For years, the headquarters of the NRS’s Kendall-Frost Mission Bay Marsh Reserve has been a humble, utilitarian trailer. Painted a bland industrial white, the trailer all but disappeared among the condos that line Pacific Beach Drive. But camouflage is no longer the order of the day. A vibrant mural painted on the trailer this spring […]
Blog Post
Historical ecology of California’s Channel Islands
By Julie Cohen, UC Santa Barbara Public Affairs, and Kathleen M. Wong, UC Natural Reserve System In order to plan for the future, sometimes you have to look to the past. More than two dozen scientists in disciplines ranging from anthropology to ornithology to history to geography did exactly that in a new study of […]
From the HMS Beagle to Barcroft Station
The Value of Natural Reserves and Field Stations In 1831, a young British naturalist by the name of Charles Darwin sailed to the New World on the research vessel HMS Beagle. Along the way, the ship put in at both mainland South America and the Galápagos Islands, landforms separated by over 1,000 kilometers of open […]
President Napolitano explores UC-Yosemite links
by Lorena Anderson, UC Merced and Kathleen M. Wong, UC Natural Reserve System A visit to Yosemite gave University of California President Janet Napolitano a close look at partnerships between UC and the national park, and a chance to meet students whose lives have been transformed by their experiences in a crown jewel of the […]
2014 Arts2NRS Winners
Six artists-in-residence will be working at the UC Natural Reserve System this summer thanks to the 2014 Arts2NRS program. Offered for the first time this year by the NRS and the UC Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA), the program supports selected UC-affiliated artists working at some of the NRS’s 39 reserves. The Arts2NRS call […]
Why art at NRS reserves?
By Faerthen Felix, Assistant Manager, Sagehen Creek Field Station Located on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, in a bowl lined with conifer forests and fens, Sagehen Creek Field Station is a research area owned by the U.S. Forest Service and administered by UC Berkeley. It’s one of 39 reserves in the UC Natural […]
A lesson in nature’s restoration
Cristina Sandoval picks her way through the blackened remains of brush and scrub at UC Santa Barbara’s Coal Oil Point Reserve, where a fire recently consumed an estimated 20 or so acres. It began near midnight on June 26, and within an hour or so—driven by 25 mph winds blowing west to east—it had traveled […]
Culprits of native pigeon die-off found
by Kat Kerlin, UC Davis News Service Major die-offs of band-tailed pigeons native to North America have been linked to a new pathogen in studies led by the University of California, Davis, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Scientists were able to implicate this new parasite, along with the ancient parasite Trichomonas gallinae, […]