Podcasts about point blue conservation science

When you go out into the world and walk on the Earth, have you ever wondered what was beneath your feet?  Animals and plants, of course, but mostly soil.  Soil is a wonderful substance, an essential element in the riot of life that covers the planet's continents.  But soil is not without life of its own: a handful of fertile soil is home to more organisms in a than there are people on Earth.  And these organisms are vital to plant and animal nutrition and growth.  Join host Ronnie Lipschutz and Dr. Chelsea Carey, Director of Soil Research and Conservation at Point Blue Conservation Science  for a fascinating conversation about the life beneath our feet.

The Egg Wars—a hidden Gold Rush kitchen—when food was scarce and men died for eggs. We travel out to the forbidding Farallon Islands, 27 miles outside San Francisco's Golden Gate, home to the largest seabird colony in the United States. Over 250,000 birds on 14 acres. But it wasn't always so. One hundred seventy years ago it was the site of the “Egg Wars.” During the 1850s, egg hunters gathered over 3 million eggs, violently competing with each other, and nearly stripping the island bare. In 1969 the Point Reyes Bird observatory began working to protect the Farallones. The islands had been through a lot. The devastating fur trade of the 1800s. The Egg Wars. During WWII the Islands were used as a secret navy installation with over 70 people living on the island. From 1946-1970 nearly 50,000 drums of radioactive waste were dumped in the Farallon waters. Fisherman often shot high powered rifles at sea lions and helicopters were causing whales and other animals to panic. Today the Farallones are off limits to all but researchers, some who live out on the desolate island for months in the old lighthouse there. Surrounded by thousands of birds, they wear hard hats to keep the gulls from dive bombing their heads. The Islands are a sanctuary—The Farallon National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The Kitchen Sisters were given permission to travel out to the islands on one of the supply runs that goes out to the islands 2 times a month. The Farrallon National Wildlife Refuge is managed by US Fish and Wildlife Service Our story features: Gary Kamiya, journalist and author; Mary Jane Schram, Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary; Peter Pyle, Farallon Biologist; Ava Crosante, Illustrator; Peter White, Author of Farallon Islands—Sentinels of the Golden Gate; Skipper Roger Cunningham; Pete Warzybok, Scientist Farallon Islands; Russ Bradly, Farallon Program Leader for Point Blue Conservation Science. Special thanks to: Melissa Pitkin, Point Blue Conservation; Doug Cordell and the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Complex; Edward Jenkins; Julia Gulka; Sean Gee; Keith Hansen, Eve Williams, Gerry McChesnwey; and the Farallon Marine Sanctuary. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. We are part of PRX's Radiotopia Network.

Artemis is doing a deep-dive into climate science. In our opening episode we talk with Maddison Easley, a California biologist who straddles the divide between the conservation world and agency life. Much of Maddison's work is aimed at rangeland conservation. We talk about how birds, vegetation and soils are all indicators of ecosystem health - and what's changing with grasslands as the climate changes. 4:00 Point Blue Conservation Science 5:00 Growing up a rancher, becoming a biologist, returning to the ranch 7:00 Alaska caribou hunt & helping a nephew harvest his first turkey for Thanksgiving dinner 10:00 Caribou... the move FAST + a first-timer's take on a new species 14:00 #gohunterhippies 15:00 Rangeland Monitoring Network -  "The primary goal is to preserve the ecological value of rangelands"  17:00 Birds, soil, vegetation... all indicators of ecosystem health 20:00 Soil carbon monitoring 22:00 About half of California is rangeland, and about half of those lands are privately owned 23:00 Grazing management tactics to put more carbon in the soil 25:00 Carbon sequestration 101 29:00 Not all soils are created equal for sequestration + ecological site descriptions 31:00 Drought affects carbon sequestration in soil 35:00 Co-operating with private landowners 36:00 EQIP program - Environmental Quality Incentive Program; California Department of Ag Healthy Soils program 41:00 Birds as an indicator species 43:00 White-breasted nuthatch 44:00 Changes in the last decade; wetland and grassland birds in decline 50:00 Tips to minimize the spread of invasive species... "Humans are the primary vector of invasive species" 56:00 Eradication isn't a reality for many invasive species... "but we can reduce the frequency and abundance in places, and increase diversity" 57:00 North American Grasslands Act - modeled after the North American Wetlands Conservation Act to conserve grasslands  1:02 Citizen science through apps like iNaturalist and eBird contributes to the massive data sets increasingly useful to scientists  1:08 Join the Artemis community -- we have a Facebook group, a killer book club, and programs/events for female hunters. If Artemis has meant something to you, please consider sharing it with a friend or making a donation.   1:09 The Hunter and Angler's Guide to Climate Change

What is shaping up as the most significant drought in decades has impacted much of the West. A lack of adequate rain, sizzling temperatures and a snowpack that all but vanished have led to major cutbacks in surface water deliveries, including to Sacramento Valley rice fields. This year's rice acreage is about 20 percent lower than normal as a result.  A massive challenge is fast approaching. There's a growing concern that there will be little water on the landscape after harvest. That water helps break down rice stubble, but most importantly, it is vital to the health and survival of millions of birds that spend their fall and winter in our region. Shallow-flooded rice fields provide more than 60 percent of the fall and winter diet for 7 to 10 million ducks and geese during their annual stay in the Central Valley.  The lack of water for wildlife is a major concern for those who see and appreciate the Pacific Flyway on a regular basis. “My concern is that there isn't going to be any water to put out there,” said grower Kurt Richter of Richter AG in Colusa. “What's so critical to me is all of the surrogate habitat rice fields provide in that time of the year to the Pacific Flyway. You have shorebirds and waterfowl that are migrating from Canada all the way down to South America. We are a stopping point; a truck stop for them so to speak. They need that water out here, to in as a place for shelter and a food source. This is a deep concern to all of us.” “It is super challenging right now,” said Manuel Oliva, Chief Executive Officer of Point Blue Conservation Science, a key conservation partner with California rice growers. “Millions of birds will be arriving. They're going to be tired and looking for a place to rest, looking to refuel or settle in for the winter. There's likely not going to be enough habitat for them. Some are going to try to move, and they're going to use energy they do not have. That makes them more vulnerable to predation or other hazards. As they are squeezed in to reduced habitat, it can increase opportunities for outbreaks of diseases like cholera or botulism.” “What we're seeing is an unfolding disaster right in front of our eyes, from a waterfowl perspective,” remarked Jeff McCreary, Director of Operations for the Western Region of Ducks Unlimited, another longtime conservation partner with rice. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, and we're going to need to do something more than just pray for rain. Typically, when we talk about disaster it's from a social standpoint – people are suffering. This is an environmental disaster in which people and wildlife are suffering.” Currently, our California Rice Commission survey indicates less than 25 percent of the usual acreage will be shallow-flooded. That's insufficient to support our flyway visitors. As a result, a coalition of conservation, water and agricultural groups are seeking $10 million from the Legislature and Governor, to fund groundwater pumping for wildlife later this year. “Hopefully we'll have some opportunities to utilize surface water in those areas where it's available,” remarked Northern California Water Association President David Guy. “We know it will be limited. Hopefully, there'll be some opportunities to pump groundwater in some other areas, to help spread waters out across the region, help the birds spread out across the region to avoid some disease issues that we've seen in the past. Hopefully, we can do our part in this valley to help birds. This fall we want to make sure we do everything we can to help the birds.” Among those concerned about the health of the Pacific Flyway is Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins.  “I think we should all be concerned,” Atkins said. “We've seen the devastating wildfires, the smoke, the strain on our energy supply, and now we're certainly in the middle of another historic drought. We seem to say that more and more frequently. Climate change is here. It's real, and it's challenging our ability to produce food and energy. We have to work together to find solutions that are going to protect vital habitats, while at the same time maintaining a healthy agriculture industry. I think rice farmers know as well as anyone that it's not fish or farms. Protecting ecosystems is just as critical for our own health, our own sense of well-being as it is for wildlife that call California home.” Episode Transcript Eileen Javora: Right now we are seeing an intense drought across the Western United States. Jim Morris: Meteorologist Eileen Javora. Eileen Javora: More than 90% of the land in the west is in drought conditions and nearly 60% or so is in extreme or exceptional drought. Jim Morris: Northern California Water Association President, David Guy. David Guy: Well, it's really an extraordinarily dry year. And is what we're finding is that it almost just keeps getting drier. There's just less water out on the landscape. Than at least we've seen in any of our lifetime. Jim Morris: An immediate focus in the Sacramento Valley is finishing the growing season and harvesting crops, which provide widespread benefits. Next up, averting a potential environmental disaster by seeking creative ways to get water on a parched landscape. David Guy: Hopefully we'll have some opportunities to utilize surface water in those kind of areas where it's available. It's going to be limited this year. We know that, and then hopefully there'll be some opportunities to pump groundwater in some other areas to help spread waters out across the region, help the birds kind of spread out across the region to avoid some disease issues that we've seen in the past. And that hopefully we can just do our part in this valley to help birds. That as we all know this valley is very committed to the Pacific Flyway and both the waterfowl as well as the shorebirds. And I think this fall, we want to make sure that we've done whatever we can to help the birds. Jim Morris: The stakes are high, but many are focused on this critical subject. Welcome to Ingrained: The California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris, proud to have worked with California farmers and ranchers to help tell their stories for the past 30 years. And this is no doubt. One of the most challenging years during that time, a lack of adequate water is a growing problem, and it is getting drier on the landscape. I'm in, Calusa visiting with grower, Kurt Richter. And Kurt, where are you with the growing season? And how's the rice looking? Kurt Richter: The rice looks good. We are coming out of the weed control stage of the season and working our way into heading. Jim Morris: Tell me about heading and what that means? Kurt Richter: Heading is when the rice is what we'd call heading out. That's where the plant goes into the reproductive stage from the vegetative stage and produces its seed. Every grass plant produces seed, rice is technically a grass plant. And when it produces its seed that comes in the form of rice kernels. Jim Morris: And the Sacramento Valley is a good place to grow rice and the warm days and cool nights worked very well for it. It has been extremely hot, but we are into a more mild stretch. How does that help the heading process? Kurt Richter: We have been recently in some pretty extended periods of a hundred plus degree days, and we are trending downward now. You're in the heading stage like we are now, which is followed by the pollination stage. You want temperatures to be a bit more mild, the hotter it is the more devastating it's going to be to the pollination process. And that's going to be difficult for kernels to fill properly in all those little seedlings that the plant produces when it's in high heat. Jim Morris: And it has been a challenging growing season with about 20% of the rice not planted this year in the Sacramento Valley because of the dry conditions. And we're also entering another critical