Current Activities
April 27, 2022 - Request for phone call concerning the need for a Baseline Inventory at Cotoni-Coast Dairies
Trail Building
Photos by Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel - Click to enlarge
C-CD North End Trail Construction Underway – But Without the Required Prior Documentation of a Baseline of Wildlife.
BLM’s Contractor Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewards (formerly Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz) is working on the first nine miles of trails on the northern section of the property, which BLM expects to open by the end of 2022.
FONC’s main concern at this point is that this is happening without the required and promised prior inventory and documentation of the existing wildlife population and habitat/corridor locations (known as a “Baseline”). FONC made substantial efforts to get this to occur prior to trail construction disturbance and will continue its efforts (working with others) to get a Baseline documented prior to opening. Unfortunately, BLM’s current position is that “formal monitoring protocols for each species discussed in the Proclamation is not recommended or proposed.”
BLM is attempting to foist its own obligations onto others to fundraise for Baseline inventories and future monitoring. For most wildlife, monitoring is “Subject to Availability of Funding" despite BLM’s “general assumption” made in the adopted Resource Management Plan Amendment that “Funding and personnel would be sufficient to implement any alternative described”, including specifically “to facilitate the analysis of potential impacts and common to all resources.”
If you have knowledge, training, or skills and can volunteer to work with a team to document portions of a Baseline, please contact FONC.
FONC’s main concern at this point is that this is happening without the required and promised prior inventory and documentation of the existing wildlife population and habitat/corridor locations (known as a “Baseline”). FONC made substantial efforts to get this to occur prior to trail construction disturbance and will continue its efforts (working with others) to get a Baseline documented prior to opening. Unfortunately, BLM’s current position is that “formal monitoring protocols for each species discussed in the Proclamation is not recommended or proposed.”
BLM is attempting to foist its own obligations onto others to fundraise for Baseline inventories and future monitoring. For most wildlife, monitoring is “Subject to Availability of Funding" despite BLM’s “general assumption” made in the adopted Resource Management Plan Amendment that “Funding and personnel would be sufficient to implement any alternative described”, including specifically “to facilitate the analysis of potential impacts and common to all resources.”
If you have knowledge, training, or skills and can volunteer to work with a team to document portions of a Baseline, please contact FONC.