Saturday, August 13, 2005
Today the land is a pasture, a grassy flat that doesn't look like much. In a few years, however, this same 563 acres will be wild space - habitat for rare and endangered birds and fish.
All thanks to the National Park Service, the Point Reyes National Seashore Association and San Francisco's Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which just pumped $2.5 million into the project.
The land is the former ranch of Waldo Giacomini and family. The Park Service bought it in 2000 for $4.65 million. The land is at the southern end of Tomales Bay. Lagunitas Creek flows through it. The creek drains more than 81 square miles of land, and is the largest sub-watershed in Tomales Bay.
Lagunitas Creek, along with its tributary, Olema Creek, is home to nearly 10 percent of the threatened coho salmon in Central and Northern California.
Restoring the Giacomini pasture will create a rich and varied habitat, part salt water, part fresh, part a mix of the two as the fresh water from the creeks mingles with the salty bay water. A healthy diversity of plants and grasses will provide forage and cover for many species, some of them endangered.
About 150 years ago, most of the Giacomini land was open water or mud flats - part of Tomales Bay rather than grazing land. But logging, heavy grazing and tilling during the next hundred years dumped tons of sediment into the Tomales Bay watershed. That sediment - along with levees constructed to reclaim the mudflats - built the pasture.
As California's population has increased, this reclaiming of wetlands is all too common. The state has lost many of its coastal wetlands - some experts say as many as 95 percent of them.
The coastal wetlands habitat, with its specific tidal mix of waters, mud and plants, is exactly what some species require to live and thrive. The clapper rail, a shy chicken-sized bird, feeds on mudflats and nests in wetland grasses. Its population has plumeted as coastal wetlands have been reclaimed.
Today, dairy cows continue to use the Giacomini land as pasture. By 2008, the Park Service plans to have returned the land to wetlands. The public will have some access, but the focus will be on creating the right habitat for the animals.
In addition to the coho salmon and the clapper rail, green sturgeon, the tidewater goby and the southwestern river otter will benefit.
The Giacomini project needs another $2.5 million. If you want to help, visit the Point Reyes National Seashore Association's Web site at www.ptreyes.org <http://www.ptreyes.org> , or phone Executive Director Gary Knoblock at 415-663-1835.