time. So after harvest a shallow amount of water is normally put into the fields which breaks down the rice straw and it times perfectly with the Pacific Flyway migration, but there are serious questions about the availability that water. What concerns do you have about that? Kurt Richter: My concern is that there isn't going to be any water to put out there. Several of the irrigation districts that rice farmers use in this part of the valley have already announced that there will not be any winter water available and that's hugely concerning. I mean, from the farming side of things, that is how we decompose our straw, but that's really secondary to me because we have other methods that we can go about doing that. What's so critical to me is that all the surrogate habitat that rice fields provide in that time of the year to the Pacific Flyway, you've got shorebirds and waterfowl that are migrating, from Canada down to all the way down to South America, we are a stopping point, we're the trucks stopped for them, so to speak. And they need that water out here to have as a place for shelter. And they also, the waterfowl at least, utilize the food source of rice residue that gets left behind in the field. Just little kernels of rice that fall off the plant when you're trying to harvest it, they find those, they root them out in the mud and they eat them. Not to mention the fact that the shorebirds who don't eat rice grain so much as they eat organisms. Well, you have a flooded field, you've got all sorts of bugs and invertebrates swimming around out there. And that's a fueling station for those birds too. So they rely on this area for generations as a place to stop, refuel, rests, nest, all sorts of things like that. But if this is a dry landscape, it's not going to work and I don't know what's going to happen, but it is something that is of a deep concern to all of us. Jim Morris: Millions of ducks depend on the Sacramento Valley for food and arresting place. And the water situation is currently dire. Jeff McCreary is a biologist and director of operations for Ducks Unlimited's Western Region. Jeff, your concerns in this area? Jeff McCreary: We're facing an unprecedented drought. This is not just a drought that's in California. It's a Pacific Flyway drought. It's a Western drought and it's affecting birds all across this part of the country. What we're seeing here is an unfolding disaster, right in front of our eyes from a waterfowl perspective, waterfowl need water, and that water is typically in wetlands and winter flooded rice. This year we're seeing reductions in both of those, in the acres of both of those. Currently I see two issues. There's the ongoing issue in the Klamath Basin, where birds that are breeding in the Central Valley of California are flying to the Klamath Basin, where there is very little water and the risk of a botulism outbreak is imminent. And I would expect that we will see really bad news in the papers sometime soon on that. The second issue is what happens when the rest of the birds and those birds and Klamath Basin come to the Central Valley and the Sacramento Valley to winter. Is there going to be water on the landscape? All signs point to very, very little. Shasta, Oroville, Folsom, record lows. Some small irrigation districts will have water for rice, but really desperate times call for desperate measures. And we're going to need to do something more than just pray for rain. Jim Morris: That something more we'll hopefully include help from the legislature and the governor to get more water for the flyway. A coalition of conservation, water and agricultural groups seeks $10 million to provide water for wildlife. Our California rice commission survey of growers indicates at the present time, less than 25% of the usual shallow flooded winter rice acres will have water on them this year. That is not enough to adequately support a healthy Pacific Flyway during peak migration. Jeff McCreary: Well, there's an opportunity that hasn't existed in California for quite some time with some extra revenue that can be utilized to help with disaster. And typically when we talk about disaster, it's from a social standpoint, people are suffering. This is an environmental disaster in which people and wildlife are suffering. One opportunity and one of the few levers that we have, and it's a desperate lever to pull is to subsidize groundwater pumping, to supplement what little surface water is going to be available for both rice lands and many dwellers. Jim Morris: Our conservation partners are so important for protecting wildlife in rice fields. And I'm in Petaluma at the headquarters of Point Blue Conservation Science, happy to see at the nearby park, some rice birds, a squadron of pelicans this morning, that was really cool. And a visiting with Manny Oliva, Chief Executive Officer of Point Blue. Manny has degrees in mechanical engineering. He's worked at the Foreign Ag Service, at USDA, and his passion for nature was fueled while growing up in Guatemala. Manny, thanks so much for your time. And I know we don't have [Matts 00:08:44] or Scarlet Macaws in our local rice fields, or I haven't found them yet, but what are your thoughts about the Pacific Flyway and the important role rice fields play for habitat? Mani Oliva: We're very lucky here in California to have these amazing birds here as part of the Pacific Flyway and rice fields are mainly important to these species and these birds. One of the things that we have to remember is that the Central Valley has lost over 90% of its wetlands over time. And I think that's a really important number to remember, 90% of the wetlands are gone. And the idea that these birds are a declining species in North America, the Central Valley hosts over 5 million waterfowl and half a million shorebirds. And having this concept are having these rice fields. These flooded rice fields work in tangent or work in width. These natural wetlands provides this amazing habitat for these birds. It's really critical. And we've already proven that flooded rice fields are amazingly powerful wetlands for these birds. I also want to sort of, as a tangent, bring these birds being part of the local areas and local systems brings, is big for the economy, it's big for culture and for producers as these birds are also helping to decompose rice straw and creating that healthy environment that we want. Jim Morris: We have a concern this year because of the drought. And what thoughts do you have as we're going to head into the big migration time, millions of birds depending on rice and some water out there. And it's super challenging right now. Mani Oliva: It is super challenging right now. And millions of birds will be arriving and they're going to be tired and looking for a place to rest or look into refuel or looking to settle in for the winter. And there's likely not to be enough habitat for them. So some are going to try to move, and they're going to be using energy, energy that they do not have, and that makes them more sort of vulnerable to predation or other kinds of hazards. As well as these habitats, also, as they're squeezed in, are opportunities for diseases like cholera or botulism that we have to be careful for. But one of the things that we have to remember, it's not just this one year that we're dealing with, we're dealing multiple dry years, and that has a cumulative effect on these species. So we're all looking also, trying to understand what is the long-term effects of all of these dry years on these species over time. Jim Morris: Through our partnerships and creativity, we're trying to help this drought situation to get a little more water on the landscape. How much do you value these creative partnerships between rice growers and organizations like Point Blue. Mani Oliva: Honestly, none of this work could happen without these partnerships. We all have these gifts to bring, we all have these diversity of thoughts that are really important to solve these complex problems. We really needed this as all of us are the diversity of thought to really think through what are the opportunities and what are the challenges to the solutions that we can offer? Droughts to hard for everyone. They're hard for people. They're hard for birds, fish, even the bugs, all of these in it. What we need to do is we have this diversity of thought around how can we best resolve these issues? And come up with the proper solutions. Point Blue as an organization, we believe in this multiple benefits solutions, how can our natural resources provide multiple benefits? But the challenge is really is, how do we do this in continually growing pressures? And that just puts more emphasis on collaboration and diversity of thought and just working together. And we're proud to offer our science to the community and work together to help make this happen. Jim Morris: Visiting with Senate President pro Temp Toni Atkins. And you've met with rice growers, and you've been out to the fields. There's certainly more to California rice than providing America's sushi rice. What are your thoughts about the important role Sacramento Valley rice fields play for wildlife? Toni Atkins: Well, first and foremost, let me tell you, I love sushi rice, Jennifer and I partake a lot. I think California rice fields make an ideal environment for so many species of fish and birds. I'm proud that our state is home to a long stretch of the Pacific Flyway and millions... We know millions of migratory birds make their way through our skies every fall, every spring, and they need a place to rest and recover on that journey and rice fields support native fish as well. And I think it's important that people know that Chinook salmon, it mimics the floodplains that historically have served as breeding grounds provides a rich source of food for fish and birds alike for thousands of years before even the area being reshaped by development. So there's so many reasons to recognize the role that rice plays in California. Jim Morris: And our ecosystem is very special in California, and it certainly is a challenge this year with the drought. So what concerns do you have specifically for those millions of birds that are traveling through the Central Valley later this year and the potential that there may be little water on the landscape during this peak migration period? Toni Atkins: I'm very concerned. I think we should all be concerned. We've seen the devastating wildfires, the smoke, the strain on our energy supply. And now we're certainly in the middle of another historic drought. We seem to say that more and more frequently. Climate change is here, it's real. And it's challenging our ability to produce food and energy. Particularly as we face immediate climate impacts, we have to work together and we have to work together to find solutions that are going to protect vital habitats, while at the same time maintaining a healthy agriculture industry. I think rice farmers know as well as anyone that it's not fish or farms, protecting ecosystems is just as critical for our own health, our own sense of wellbeing, as it is for wildlife that call California home. Jim Morris: I mentioned about working together. There is a legislative option that could provide additional water to rice fields this fall in case the drought continues. And what are your thoughts about working to ensure that we do not have a collapse of this invaluable ecosystem in the Sacramento Valley? Toni Atkins: I'm really proud that this year, the legislature and governor have made truly historic investments in climate resilience, certainly protecting wetlands and working lands, conserving ag land and advancing historic funds for a drought package to help farmers through these trying times. But I think it's really likely that this drought will continue into the fall. I know that we have some optimism that next year will be an El Nino year, which will bring more rain. But the reality is that we're likely to experience more sustained droughts as the world gets warmer. That's the impact of climate change. I think we're going to face some very difficult decisions ahead because of it. We're going to have to engage the ag industry, even more so than we have in the past. We're going to have to look to science and we're going to have to work with community and my counterparts here in the Capitol to see what we can do to protect farmers and to maintain critical habitat. So I'm committed to that. I remain committed to that. I think it's important. And I really appreciate the time to talk about this things. Jim Morris: Hopefully help for the Pacific Flyway will come from the legislature. Hopefully the drought will end sooner than later. Thankfully, passionate people are committed to do what they can to help wildlife endure this challenge. That we'll wrap up this episode. Thank you to Senate pro Temp Toni Atkins, Manny Oliva, Jeff McCreary, Kurt Richter, David Guy, and Eileen Javora for their comments and expertise. You can find out more at podcast.calrice.org. We also have a special drought page set up at calrice.org, which has a lot of information on impacts to California rice. We appreciate your comments, please subscribe and thanks for listening.

