Potential Future Activities in Natural Habitat Restoration/Preservation, Barron Park (Neighborhood) Association

Index

• Increased natural habitat in resident's yards
• Creek Improvement
• Eradicate/Control Invasive Undesirable Species
• Bats: Improve Habitat for
• American Indian Herb Garden
• School Projects
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Increased natural habitat in resident's yards

• The killing off of honeybees by mites (more info) means that residents will need to rely on native pollinators for their fruit trees and vegetable gardens. Task: develop advice for residents on how to support and encourage the native pollinators.
• Help provide localized additions to the information that residents can get from conventional sources.

Creek Improvement

• Stream bank improvement
  • Ivy control: in some place the ivy is climbing the trees and will eventually kill them if not removed.
  • Ivy replacement with desirable plants
    With the flood control bypass channel in operation, large flows scouring the upper stream banks are less common. Many creekside residents dislike the ivy, but have left it because it survives the high flows and stabilizes the banks. There reportedly are better ways to stabilize the banks and support more desirable plants.
    Note: ivy is major shelter for several undesirable animals (snails and roof rats)
  • Possible approach
• Creek bed improvement:
  Again, the flood control bypass channel may afford options for improving the number and size of pools to support more aquatic species throughout the summer.

  One idea to be explored is using logs in the summer to create additional larger pools. Logs might be more easily removed than rocks, although rocks could simply be moved to make a row along the stream bank, whereas the logs would have to be removed. Other advantages of logs:

  • Wood in creek is an important source of nutrients
  • Wood also provides shelter for many animals lower in the food chain
  • Logs could provide overhead cover that is needed by larger fish (larger than small minnows). The alternative for shelter is undercut banks.
  Note: There is an art to creating larger pools. If you do it wrong, the barriers that create the pools restrict/prevent movement between pools.
  Does anyone have experience (or know of someone with experience) doing this on a creek with flows similar to Matadero's? (the task is easier on creeks with much larger flows)
• Caveat: California Dept of Fish and Game requires notification before certain work on creeks: see Streambed Alteration Information Sheet. I have enquired as to whether the above projects would require such notification, and will post that information here when I receive it.

Eradicate/Control Invasive Undesirable Species

• Chinese Mitten Crab: this crab has been found on Matadero Creek just above El Camino.
  • Need to design eradication program: what to do and when to do it (when is the crab most detectable/vulnerable).
  • Coordinating the execution of the program
• Bullfrog: major non-native predator of native frogs. Studies show it to be a decisive factor in the decline of the Red-legged frog (a threatened native species).
  A biologist I heard recently characterized it this way: Habitat loss and changes have played a major role, but where you have bullfrogs, you no longer find red-legged frogs, but where you don't have bullfrogs, you still find them.

Bats: improved habitat for

American Indian Herb Garden

School Projects

• Monitoring of creek:
  A local version of the GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) program.
  Various schools in the area have, or are considering, science programs where students monitor a creek (temperature, oxygen, ...) and follow the results. Several of these programs are considering putting their results on the Web, so that they can be viewed from other sites. Possible levels of project:
  1. Local monitoring, put results on Web
  2. Get results from the other classes/projects in SF Bay area, and look for similarities and difference and try to explain. Encourage other existing classes/projects to put their data on the Web for easy retrieval.
  3. Actively encourage other schools to start programs to fill in gaps. For example, try to obtain coverage of different sections of same creeks as well as a range of creeks.
  
  Existing Programs (resources for getting started)
  • BioSITE Program at the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose California
  • *** at *** School (Stevens Creek)
• Monitoring of change in bird species during revegetation. Although there are many revegetation projects being performed, there is little quantitative work on how it affects wildlife populations.
  Riparian environments are important not only to birds that are permanent residents, but also to a range of neo-tropical birds (birds that winter in the tropics (for example, Guatemala, Costa Rica) and summer in the temperate zones (for example, here)). An avian biologist from Stanford told us that a simple count of the number of different species present (not number of individuals in each species) before and after a revegetation project has not been done (to his knowledge). A school willing to do this as a multi-year project (as the revegetation matures) might be able to coordinate with one of the local universities (Stanford, San Jose State, ...) not only to ensure that their data would be used, but also to possibly get something (for example, lectures) in return.