New Nature Preserve - The frogs are hoppin' with joy

We recently preserved 48 acres land that provides habit for the largest population of red-legged frog in the Sierra Nevada!

I thought some of you would enjoy reading about this.

"If the less celebrated jumping frogs of Placer County could talk, they just might be croaking today that reports of their demise are greatly exaggerated.
And Mark Twain, an iconic American writer who wrote about the California red-legged frog in his short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County†just might be chuckling from beyond the grave as the amphibians he chose to immortalize in literature have now found a protected home in the Sierra Nevada.
The Placer Land Trust in Auburn has teamed with Tuscaloosa, Alabama’s Westervelt Ecological Services to preserve 52 acres in mountain country near Michigan Bluff to provide a safe haven for the rare and threatened frog.
And Placer Land Trust is pointing out that the conservation easement agreement between landowner Westervelt, the U.S. Forest Service (SIC) and the Auburn-based land preservation organization comes at a time when Twain’s profile is being raised not only by the 100th anniversary of his death date but also by the publication for the first time of his unexpurgated autobiography.
Since Twain’s rollicking tale of the Gold Rush, frogs and a peculiar pastime appeared in 1865, land development practices and the spread of red-legged-frog-eating giant bullfrogs has threatened the state’s population of the celebrated jumpers.
“The California red-legged frog has a special place in our history and our natural world,†Land Trust Executive Director Jeff Darlington said. “Protection of the Big Gun Preserve is particularly important because this property contains the largest known population of the frogs in the Sierra Nevada region.â€
The frogs were first listed as threatened 14 years ago under the Endangered Species Act. Westervelt Ecological Services, which has an office in Auburn, started studying the Big Gun site four years ago as a location for trading conservation credits that would allow development to proceed in other areas where the red-legged frog is known to exist."

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Big Gun Preserve - Placer Land Trust

Mark Twain’s celebrated frogs find safe haven in Placer County mountain preserve - Auburn Journal

Threatened red-legged frog gets Sierra preserve - San Jose Mercury News

 

Thanks mate!

You know me. I wander around the preserve with a notepad and a piles of books to aid in identifying species for our species list and our baseline documentation report. It's all a team effort and everyone plays a part in these projects.

We are also helping to preserve an important historic landscape called the Gold Hill Ranch -Wakamatsu Tea & Silk Farm Colony. It is as, far as we know, the first Japanese colony in North America. Check it out.

Gold Hill Ranch - Wakamatsu Tea & Silk Farm Colony

"The American River Conservancy (ARC) purchased the 272 acre Gold Hill Ranch, site of the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony, a mile south of Coloma and the Marshall Gold State Historic Park. This ranch is an interesting mosaic of springs, streams, wetlands, blue and live oak forest, sweeping vistas and prime agricultural soil. Ranch ponds and the small lake is a draw for wildlife, particularly migratory waterfowl during the winter and early spring.

Many international organizations have joined this effort to acquire this historic colony site first settled by Japanese colonists from Aizu Wakamatsu (Fukushima Prefecture) in July 1869. To the best of our knowledge the Wakamatsu Colony site: is the first Japanese colony in North America; contains the gravesite of Okei Ito, the first Japanese woman buried on American soil; is the birthplace of the first naturalized Japanese-American; and is the only settlement established by samurai outside of Japan. “America derives its strength and its character from the diversity of its peopleâ€, states ARC Director Alan Ehrgott. “The Wakamatsu Colonists were the last of the Tokugawa samurai defeated in the Boshin civil war of 1868-69. They also became the first, the vanguard of Japanese emigrants to arrive in California as skilled workers that advanced American agriculture, medicine, engineering, and other fields. The Wakamatsu Colony story is every bit as compelling as the story of Jamestown or the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock.â€

In establishing this colony in western El Dorado County (40 miles east of Sacramento) the Wakamatsu Colonists were the first to introduce traditional Japanese horticulture to California including: silk worm farming, the cultivation of tea, rice, citrus, peaches and other stone fruit varieties, paper and oil plants and bamboo products. "

 

Nice avatar!

Well, I'm not allowed to advertise the acquisition we are about to close on but I will say it it is closer to 1,800acres. I'll post about that later in the month. Unfortunately that is about the largest privately owned parcels left in our county.

That's great! I never knew what a land trust was until I started interning back in 2007. Thanks for supporting yours. As for the salamander, maybe we could put an easement on your basement!