The driest year California has experienced since the 1970s will have wide-ranging impacts in the West. In the Sacramento Valley, a reduced water supply will lead to about a 20 percent reduction in rice plantings. The loss of about 100,000 acres of rice fields has implications well beyond the farm level. The reduced plantings will impact rural communities that depend on agriculture as their foundation. It’s also a concern for wildlife, which greatly depend on rice fields for their habitat. Fortunately, rice growers are collaborating with conservation groups to get the most out of what’s available. “Over the last 150 years, over 90 percent of the wetlands that used to be in the Central Valley have gone,” remarked Julia Barfield, Project Manager with The Nature Conservancy. “They've been lost to development and agriculture, and there's a shortage of habitat that birds migrating along the Pacific flyway need. And that is wetland habitat, specifically shallow wetlands for migratory shorebirds, which is a group of species that have declined precipitously in the last 50 years. And we are working hard to make sure there's enough habitat, especially in years like this that are really dry -- and there's not going to be much habitat on the landscape when they're migrating this fall.” The Nature Conservancy has spearheaded two key rice conservation programs, BirdReturns and Bid4Birds, which have helped during past droughts. “What we've found in the last drought,2013 to 2015, which was a critical period, was that the incentive programs, such as BirdReturns, provided 35 percent of the habitat that was out there on the landscape and up to 60 percent in the fall period during certain days,” said Greg Golet, a scientist at The Nature Conservancy who has spent years working to maintain and enhance shorebird habitat in Sacramento Valley rice fields. This cooperation wouldn’t be possible without rice growers being willing participants. For decades, rice fields have provided a vital link to the massive Pacific Flyway migration of millions of birds. “I've been doing this for 40 years now, every farmer that I know is an environmentalist at some level,” said rice grower John Brennan, who works at several places in the valley, including Davis Ranches in Colusa. “We're the ones that are out there in the environment. We're the ones that get to enjoy the birds. We're the ones that get to see habitat and all the excitement that it brings to the landscape. But on the other side of it, we need to make sure that rice stays relevant in the state of California. And so, we're not going to be able to maintain this habitat, as habitat. There's not enough money in the state of California to do that. We need to come up with a farming program that does both, that provides food and provides habitat.” As summer approaches, the value of rice field habitat – especially during drought -- will grow right along with America’s next crop of sushi rice. The rice fields, complete with their diverse ecosystem, are a welcome sight to Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, who has worked on several fronts to bolster such conservation. “It makes me feel relieved,” she said. “It makes me feel like there's hope. It makes me feel like there's the beauty that we have all around us in Northern California -- and then to appreciate every single moment of it, and not to take away, but to help enhance what we have and to continue it for our future.” Episode Transcript CBS 13 Newscaster 1: The drought impacting much more than how you water your lawn, but the way food is grown in the Sacramento Valley. CBS 13's, Rachel Wulff shows us the changes to a multi-billion-dollar industry that supports 25,000 jobs. Fritz Durst: Farmers are eternal optimists. You have to be, to risk so much with so many things out of your control. Rachel Wulff: Fritz Durst, trying to keep his spirits up in a down year. Jim Morris: The past year plus has been difficult for our world, and now a significant new challenge has hit much of the west. Precious little rain and snow fell during fall and winter, leading to the driest year California has seen in generations. As a result, there will be less rice grown in the Sacramento Valley this year. That has wide ranging impacts, including to birds that migrate along the Pacific flyway. But as the newly planted rice emerges and more birds arrive, there's at least a momentary lift during this difficult time. Welcome to Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris. I've worked with California farmers and ranchers for more than 30 years helping tell their stories. I'm at the historic Davis Ranches in Colusa, and even though drought has taken out about 20 percent of normal rice acreage, it is a beautiful time in our valley and an important one as well. Julia Barfield has been with the Nature Conservancy since 2010. After her undergraduate degree in English Literature and German, her early career was in publishing and editing, and then she made a big shift getting her graduate degree in biology with thesis work, including a field endocrinology and behavioral study on a nocturnal endangered species in a very remote field station in a desert grassland environment. And Julia, you need to go back to publishing after you write that book because I'll buy two copies of it, it sounds like a wonderful book. So we went from pandemic to drought and that is certainly challenging for protecting the environment, but let's start with something positive being out here in the country. What are your thoughts when you're in and around the rice fields and you see all the wildlife? Julia Barfield: Oh, it's so refreshing to get out, up here in the rice fields. And there's such a diversity of birds and we're out here today on Davis Ranches, and you can hear bird song in the background, and it's just such a release after being cooped up in the last year. Jim Morris: The Nature Conservancy has been contributing to this effort for many years, as well as some other conservation partners, and we're very grateful for that. So why is the Nature Conservancy using its time and expertise and resources to help wildlife in rice fields? Julia Barfield: Well Jim, over the last 150 years, over 90 percent of the wetlands that used to be in the Central Valley are gone. They've been lost to development and agriculture, and there's a shortage of habitat that birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway need. And that is wetland habitat, specifically shallow wetlands for migratory shorebirds, which is a species that has declined precipitously in the last 50 years. And we are working hard to make sure there's enough habitat, especially in years like this that are really dry and there's not going to be much habitat on the landscape when they're migrating this fall. Jim Morris: The Nature Conservancy has two specific programs they've worked with regarding rice farming and the environment. Tell me about those. Julia Barfield: Back in 2014 during the last drought, we developed a program called BirdReturns. I just mentioned that there's been a huge loss in habitat in wetlands, in the Central Valley. And during migration season, which is early fall and late spring for migratory shorebirds, there's often few places for them to stop and rest and feed on migrations that can go anywhere from Alaska down to Patagonia. So these birds are long distance fliers and they need to refuel along the way. And so, to make up this habitat shortfall, we developed this program called BirdReturns, where we work with growers to flood their fields for a few weeks at a time during the most critical times of year. And we call these pop-up wetlands. And another way to talk about it is we often refer to them as an Airbnb for birds. Jim Morris: And now there's a Bid4Birds. So tell me a little bit about that. Julia Barfield: So, the Nature Conservancy is part of a formal partnership with two other conservation organizations, Point Blue Conservation Science and Audubon, California. And we are working closely with the California Ricelands Waterbird Foundation to create a BirdReturns like program called Bid4Birds. It's the same kind of concept where we ask growers to submit bids to participate in the program, and we select growers who have the best quality habitat for the lowest price. Jim Morris: Tell me a little bit about working with growers, that's obviously a key element to make sure these programs are successful. Julia Barfield: Yes, the growers are a key component and since the beginning of doing burn returns, we work closely with the rice community and rice growers have been close partners for us. And the idea is that this is a win-win approach. So, by working with the growers, we are able to help promote their long term farming operations and also create habitat for birds. And we are kind of both an organization, if you will, where we want to have benefits for both people and nature, and rice growers are a very important part of this work. Jim Morris: Also here on the farm is Greg Golet, who has a PhD in Biology and an MS in Marine Sciences, and you spent time in Alaska with the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a wildlife biologist studying seabirds, sounds fascinating. And what type of birds did you study, and tell me a little bit about that Alaska experience. Greg Golet: I went up to go to Alaska after finishing college in Maine, because I wanted to go to one of the wildest places I could possibly find and do research biology. And there I studied blackleg kitty wakes and then pigeon guillemots out in beautiful Prince William Sound. Jim Morris: How long were you in Alaska and what was the most unusual thing that you saw, because Alaska is a very unusual place? Greg Golet: They say you judge your time in Alaska based on the number of winters that you spend there. And I will confess that early on, I was going to Alaska for field research and then returning to warm Santa Cruz for grad school. But I did put in four and a half winters there before heading back to Northern California. The wildest thing I think that I ever saw in Alaska was out at my field camp, which was tucked up in a fjord with a tidewater glacier at the head. The snow melted out beneath an avalanche cone and exposed this bear that had been taken out by a slide in the winter. And over the days we would go there and look at the various animals feeding upon it, including wolverines. Jim Morris: Oh, my goodness, Julia has a second book, she's going to need to work on too. So that's pretty amazing. And the rice ecosystem, doesn't have what you just described, but it is very diverse, and I think surprising to people. So tell me a little bit about your time in the rice ecosystem and some of the things that you've seen. Greg Golet: In Alaska, it was incredible because I had these remote experiences out in wild country where I saw incredible nature spectacles. But in the rice landscape, we see that as well. What's interesting to me about it, is that here it's a human dominated, managed, highly altered ecosystem. As Julia was mentioning, 90 percent of the historic wetlands are lost, and what's here is all tightly controlled with water allocations and specific management practices. But yet, when you do things right, you can see incredible responses of wildlife in spectacles, really as powerful as those that I had in Alaska with fields absolutely teaming with shorebirds. And of course the huge goose populations and so forth. Jim Morris: Let's talk a little bit about shorebirds. Rice fields provide internationally recognized shorebird habitat, and tell me some of the species that you've seen out here. Greg Golet: Well, we've seen many different species out here, and