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https://phys.org/news/2024-09-yosemite-national-crews-landscape-conditions.html>
'Yosemite National Park is famous for towering waterfalls, giant sequoia trees
and massive granite cliffs. But at an out-of-the-way spot near the park's
western boundary few visitors ever see, a landmark of a different type is
taking shape.
Workers are making progress this summer on an ambitious plan to turn a 400-acre
property that was used for generations as a cattle pasture back into a healthy
Sierra Nevada meadow.
The project at Ackerson Meadow, the largest wetlands restoration in Yosemite's
history, involves filling in massive amounts of erosion—including a 3-mile long
gully that is 14 feet deep and 100 feet wide—with hundreds of truckloads of
dirt and mulch, along with planting 425,000 native plants and more than 700
pounds of wildflower seeds.
The work, by crews overseen by Yosemite officials, began last year and is
scheduled to finish next summer. The goal is to restore natural conditions not
seen in the scenic meadow between Yosemite's Big Oak Flat entrance station and
Hetch Hetchy Reservoir since before the 1880s, when cattle grazing, logging and
homesteading began there.
"It's an amazing location, with amazing resources. This meadow is a rare oasis
in the Sierra," said Frank Dean, president of the Yosemite Conservancy, a
non-profit group based in San Francisco that is helping fund the $17.7 million
restoration project. "It's an incredibly rich place."
Ackerson Meadow is home to great gray owls, black bears and at least 55 species
of birds, including the endangered little willow flycatcher. The property is
closed to the public during construction but afterward is expected to be open
again.
It was included in the original boundaries of the park in 1890, then removed a
few years later when Congress made adjustments to the map. Perched on the
boundary of Yosemite and Stanislaus National Forest, it remained in private
hands for more than a century.
The landscape, at about 4,600 feet elevation, had been coveted by developers
for years as the site of a possible resort or other development.
In 2016, the Trust for Public Land, a non-profit group based in San Francisco,
paid $2.3 million to purchase the property from Robin and Nancy Wainwright,
members of a longtime ranching family in the area. The land trust donated the
land to Yosemite, and it became the largest expansion of the 750,000-acre park
since 1949.
That year in an interview with the Associated Press, Robin Wainwright said his
family had turned down a higher offer from developers who planned to build a
resort there. He said the property bloomed with vibrant wildflowers in the
spring, and he often saw bears wandering through the area and owls gliding
overhead.
"To have that accessible by everyone to me is just a great thing," he said. "It
was worth losing a little bit of money for that."'
Via
Fix the News:
https://fixthenews.com/living-beings/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
