sequesters carbon in the soil, supports robust wildlife populations, and can be a key determinant of financial and ecological sustainability. Point Blue’s Rangeland Monitoring Network (RMN) seeks to preserve the ecological value of rangelands and recommend conservation actions that enhance their function for people and wildlife. Since the inception of RMN in 2014, our biologists have collected information on soils, plants, and birds from over 500 unique locations on 100 ranches across the state. We evaluate key indicators of ecological function related to soil health, vegetation, and the bird community. RMN’s data inform across ranches, relationships between management practices and ecological function, and provide ranchers and other stewards of the land with tools to monitor ecological function on California rangelands. RMN’s conservation recommendations are being put into action with restoration projects across the state via the Roots Program, a wildlife habitat restoration program led by Point Blue Conservation Science and funded by the California Wildlife Conservation Board.

Working forests encompass extensive areas on public and private lands in Oregon and Washington. In addition to producing wood products, these forests support diverse bird communities. State forest practices rules governing forest harvest dictate retention of a minimum number of trees when forests are clearcut harvested. However, little research has explored how the location and composition of those retention trees affects their use by wildlife. Additionally, standing dead snags are often limited within intensively managed forests, despite their importance as habitat features for many wildlife species. Within an existing large-scale experimental design dictating size and location of retention tree patches relative to other forest structures, I used an avian point count sampling approach to inform hierarchical community models exploring how patch size, spatial configuration, and vegetative community composition influence the bird communities in managed forests. Additionally, I evaluated avian use of mechanically created snags, with a focus on cavity nesting bird species. These findings will provide guidance to forestry professionals, land managers, and regulating agencies about best practices for using structural retention to support bird communities within working forests.

Cannabis agriculture offers a unique opportunity to study and promote agroecology as well as environmental stewardship. This is particularly true in northwestern California where most outdoor farms have small footprints and are adjacent to habitat for sensitive and protected species such as the Northern spotted owl, coho and Chinook salmon, and Humboldt marten. The cannabis industry has a reputation for being extractive and contributing toxicants to wildlife and the environment, but many small-scale cannabis farmers are actually incredible land stewards, promoting and facilitating biodiversity and ecological restoration on their farms and utilizing sustainable integrated pest management and other strategies to reduce negative impacts to the environment. This presentation will highlight biodiversity research and projects occurring on licensed cannabis farms in Humboldt, Trinity, and Mendocino Counties and will advocate for wildlife biologists, natural resource agencies, and consumers to see cannabis cultivation as an opportunity for, not a hindrance to, conservation. The cannabis industry in California will also be discussed, with emphasis on the continued potential to collaborate with farmers to support the environment, as well as the financial and regulatory hurdles faced by licensed small-scale farmers.

Cannabis is a novel agricultural commodity that is grown in biodiverse areas of the Pacific Northwest, with Humboldt County, California being a major epicenter of production. Despite being a highly regulated industry with many potential environmental impacts, there is a dearth of field research on the wildlife communities present on licensed cannabis farms. In this presentation, we discuss findings from two years of monitoring bird and bat communities on and near these farms, and the response of secondary cavity-nesting songbirds to the installation of artificial nest boxes in cultivation areas. From May to August of 2022 and 2023, we conducted point counts and deployed ultrasonic detectors on six farms, and in October 2022 four of the six farms received habitat enhancements including artificial bat roosts and songbird and owl nest boxes in a before-after control-impact experimental design. In 2023, point counts were expanded to areas surrounding these farms to compare these wildlife communities to areas that are representative of the landscape before conversion to cannabis production. Our findings indicate cannabis farms are associated with diverse bat communities, and that bird communities on and surrounding farms are often distinct in several important ecological aspects including species abundance and functional richness.

Livestock guardian dogs (LGDs) are becoming a popular predator management tool for domestic sheep producers in California. Coyotes (Canis latrans) represent a significant proportion of sheep depredations in the United States, costing producers an estimated 40 million dollars annually. While LGDs have long been used worldwide, their use warrants further study due to the site-specific success of predator management and the potential for LGDs to impact non-target species as a novel, non-native predator. We aim to explore the mechanisms by which LGDs deter coyotes and the impacts of LGDs on coyote and non-target species behavior in a novel study region, the California Central Coast. Between 2021 and 2023, we deployed 30 camera traps across three sites with varying levels of LGD presence: completely absent, intermittently present, and always present. I present our study approach and preliminary summary data on the shifts in species activity peaks and in diel overlap between species, species occupancy and richness by site and distance from stationed LGDs. These findings may contribute to a broader understanding of factors contributing to LGD success across regions and their impacts on biodiversity, allowing livestock producers and wildlife managers to make informed decisions about implementing this predator management strategy.

The theory of adaptive habitat selection posits that individuals preferentially select habitats that maximize or improve their fitness, though various behavioral or environmental constraints can result in mismatches between habitat quality and selection. In long-lived territorial species like Swainson’s Hawks (Buteo swainsoni), these mismatches may pose serious risk to population viability. One of the longest running raptor studies in North America has tracked breeding in a population of Swainson’s Hawks in Butte Valley, California over the past 45 years (1979-present). Swainson’s Hawks exhibit strong site fidelity to territories on their breeding grounds. Thus, this long-term dataset is ideal to test whether adaptive habitat selection is operating as habitat conditions have changed over time. I will create generalized linear models to assess nesting territory selection, nesting success, and productivity (measures of habitat quality) over time and as a function of varying land cover compositions (alfalfa, cereal grains, row crop, grassland, juniper, and bare dirt). I will present results of resource selection functions examining nesting territory selection at multiple spatial scales. This information may have implications for understanding how the Butte Valley Swainson’s Hawk population may respond to future changes in land use.