I'll tell you about a couple that I find to be extremely interesting. One is the Western Sandpiper and another is the Dunlin. And they're pretty similar, when you look at them, especially to the untrained eye, they might look just like these little brown birds. The Western Sandpiper only weighs about an ounce and the Dunlin isn't much bigger. Both of them breed up in the Arctic. Dunlin have a circumpolar distribution, whereas the Western Sandpipers are more just out on western Alaska, out by the Bering Sea. But what's really interesting and different about them, is that they have strikingly different patterns of migration. And so what that means is that when they head south for the winter, which both of them do, the timing is different. And so, the Dunlin typically come down, not until October, and then they spend the winter in the Central Valley and the rice country is extremely important to them. Whereas the Western Sandpiper comes down early. They come down, they peak in July when they move through the central valley on their way south, and then they don't come back until April. So there's really hardly any overlap between these two species out in the field. And what that means for us as conservationists, and what we really have to pay attention to, is that we can provide habitat over that broad range of time so that we can meet the dependencies of both of these species. Jim Morris: I find those shorebirds very interesting too, because I think almost every time I've seen them, they're eating. So they feed out of the rice fields as well as a place to rest. And so we are unfortunately in a drought situation. So how valuable are the rice fields in a year like this? Greg Golet: Rice field habitat is phenomenally important to these birds in droughts, as well as in regular years. What we've found in the last drought 2013 to 2015, which was a critical period, was that the incentive programs, such as BirdReturns, provided 35 percent of the habitat that was out there on the landscape and up to 60 percent in the fall period during certain days. Jim Morris: We've seen these dry years before, so do you have a degree of optimism that we're going to get past this, at some point? Greg Golet: I absolutely do. One of the things that we have on our side is that this is a highly managed system. And so therefore we can pull the levers that we need to, to put the habitat out there, where and when it will be most valuable to the birds. And what we also have now is this emerging science that tells us specifically what the habitat needs are and therefore where to best place them for maximum return on investment. Jim Morris: Essentially the Pacific flyway, that massive migration of millions of birds, even if we have a drought, you can't take a year off in terms of giving them the habitat in the Central Valley, right? Greg Golet: When these birds stop in here, it's likely that they need to replenish their reserves rapidly. They need time to rest. They need to have the time with their other members of the flock to establish the social connections that they do at these stopover sites. Or they need to just have the opportunity to set up for an extended period as they overwinter. Jim Morris: John Brennan is a rice grower, farm manager, Ag Business Management graduate from Cal-Poly, and one of those who has embraced wildlife friendly farming. John, why go the extra steps to help wildlife? John Brennan: I've been doing this for 40 years now, every farmer that I know is an environmentalist at some level. And we're the ones that are out there in the environment. We're the ones that get to enjoy the birds. We're the ones that get to see habitat and all the excitement that it brings to the landscape. But on the other side of it, we need to make sure that rice stays relevant in the state of California. And so we're not going to be able to maintain this habitat, as habitat, there's not enough money in the state of California to do that. We need to come up with a farming program that does both, that provides food and provides habitat. Jim Morris: And it is amazing any time of the year, but particularly in the fall and winter, the staggering amount of wildlife that are in rice fields. Is it something that you're used to? Is it still pretty impressive when you drive by and you see tens of thousands of geese in a field? John Brennan: Oh yeah. I don't think you'll ever get used to it, especially when they lift off. And then I think the one thing that we talk about is when we first started talking to the migratory bird partnership, they would quiz us or quiz our growers because we manage a lot of different farm land, if we see shorebirds out there. And I would say, "Well, we see Killdeer." And I didn't realize that everything that we thought was a Killdeer, was a lot of different shorebirds, right? We just didn't recognize the difference. And now 10 years later, most of our growers have bird cards and can identify different birds, and they can tell you exactly where they see those birds, right? John Brennan: Those birds are in one inch of water. Those birds are in mudflats. Those birds are in fields with deeper water. When we give the Bird Day out here at Davis Ranches, we've gone to a flooding program that we just fill up the field. So we fill it up fairly deep, 8 to 10 inches, and then we just shut it off and go to the next field and let it kind of draw down. So when you're out there at Bird Day, you'll see fields that are swans, pelicans, egrets, and then the next field, it'll be geese. And then the next field, it'll be ducks and the next field will be shorebirds. And the next field will be the little shorebirds. And you can just follow them around based on the depth of the water. Jim Morris: Oh, that is awesome. And those who love Japanese cuisine know Nigiri is fish over rice. And the Nigiri Project is a little different. It's an innovative way to help salmon. This project with Cal Trout has been around for a long time and it has yielded promising results. So how can rice fields help salmon? John Brennan: So, this whole discussion about getting fish out of the river onto the floodplain started in the late nineties. So the idea was we'd get more fish out of the river and onto the floodplain. And so, we actually bought the Knaggs Ranch to do the science out there. When they were talking about getting fish out of the Sacramento River and onto the floodplain, in the old bypass, all of the discussions were to put them over seasonal wetland habitat. And our argument was that, "Hey, we're in the rice business, these are the surrogate wetlands. We really just farm rice in the off season, the exciting season's the winter. There's no reason that the fish wouldn't do the same over rice fields in the winter that they do over seasonal wetland habitat." John Brennan: We named it then the Nigiri Project just to keep rice in the discussion, because we were going to do all the science on rice fields, and we didn't want people to forget about the rice, that's why we named it, the Nigiri Project. And so what the project has really shown is that when you get water out there on the floodplain, even though it's been farmed to rice, we still maintain all of those same benefits or can establish, or can garner all those same benefits that you get out there over the traditional floodplain. Jim Morris: And I know that with our Pilot Project at the Rice Commission, that we're also working with UC Davis and Cal Trout, very encouraging results. And there's also growing fish food in the rice fields of the Sacramento Valley and returning that to the river. So very exciting work for salmon. And hopefully there will be progress there, and rice fields will be able to serve salmon just like they are birds right now. So it's a great time for the environment, when you look at Sacramento Valley rice fields. And on that subject, what do you think the future is for wildlife friendly farming in the Sacramento valley? John Brennan: I think for the rice world, there's a tremendous amount of promise. Jim Morris: We've been talking about helping out, not only growing the crop, which supports a lot of different communities and infrastructure in the Sacramento Valley, there's also the environmental needs, birds and fish. So it's a pretty big juggling act this year, I would imagine considering we have a drought. John Brennan: This year, it started off dry and it stayed dry. And so we have all of these environmental conditions that we want to meet on our farm with flooding and some of the habitat that we create and provide here. But then also in the river system where our water supplies are dependent on meeting certain environmental factors with the cold water pool and flows and everything else, and so navigating that and being part of that discussion. But we're rotating out of rice on about 20 percent of our acreage and that complicates things. And that a lot of this is contracted, we have a lot of specialty varieties out here, we're moving fields around. And not knowing exactly which fields are going to have water and which fields aren't going to have water, is also a complex issue for most of the mills to stay up on. And then we have the infrastructure. I mean, we own the dryer there in Robbins. We're going to be at about probably two-thirds capacity. Most of the mills are probably going to be at about two-thirds to 80 percent capacity. And so, keeping the industry healthy and then serving all of our clients, I mean, people buy this rice every year and once we lose out on markets or don't supply rice to the markets, they go somewhere else. And then if there's water next year and we're in business again next year, we have to go out and try and get those markets back again. It's a roller coaster ride and there's more than just the fields to think about. Jim Morris: We're at Conaway Ranch in Yolo County and California Waterfowl Association just released Mallard ducks. They're trying to maintain and enhance that population. Assemblymember, Cecilia Aguiar-Curry is out here. How important are rice fields to help the whole process of preserving our environment, particularly in a year like this, where water is so short? Cecilia Aguiar-Curry: Well, the importance I think is just that number one is that after we collect the eggs and they grow and our little ducks grow, there's got to be a place for them to go into the water. And today we just released them into the water, but I'm concerned that with the drought, if our rice farmers are going to be able to do that, and to help us during this period of time. But that's why winter flooded rice is so important. Jim Morris: And in Northern California, in the Sacramento Valley, in particular, when you see that wildlife in the rice fields, all the birds, how does it make you feel? Cecilia Aguiar-Curry: It makes me feel relieved. It makes me feel like there's hope. It makes me feel like there's the beauty that we have all around us in Northern California and then to appreciate every single moment of it, and not to take away, but to help enhance what we have and to continue it for our future. Jim Morris: That wraps up this episode. Thank you to CBS 13 Sacramento for granting us use of an excerpt and the rice coverage. And thank you to our interviewees, Assemblymember, Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, Julia Barfield and Greg Golet with the Nature Conservancy and rice grower, John Brennan. You can find out much more information about California rice, including a link to all of the podcast episodes, and you can also find a special page we've set up with the latest on impacts of the ongoing drought. All of that, and more are at calrice.org, that's calrice.org. Thanks for listening.

