RCD provides support for wildlife restoration

The Solano County (formerly Ulatis) Resource Conservation District (RCD) has a long history of commitment to wildlife habitat restoration; their wildlife committee has been around for almost half a century.

³We have an educational focus,² explains Tacy Curry, executive director of the RCD. ³We facilitate what needs to be done.²

What needs to be done is an impressive list including Conservation Plans, a native plant nursery, a demonstration garden, grant writing, exotic plant eradication, educational events, and lots of collaboration.

The RCD facilitates conservation planning by providing the services of a wildlife technician who meets with landowners to tour their property, discuss goals and objectives, and design a conservation plan to meet their specific needs. The plan is educational and addresses any problems such as erosion, describes how to create desired habitats, lists appropriate natives to plant, and presents the general look of the property. Landowners receive a binder (soon to be a CD-ROM) with a full landscape design and background fact sheets tailored to their goals.

The RCD also maintains a native plant nursery that provides education as well as plants. Two plants sales are held each year. In addition, the nursery takes custom orders for restoration projects. Sales not only include plants (sold for $3/gallon container, the break even cost for the nursery) but also owl and bat boxes made by local high school students. The nursery is a way to involve others in the community: Master Gardeners, docents from nearby Jepson Prairie, students, and volunteers.

The RCD recently received a grant to create a demonstration garden behind the nursery. The garden will contain a diverse selection of native plants with identifying tags, as well as a quail guzzler, which provides a year-round water supply to quail, and an insectary strip, plants that attract beneficial insects.

The goal, according to Tacy, is ³to show people what a native landscape can look like. Natives don¹t grow fast, so people have to have patience.²

The emphasis on native plants is important because natives provide better habitat for wildlife. In addition, some non-natives can become invasive and cause problems to the ecosystem. Tacy notes that most people become very excited and want to plant natives when they learn about the benefits.

The RCD is also facilitating a joint project of several landowners to restore a local stream. Vegetation was thinned and oaks planted about two years ago. The next phase is to remove arundo, an invasive species that looks like giant Bermuda grass. Eradication takes persistence; this will be a 3–5 year effort.

Tacy says, ³Landowners want to do what¹s right for the creek.² Luckily, the RCD is there to help them plan and design projects, get funding and permits, organize the work, and monitor the results.

For more information, contact Tacy Curry at (707) 678-1655.