San Luis Obispo Wildlife Area and Chorro Creek Ecological Reserve in San Luis Obispo County serve as a living lab.
Scientists with CDFW and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, have a unique and valuable opportunity to study the impacts of prescribed burns on wildlife, invasive species and wildfire fuels. The study can serve a crucial need in a state besieged by catastrophic wildfire where prescribed burn reintroduced to the landscape can control invasive species and reduce fire risk.
Plans for a prescribed burn in late September at the wildlife area and ecological reserve set the stage to collect data before the burn, and now post-burn data collection continues in an effort to inform prescribed burn application.
Critters that call these lands home include the great horned owl, great blue heron, yellow-faced bumblebee, grasshopper sparrow, bobcat, long-tailed weasel, black-tailed deer, California red-legged frog, ensatina salamander and many others. Invasive species displacing native plants and increasing fire risk include hemlock and fennel. Invasive plants took over fallow fields left by agricultural use in the early 2000s on what is now Chorro Creek Ecological Reserve.
CDFW partnered with Caly Poly SLO professors Dr. Jeremy James, Dr. Tim Bean, Dr. Mark Horney and Dr. Scott Appleby, who worked with students to develop a long-term ecological monitoring plan, including the mapping of invasive plants and tracking of insect diversity and avian populations.
As part of the Sentinel Site program (https://wildlife.ca.gov/…/Climate-Biodiversity-Monitoring) monitoring stations placed on the reserve use wildlife cameras for recording the presence of mammals, reptiles and occasionally amphibians, and acoustic sensors for birds, bats and any other vocalizing species.
Work at this scale is difficult to manage — CDFW is grateful to have Cal Poly SLO staff and students help with this important work.
The 234-acre prescribed burn was conducted in partnership with CAL FIRE, California Conservation Corps and California State Parks.
The prescribed burn may have blackened the living lab’s landscape but it’s toward brighter days ahead.