Host Dave Schlom talks to two scientists and a farmer about the incredible delta ecosystem. First The Nature Conservancy's Rodd Kelsey and Point Blue Conservation Science ecologist Kristen Dybala talk about the scientific management of water and wildlife in the delta region for the benefit of nature and human interests -- especially agriculture. Then organic farmer and Nature Conservancy Land Manager and organic farmer Dawit Zeleke talk about the incredible property run by the TNC in the heart of the delta known as Staten Island.

The coming weeks will be busy in the Sacramento Valley, as highly-skilled pilots plant this year’s rice crop. Farmers are no stranger to challenges, and this year is no different. Below-par rain and snowfall have led to water cutbacks of at least 25 percent valley wide, which will lead to an as yet undetermined drop in rice plantings. “There are a lot of fields that won’t be planted on my farm and throughout the state because of a lack of water,” said Sean Doherty, rice grower in Dunningan. “That’s what you do in years like this. You cut back and work with what you have.” Less rice planted has repercussions beyond farms and mills. Rice is an integral part of the Sacramento Valley, providing more than $5 billion to the economy and 25,000 jobs. Rural communities that depend on farming will be impacted, as well as the environment – fewer rice fields planted means less habitat for hundreds of wildlife species.  “Every year, we’re concerned about species that are already listed as threatened, endangered or species of concern,” said Meghan Hertel, Director of Land and Water Conservation at Audubon California. “Unfortunately, in a drought, it’s not just the species of concern that we’re worried about – the ones with the low populations – we’re also worried about common birds.” A recent study from Cornell University study estimates a plunge of the overall bird population by three billion over the last 50 years. She said rice fields are vital for wildlife, especially in a dry year like this one. “Every year, rice fields are important for habitat,” she said. “That’s because, in the Sacramento Valley, we’ve lost 90 to 95 percent of our natural habitat, so much of the ground that birds and other wildlife are using is actually in active rice production. We call it surrogate habitat for birds and wildlife, and in some cases it’s providing two-thirds of the diet of wintering waterfowl.” She said this dry year will mean birds will have to congregate on the fewer acres where water is on the landscape, which means less available food for wildlife. Hertel said there is excellent collaboration in the Sacramento Valley, to support farms and the environment. “Partnerships, communication and collaboration are key. Working together, we can make the best of what we do have.” Collaboration is also a key to helping the state’s struggling salmon population. Jacob Katz, Lead Scientist at Cal Trout has been working with rice farmers and water districts for years now, and said tremendous progress has been made to help salmon. He said rice fields can be used to mimic the incredibly productive wetland habitats that were in the Sacramento Valley before it was developed. “It means slowing water down across the floodplain,” he remarked. “It means spreading it out, creating the puddles that typified the floodplain wetlands before development of the valley, that’s similar to the surrogate wetlands that rice fields are managed as.  What we’ve found is those fields fill up with fish food, with bugs. It only takes three weeks or so to go from a dry field to a shallow, wetland-like environment, and three weeks later it’s teeming with bugs, with fish food. We’ve been working with farmers, water suppliers and reclamation districts to grow the food on these fields, but then to actively drain it back to the river where fish can access it in dry years like this. That’s a really important piece.” “There’s extraordinary room for optimism,” he added. “We’ve shown that the Sacramento Valley can be resilient, can produce benefits for both people and for the environment. Look at the bird response over the last 30 years, as rice growers and water suppliers came together to offer our feathered friends some semblance of the habitat that they evolved in, that they were adapted to. And those birds recognized those flooded rice fields as wetlands…. We can do the same thing for salmon. We have every evidence to suggest that that’s true. That if we hit every link in the salmon’s life history, if we connect their juvenile and adult life phases, we can have a phenomenal response from our fish populations.” Water management is always a balancing act, but the job is especially challenging this year. Thad Bettner is General Manager of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, the largest water district in the Sacramento Valley, spanning 175,000 acres, including rural communities, many rice farms and three federal wildlife refuges.  He is navigating through several subjects, including potential voluntary agreements and water transfers. He said longer term additional water storage would pay major dividends in future dry years. “Water storage would be huge,” he said. “We are looking at Sites Reservoir… we believe the time is now for that. One of the great things about Sites Reservoir is it’s downstream from Shasta Reservoir, so it provides this midstream benefit of being able to regulate the system and really manage for multiple benefits—water supply, meeting the needs of the environment and carryover storage. Sites would help meet all of those goals.” Jim Morris: May in the Sacramento Valley involves an interesting sight - high speed, low flying airplanes planting America's next crop of sushi rice. In fact, I have an airplane heading my way right now! And there is excitement with a new season, but this year is not without its challenges. Welcome to Ingrained the California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris. Proud to have worked with California farmers and ranchers for more than 30 years to help tell their stories. I'm in Sutter County, watching precision GPS guided planting, and it is an amazing site. Even with the benefits rice has to our cuisine, economy and environment, we are not immune from impacts of a dry year. Jim Morris: There will be many things to keep an eye on during this dry year. One of them is the environment. And here in the Sacramento Valley, we're on the Pacific Flyway, so virtually every trip through this area, there are wonderful sites. I was at a farm this morning and they had a bald eagle sighting. So, that's great. However, this dry year won't be easy, not just for the cities and farms, but there are certainly pressure on our diverse ecosystem. Meghan Hertel is director of land and water conservation at Audubon California. And Meghan, as we have this dry year unfold, what are some of your concerns for wildlife? Meghan Hertel: Water is essential, not just for human life, but also for wildlife. And here in California, we have a really interesting water cycle. So the rain falls in fall and winter, and it creates water in the ground, it feeds the habitat and it feeds the wetlands and the rice fields that birds are using. And then most of our waterfall is in the form of snowpack. And that snowpack is released throughout the year and used for our farms and cities, and also to create river flows and to serve the habitats throughout the year. And this year we didn't get rain and we don't have much snowpack. And that means impacts to our habitat and to our wildlife. Jim Morris: Are there particular species you'll keep a watch on as the year unfolds that you're especially concerned about? Meghan Hertel: Every year we're concerned about species that are already listed as threatened or endangered or species of concern. So great examples of this are the salmon, least bell's vireo, from the bird example, or yellow billed cuckoo. Also, the giant garter snake, which we find frequently throughout the Sacramento Valley associated with rice fields and wetlands. But unfortunately in a drought, it's not just the species of concerns we're worried about, the ones with the low populations. We're also worried about common birds. So, Cornell University, last year released a study that showed in the last 50 years we've lost three billion birds, and it's not just the rare ones, it's actually the common birds. So in a year like this, where there'll be less habitat on the ground and less food for birds, we worry about those common birds as well. Jim Morris: How important are rice fields in the equation, particularly when you're looking at a year when there's not going to be a lot of water naturally on the landscape? Meghan Hertel: Well, every year rice fields are important for habitat and that's because in the Sacramento Valley we've lost 90 to 95 percent of our natural habitat. So, much of the ground that birds and other wildlife are using is actually in active rice production. We call it surrogate habitat for birds and wildlife. And in some cases, it's providing two-thirds of the diet of wintering waterfowl. So that's a big amount. Unfortunately in a year like this, we are seeing cutbacks, not just in race, but also in our wetlands. The water system that serves our rice serves our remaining wetlands as well. And so as we see the reduction of habitat, that means birds are going to have to concentrate in fewer areas and they're going to have less food. Jim Morris: One of the ways I hope that is helpful, are these great partnerships between organizations like yourself, rice growers, and other interested parties in the Sacramento Valley. Comment a little bit, please on those partnerships and how valuable they are, particularly in a year like this. Meghan Hertel: Absolutely. Partnerships, communication and collaboration are key. When there are not enough resources, particularly water, that's so important to all of us, to go around, we need to sit down and talk about how we use the limited amount of water that we've got. And that means using science to understand the trade-offs and then maximizing what water we have to reach multiple benefits. And so that's supporting farms, but also saving some water to support habitat, or looking for ways to put water out on the agricultural landscape that both grows food and also supports habitat. The choices won't always be easy, and we certainly are all going to feel a pinch this year and see cutbacks, but by working together, we can make the best of what we do have. Meghan Hertel: One of the things we learned during the last drought, is that it's very important to work together, to come up with scientifically sound collaborative solutions, to put water on the landscape when and where birds needed. A great example of this is the Migratory Bird Conservation Partnership, which is a partnership between Audubon, the Nature Conservancy and Point Blue Conservation Science. We've been working with rice growers and water districts for almost a decade. And when the last drought hit, we were able to put special practices out, putting water on rice fields in spring and early fall to support migratory shorebirds. And there were days where it was the only water on the landscape for birds. And this just shows the importance of collaboration in hard times like drought. Jim Morris: The farm we're at here in Sutter County, is dry, they're working the fields, but it will have rice in it. And this is one of the places that I have seen cattle egrets in their marvelous breeding plumage. It is exciting to see the wildlife. And one of my favorite times is nesting season of shorebirds. Tell me a little bit about that. Obviously there will be a little pressure with less land available, but it is a marvelous sight to see the avocets, stilts, et cetera. So what are your thoughts when you see shorebird nesting? Meghan Hertel: It really gives me hope. It shows that, when we are able