3: Central Valley Restoration

A hunter Glenn Olson met in the mid 1980's was Joe Long, who gave Audubon $1 million to acquire 780 acres of critical habitat for Aleutian Canada Goose at Christman Island in the Central Valley. When the Society turned over the land to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, this acquisition became the cornerstone of the new (10,300 acres) San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge. Another key piece in the restoration of the Central Valley's waterfowl habitat is now in place.

The framework for restoration in the Central Valley is the precedent-setting North American Waterfowl Management Plan, signed by the United States and Canada in 1986 and later co-signed by Mexico. California's working role in this international agreement is the Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture, a public-private partnership designed to protect and restore wetlands and secure an adequate water supply for the Valley's refuges.

Nesting habitat
by Tupper Blake

The Central Valley supports 60 percent of annual migrants along the Pacific Flyway. Yet the four million acres of wetlands that flourished in the Valley when European settlers arrived had been reduced to barely 300,000 acres by the 1980s. Drainage for agriculture, roads, and urbanization eliminated the historic feeding and resting places for ducks, geese, and swans. Stress on their remaining populations was compounded by avian diseases that flared in overcrowded remnant wetlands.

Audubon brings important elements to the Joint Venture. Building on years of experience, it has expertise in lobbying, biology, education, and access to the media in getting its message across to the public. Beyond that are its strategically located sanctuaries in the Central Valley. Prominent among them is the 500-acre Paul L. Wattis Sanctuary near the Butte Sink National Wildlife Refuge, which protects some of the finest remaining wetlands in the nation.

Before Audubon took over, the area had been drained for row crop production. Audubon staff, with funding from private conservation sources, restored the wetlands, creating a diversity of water levels and potholes that include 28 nesting islands. About 200 acres at Wattis were converted to permanent marsh for breeding habitat, while 300 acres are flooded seasonally to provide wintering habitat for migrant waterfowl.

Resident species include Mallards, Green-winged Teal, Redheads, and Wood Ducks, while Pintails, Sandhill Cranes, and more than 50,000 Snow Geese feed and rest in winter. Three thousand waterfowl fledged at Wattis the first year the nesting islands were established. The speed at which these birds occupied the restored wetlands indicates how desperately they were needed.

Other projects underscore prospects for the Joint Venture's eventual success. Audubon has restored another 500 acres of wetlands and planted 9,000 native riparian trees at Upper Beach Lake south of Sacramento. These wetlands helped catalyze the establishment of the new (18,000 acres) Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. The Society also maintains the Bobelaine Audubon Sanctuary along the Feather River. The latter includes four and a half miles of riparian and wetland habitat which is now managed by the Sacramento Audubon Society, one of National's key chapters in the state. Such riverine habitat supplies needed links throughout the badly fragmented Central Valley. All told, Audubon and the other Central Valley Joint Partners, have completed 70 percent of their goal to restore 120,000 acres of former wetlands for waterfowl.

Audubon's acquisition and restoration work in the Valley proves that insulating ducks from bulldozers and draglines is as important as saving them from market gunners.