to provide habitat here, that nature responds and it wants to have a fighting chance. What we do on the landscape will decide the future of the Central Valley, both for people and birds. And the nesting is a perfect example. So when they are able to find suitable places to nest, that means future generations of birds will be here, and that's a hopeful sign. Jim Morris: It's a very busy time here in the Sacramento Valley rice country with planting underway. I'm with Sean Doherty, a third generation family farmer headquartered here in Dunnigan, near the Yolo Colusa County line. And he farms in Yolo Colusa and Sutter counties with his wife, Melissa, their three kids and famous rice dogs Skeeter and Miss Vegas. So, Sean, what's happening on the farm right now? Sean Doherty: Mainly right now, we are focusing on just putting water on the ground and getting the rice fields ready for water. We are not hurrying like we do in normal years, just because we're just not planning a lot of fields because we don't have the water for them. And so, consequently, we're just getting it done and we're not rushing and we're not working overtime, we're just watching our costs and trying to get this crop in as best we can. There's a lot of fields that aren't getting planted this year across the state, not just on my farm. Jim Morris: When the water goes on to the rice fields and then seeding occurs, people may drive by and they see that water out there, but they may not fully understand the efficiency and the care that's involved in that water. Can you comment a little bit about that? Sean Doherty: That's what we're doing today in these fields right now, in a lot of them as we are going out there and running these GPS controlled drag buckets and leveling our fields to level. And so when we flood it, that way we can cover the soil with as little water as possible. You're talking less than ankle deep. If you don't sink in the mud, just an inch or two skim across these fields is all we need. Jim Morris: You mentioned the muddy conditions out there and I've had a shoe or two lost in a rice field when I didn't wear the right mud boots. So how important is that kind of condition for growing rice and using water efficiently? Sean Doherty: It's bathtub out there. I mean, it holds water like no other soil. You just fill up the soil profile and it doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't go percolate deep underground into the aquifer. In most places, it takes forever to do that. It's just because our ground is heavy, heavy clay, and it's the same type of ground when it gets wet and you try and walk on it and you get 10 pounds of mud on each boot, that's the type of ground that we're growing our crop of rice in. And it's the best ground there is for growing rice because we don't lose the water deep. It just, you're filling up a shallow bowl, like a milk saucer, if you will, with a skim of water and then you're flying your rice seed onto that. And that's what we're working with. So it's really efficient for using that water. And there's a whole lot of multiple efficiencies that we're using across the state here to make the most of our water. Sean Doherty: In my particular irrigation district, where I farm a fair bit of rice, is RD-108. And we have a recirculation system in this district where we can take water from the bottom of the district, and with two pumps, with two lifts, we can take water three quarters of the way back up to the top of the district and we reuse it again. And it allows us to a much more flexibility in these really dry years and to take less water off the river and leave more for the Delta outflows and for fish and for the environment when we operate this recirculation  system. It's not something that you can do year in year out, because you'll have degrading factors with using multiple uses of recycled water, but in these really dry, critically dry years, this is something that we can do to benefit the environment as well. Jim Morris: I'm continually impressed with the diversity of creatures that are out this way. And you've been great to send me photos. And we had a game camera up that captured a lot of the nighttime activity. So you live and work in this environment. Tell me a little bit about the wildlife and some of the things that you see. Sean Doherty: Just this morning, a big flock of pelicans riding the wind, giant garter snakes are the hardest animal to get a picture of, because as soon as you see them on the side of the road or side of the ditch bank and you stop to take their picture, they're gone, they are so fast. Gopher snakes, all kinds of reptiles aplenty. Beavers, otters, wild turkeys, along the riparian corridors alongside where we get our water and where we deliver water out to the fields, pheasants, ducks, shorebirds, herons, cranes, you name it. There's muskrats. I really like being out here and being a rice grower, just because you can see all of that. And I'm happy to provide that for the animals and make a living doing it as well. Jim Morris: And it is going to be a challenge for wildlife too. So, how important are the rice fields this year? Because there's even less opportunities for birds and all the other species that you talked about. It is very helpful to have that rice ecosystem in place. Sean Doherty: I'm worried about having water for the waterfowl this fall and winter coming back into the Valley. And if we don't have the water to put on these fields and these ducks and geese and swans and all the raptors that prey upon those on the flyway, if the habitat doesn't return, I'm worried about what happens to them and the lasting damage it could cause. We have to figure something out, because you can't have the primary wintering habitat for the Pacific Flyway not show up one year. If I'm going to stress about anything more so than the farm, it's what's to happen to the flyway. Jim Morris: I'm in Willows speaking with Thad Bettner, general manager of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, the largest water district in the Sacramento Valley,  covering about 175,000 acres. A significant part of that is rice ground. And GCID recently celebrated their 100th anniversary. And in the time I've known Thad, he's not one to stand still very long, especially in a year like this. So how does your work change during a dry year like this one that we're facing? Thad Bettner: Jim like you said, there's no time to stand still. These years are certainly one of the craziest ones that we face. There's just a lot of work that we have to do both externally and internally, obviously just from an external side, really looking at the drought conditions, how they're affecting the state. We look at things like Shasta Reservoir, status of fisheries, our operations, and then we look internally about, well, what choices are landowners making? How do we serve the multiple needs that we have within our district, from crop needs to environmental needs, to making sure we're being good stewards of the groundwater. So, in a year like this, there's just a lot of decisions that need to be taken into account. And a lot of those decisions happen daily. So it's not just, you can make a decision, expect the rest of the year to play out, but we have to make those decisions on a daily basis. Thad Bettner: We have about 175,000 acres, included in that is the three federal refuges. So working with them and their needs for water and getting water to them on a secure basis is a really important, but then all of our growers who need water from us, we need to make sure they have the information to make the decisions that they want to make this year. In these types of years, we know land is going to have to be idled because we just don't have enough water. So we want to make sure they have the tools to figure out how much land can they farm, what crops do they want to grow this year? How much water do they have to grow those crops? And then, we're also anticipating water transfers actually, which help us with operations and benefit the fishery. Thad Bettner: So, do they want to participate in water transfer? So trying to get all that information out to them so they can make that decision is really important. And then obviously, the decisions they make affects decisions that we then make. And so, it is sort of a process where we have to kind of do a constant level of feedback with them, just to make sure they're up to speed on decisions that we're making and they're making. Jim Morris: Water transfers, as you mentioned very likely this year, how helpful are they in terms of overall water management, including for the environment? Thad Bettner: Well, first look, water transfers are tough. Certainly, there's economic issues resulting from that, there's jobs that may be affected, there are some impacts that water transfers cause. And so I think we want to make sure we're careful in how we consider them as a potential solution to some of our problems. And one of the unique things that water transfers off offer for us as a district, and I think for our customers, is that when we're trying to benefit salmon and particularly this case, winter-run salmon, the thing that we can do with water transfers is, landowners, when they fallow their field, they don't take that water. And what happens is we take that water and we actually leave it behind Shasta Reservoir through the season. And then we move that transfer water in the fall. Thad Bettner: And one of the big benefits that we get is it actually increases the amount of water stored behind Shasta, where it also increases the amount of cold water that’s store behind Shasta. And then that asset can be used to provide cold water downstream to the river, to protect winter-run salmon as they spawn. So, it helps her eggs incubate and then it helps out migrating juveniles. So it really has a huge benefit to the system overall. So, in these types of really tight years, water transfers provide that benefit of being sort of a reasonable balance of protecting fish and then making sure the balance of our lands within the district continue to be farmed. Jim Morris: Another way you protect fish is your amazing fish screen. I believe it's the largest of its kind in the world. Can you comment about that? Thad Bettner: In high school, I used to be able to run a quarter mile in a minute. And so, if you could run that fast, you could basically cover the length of our fish screen. So it is a pretty big feature. I have to say predecessors before me got that project done, it's been in existence now for almost 25 years and it's been just a solid asset for the district. I think one of the interesting things is, as that project came about, there just wasn't a lot of knowledge known about fish screens, how to build them, how to make sure that they would provide a benefit to the species. So, I think our fish screen was kind of one of the first of its kind and really was a test case and a testbed for a lot of decisions that fishery managers had never needed to make before. Thad Bettner: And I think one of the exciting things is, one, that it's been a successful project. And then two, a lot of the other fish screen projects that are built on the Sacramento River, and I think other places in the country, have actually utilized a lot of the information that was gleaned from the actual construction of our project. And as well, some of the adaptive management. It was built, I think they got probably 85 percent of it right, but there was some about 15 percent of things that we've tweaked along the way to make it a better operating facility and continue to provide better protection for fish. And I think those lessons learned have helped other projects again, like in our area and other parts of the United States. Jim Morris: Besides fish, there's also a really vibrant environment in the Sacramento Valley with the Pacific Flyway. How important is it to maintain that environment? Thad Bettner: We take seriously a lot of managing the trade-offs and decisions that we have to make. And certainly continuing to protect the Pacific Flyway and the needs of birds moving up and down this part of the Western US, is important. And the Sac Valley plays a huge part of that. So we talked about fallowing earlier. We don't take lightly the fact that when we fallow lands, a good chunk of that is rice. And so, that's the food that these overwintering birds are relying upon. And so really our goal is to make sure that we leave as much land in production. So, while we're doing transfers, some land's coming out, but really the goal is to keep the maximum that we can to provide that food base for the Pacific Flyway. Thad Bettner: So, when we do years like this, we make sure acreage is spread around. So birds have places to fly. We coordinate with the local refuges and ask them, "Hey, where do you want lands? Where would it be okay to fallow lands or idle lands in here, versus what lands would you want to be in production?" Just because we know that every night you see birds fly off the refuge, they go out and they forage out in the rice lands. And during the day they fly back to the refuge. So the managers know how these birds are moving back and forth locally. So we really tried to make sure as we do some of the fallowing, we're focusing on the needs of the Pacific Flyway and what those birds need. Jim Morris: Our environment is impressive in the Sacramento Valley. I saw two bald eagles this morning in Willows, and we also offer significant habitat for the threatened giant garter snake. So, so glad that this effort is continuing. And in a dry year like this voluntary agreements have come up as a topic of discussion. Can you comment about what they are and how they may help? Thad Bettner: Voluntary agreements is really what we believe is the right solution for the State Water Resources Control Board update of the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan. And the board has really been looking at what they've called their unimpaired flow approach, which is, "Hey, we'll just take a percent of the flow in the river, we'll leave it in the river. And that'll fix a lot of the fishery problems that we have." And we just don't believe it's that simple of a solution to fix. It's a lot more complicated in terms of timing of flow, we need a lot more habitat that we currently don't have. And then we need a solid base of funding to get a lot of these projects done. So we've put together voluntary agreements as a proposal, and as an alternative, and we think our preferred alternative to that unimpaired flow approach, in 2020 the state had put out a proposal, what they believed was a voluntary agreement package. Thad Bettner: And then unfortunately we got COVID, a month and a half later we had fires, and fortunately no floods this year, so we're in drought. But I think we had about everything else pop-up that sort of just distracted us from getting back in the room and trying to get voluntary agreements done. So starting in about August, we got together with the water user community, and we really worked on our own version of what we thought was the right package to move forward and kind of had been working on that and telling the state we're ready to meet with them and kind of waiting for them to get back to us. Thad Bettner: And then oddly enough, right in the midst of a lot of this drought, decision making that we need to do, the state called us week and half ago and said, "Hey, we're ready to start meeting and let's get going on this." So, now as we speak, we're actually starting the conversations back up with the state to see if we can get a voluntary agreement package moving again. And obviously, we're hoping not to do this in the midst of a drought because it just means that we're trying to tackle other problems too, but we're trying to add this to our plate and see if we can't get this done. Jim Morris: Sleep is overrated this year, I guess. So we have the short-term issues that we're talking about, voluntary agreements, water transfers, obviously always maximizing efficiency. Looking longer term, how helpful would additional water storage be and who would benefit from that? Thad Bettner: Water storage would be huge. I think obviously we're looking at Sites Reservoir, one, it sits next to us. We've been involved in this project for decades. So we believe kind of the time is now for that. And I think one of the great things about Sites Reservoir is, it's downstream of Shasta Reservoir. So it kind of provides this middle, midstream benefit and being able to regulate the system and really manage for multiple benefits. So, we've talked about water supply, meeting needs of the environment, carryover storage. So looking at not just this year, but next year. Sites would really help meet all of those goals. So we really think it provides a lot of benefit. And, in a year like this where we're challenged with temperature and flows for a winter-run, Sites Reservoir would help integrating the system and provide those benefits too. Jim Morris: I'm in Knights Landing, one of the areas that's a hotbed for some interesting and promising research to help salmon, not only a key part of our environment, but a key indicator of water issues in our state. Jacob Katz is lead scientist at Cal Trout, an important partner in preserving and enhancing salmon in California. Jacob has a PhD in Ecology from UC Davis. And I have to say, perhaps a greatest opening line, short of “Call me Ishmael,” your bio starts with, “Jacob was born with gills.” That is so cool. And Jacob, pivoting to the dry year we're having, there are some concerns. And what are your thoughts for our Sacramento Valley as we head into a dry year? Jacob Katz: A dry year like this is a tough year to be a salmon. We've got used to the fact that it's our flood years happen maybe every two, maybe four lucky, three out of every 10 years, that prop up our salmon populations. And it's years like this one that are really rough because the Sac River and the other tribs are down low in their levees and those rivers are just real tough places to be a fish, when there's very little habitat, when the water is low and clear and tends to be warm pretty early. So yeah, this is exactly the kind of conditions where we really have to think out of the box, out of the levees, to get those fish as much food and habitat as we can. Jim Morris: How can you do that? Jacob Katz: Well, the field that we're standing in here, Jim, is one that River Garden Farms has been letting us trial some ideas with over the last four or five years. They've been a great partner as have a lot of the other growers in this region on the west side of the river, as well as over on the Sutter side, a lot of folks have been getting together to look at how we can use farm fields to mimic the incredibly productive wetland habitats that were here before the development of the Sac Valley for farms for our rural communities. So what's that mean? It means slowing water down across the floodplain, it means spreading it out. It means really creating the puddles that typified the floodplain wetlands before development of the Valley. Jacob Katz: That's similar to the surrogate wetlands that rice fields are managed as, but what we found is those fields fill up with fish food, with bugs. It only takes three weeks or so to do that, to go from a dry field to a shallow wetland like environment. And three weeks later, it's teeming with bugs, which are essentially fish food. But unlike the ducks and the geese, which have rebounded because of their use of these surrogate wetland habitats, the fish don't have wings. They can't access that fish food out here on the floodplain. And so we've been working with farmers and water suppliers and reclamation districts to grow the food on these fields, but then to actively drain it back to the river where fish can access it in dry years like this. That's a really important piece. Jim Morris: The very field that we're in. I have seen you and your colleague, Jacob Montgomery in there with beakers and the fish food, the zooplankton is absolutely unbelievable. You don't have to guess, you can actually see how much there is in there that could really help the fish. And how important is that this year when it's so dry out there? Jacob Katz: You can just ask the fish, the fish that we have reared in these fields, they swim around with their eyes closed and their mouth open. We call it floating filet if you're a salmon, they are just... They're gorging on the protein production from these fields. These fields are really mimicking the incredible productive capacity of wetlands. Sunlight is being captured by plants, those plants then are broken down by microbes in the shallow water that's out here in a flooded field. Those nutrients then are taken up by bacteria. The bacteria are grazed upon by zooplankton, by small bugs, and those small bugs then are the foundation of the food web for fish. That's how the Valley makes salmon, how it once made salmon. Jacob Katz: And so in a dry year like this, when there's very little out of bank flow in the river, when most of the river flow is stuck within those levees, it's critically important that we reconnect this energy source with the river, that we reconnect the floodplain food web, the energy that comes off these flooded fields back with the river. And that's exactly the program that we've been doing right here with RD-108 and River Garden, where we've been pumping this fish food-rich water back into the river and seeing how fast salmon grow on that Jim Morris: RD-108 meaning, Reclamation District 108, which is about 30 miles north of Sacramento, and a very key player in terms of making things happen to help the environment. And it's going to be a difficult year, but is there reason for optimism when you look at some of the partnerships that have been formed here? Jacob Katz: Oh, there's extraordinary room for optimism. It's already right here. We've shown that the Sac Valley can be resilient, can produce benefits for both people and for the environment. Look at the bird response over the last 30 years, as rice growers and as water suppliers came together to offer our feathered friends some semblance of the habitat that they evolved in, that they were adapted to. And those birds recognized those flooded rice fields as wetlands. And, in the midst of all of this doom and gloom, you hear about the environment. We're here in the Sac Valley, in the midst of this amazing recovery of waterfowl and waterbird populations, where when I was a kid in the Valley 30 years ago, not only was the sky black with smoke, but the birds were at all-time lows. And now, year in and year out, we get these really great counts. Jacob Katz: The work that I've been talking about really can do the same thing for salmon. We have every evidence to suggest that that's true, that if we hit every link in the salmon's life history, in that chain, if we connect their juvenile and their adult life phases, we can have a phenomenal response from our fish populations. We've seen that in Butte Creek, and we can see it again in the Sacramento River, even in dry years like this, if we can re-imagine and re-operate our water and flood infrastructure to mimic natural processes to get this incredible food resource that is now stuck on the dry side of the levees, in these dry years we see that we can make it out here and move it back to the river where the fish can take advantage of it, where they can grow big and strong and have a chance even in dry years like this one. Jim Morris: That wraps up this episode, but we will keep you posted as the year progresses. Thank you to Meghan Hertel, Sean Doherty, Thad Bettner, and Jacob Katz for their time and expertise. We appreciate you listening and we value your comments. You can go to podcast.calrice.org to find out more.

The vital signs of the planet – CO2, global temperatures and sea levels rising – are telling us that it is in the midst of a medical emergency. What does it mean to be a human being on Earth when every living system is declining, and the rate of that decline is accelerating? What is our role in setting the planet on the path to healing? Ellie Cohen is the CEO of The Climate Center, and a leader in catalyzing cross-boundary, collaborative, and just responses to the climate crisis. She is leading the campaign to help California, the world's fifth largest economy, serve as a model for the rest of the country and the world. Each year the cathedral chooses a theme for inspiration and reflection, and in 2021 our theme is healing. Join Dean Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation in advance of Earth Day about where we are today, where we need to be tomorrow, and how we're going to get there. About the guest Ellie Cohen, CEO of The Climate Center, is a leader in catalyzing cross-boundary, collaborative, and just responses to the climate crisis. She oversees the statewide Climate-Safe California campaign to achieve net-negative emissions by 2030, to capture more carbon than we are emitting, catalyzing the nation and the world into accelerated climate action. Ellie served as President and CEO of Point Blue Conservation Science for 20 years where she and the organization's 160 scientists developed climate-smart conservation solutions for wildlife and people. Under her leadership, the organization grew five-fold to a workforce of 200 and was invited as an Observer NGO to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. An honors graduate of Duke University (botany) and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (MPP), Ellie has received numerous accolades including the Beyond Duke Alumni Award for Service and Leadership (2019), the National Park Service Pacific West Region Partnership Award (2018), and the Bay Nature Environmental Hero Award (2012). Ellie currently serves as an appointed member of the San Anselmo Sustainability Commission. You can follow Ellie on  Twitter and LinkedIn.

I travel on a supply boat 30 miles of the coast of San Francisco to visit the remote Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. This rocky outcrop in the Pacific is home to millions of birds, five species of seals, whales and great white sharks - it is the Galapagos of the Northern Hemisphere! I meet up with Pete Warzybok with Point Blue Conservation Science who has spent much of the past 20 years studying the wildlife of the Farallones and I learn about what happens when we leave nature alone.

If you think your nearest highway packs a lot of traffic, it probably doesn’t hold a candle to the air traffic in the Sacramento Valley each fall and winter. This is the time of year for the massive and masterful Pacific Flyway Migration, where millions of birds travel thousands of miles. Fresh from harvest, Sacramento Valley rice fields are a key rest and refuel stop for ducks, geese, and shorebirds. Combined with nearby wetlands, this part of Northern California provides an invaluable habitat to many a weary winged traveler.  Rice growers work with conservationists to ensure their fields are bird-friendly, including Avian Ecologist Kristin Sesser with Point Blue Conservation Science. Kristin and her colleagues have a multi-faceted approach to wildlife conservation. They are part of a great collaboration between farmers and conservation organizations.  “There’s no way we could succeed in our work without our amazing conservation partners. They make the work more enjoyable to engage in, the science stronger, and the programs and practices more enduring,” she remarked. “These partners include the California Rice Commission and the rice farmers themselves, as well as NRCS, The Nature Conservancy and Audubon California. We all work together to enhance the rice landscape for waterbirds.” Hopefully, working together, waterbirds will continue to flourish in the Central Valley for future generations to enjoy.   Episode Transcript Charley Mathews Jr.: Living out in rice country is special to me. There are people in the world that like to live near an ocean, near a river, near a creek, just for that comforting background noise. It's that type of white noise that's comforting. Out here, it's a different type of white noise. We have white swans, white geese, white shorebirds, all very noisy. But it's also something that's very comforting. For me, it's part of my childhood. It's something that I always remember. Jim Morris: Rice grower, Charley Mathews Jr. commenting on this remarkable time of the year in the Sacramento Valley. Charley lives in Marysville, which is a very popular wildlife stopover, and one bird, in particular, attracts a lot of attention year after year. Charley Mathews Jr.: The White Tundra Swan is probably the largest of the migrating birds. It mixes in well with the migrating ducks and geese. It's a huge bird. It's got a particularly loud sound. Its wings flap and hit the water when they take off, and it's become very popular. They're also very helpful to the rice farmer because, what they're doing with their extra-large web feet, is they're helping incorporate that rice straw, and soil, together to get it to decompose. And it's kind of like having free labor. Jim Morris: A few inches of water in those same fields that produce America's sushi rice, now provide a vital habitat for millions of birds. The environment has taken center stage in rice country, and it's time for the Pacific Flyway migration. Welcome to Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast, episode three. I'm your host Jim Morris. I've worked with farmers and ranchers for nearly 30 years, and I'm a passionate supporter. Rice farmers in particular, deliver two major benefits to our state: growing food and nurturing wildlife. And it's time to get back on the road so we can visit with a key conservation partner. Not too far from Charley Mathews Jr. and Marysville, and all of the Tundra swans, and geese, and ducks, is Montna Farms, near Yuba City. And there are Tundra swans, geese, ducks, and shorebirds out here, as well as Kristin Sesser, of Point Blue Conservation Science. Jim Morris: Kristin, some people spend their nine to five in an office. You and I once in a while, get out and get to see this beauty. What does it all mean to you when you're out here? Kristin Sesser: I really love being in the rice fields in the Sacramento Valley. I've been watching birds since I was a kid. And in these rice fields, we are just surrounded by birds. There's something to look at everywhere. Jim Morris: Absolutely true. And especially this time of the year, with it being the Pacific Flyway migration. So for those who don't really understand what the Pacific Flyway is, can you explain? Kristin Sesser: Well, I think of the Pacific Flyway, as something of a highway in the sky. And so there are a lot of birds that nest in Alaska and Canada, and then they move to more Southern climes for the winter, and they come through along the Pacific Flyway. And some of them are heading down as far south as Chile and Argentina. Other birds actually stay, and winter here in the ricelands, and the managed wetlands of the Sacramento Valley. Jim Morris: How much variety of wildlife do we have coming on this big journey? Kristin Sesser: Well, we have birds as small as a Rufous Hummingbird, which you can see at feeders here in the Sacramento Valley. And then birds like the small, little, Least Sandpiper, which are here out in the ricelands, and I can even see some now. Then anywhere from birds as fast as the Peregrine Falcon, and as big and majestic as these Tundra Swans that we're surrounded by. Jim Morris: When these millions of birds make their trek, how important are rice fields in the Central Valley, for that part of the equation? Kristin Sesser: Well for waterbirds, the ricelands, and then the managed wetlands that the ricelands surround, are critically important. Many of these birds get quite a bit of their nutrition throughout the winter from rice. And it's an important place for them to rest and refuel, and they basically spend their whole winters here. Jim Morris: And how does Point Blue, help this process in rice country to make sure the habitat is the best it can be? Kristin Sesser: We do quite a bit of science to support the conservation efforts. And we also work with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, NRCS, to work on and develop practices that enhance ricelands for waterbirds. And some of that science, it can vary from using telemetry to track birds, to using satellites to understand... To track the water, and understand where the water is moving, and when it becomes available and when it's not. Jim Morris: And telemetry, that caught my ear. So what does that mean? Kristin Sesser: So telemetry is, we put these transmitters on the birds. They wear it like a backpack, and then we can use antennas to track where they go. And so, we have in the past, put transmitters on Dunlin, which is a small-medium-ish shorebird, and then also Long-billed Dowitchers. And so the Dunlin was kind of an interesting case. And that's where some of the Dunlin, we actually tracked them day and night. There were Dunlin, individual Dunlin, that would spend both the nights, they would sleep in the rice fields, and then they would actually forage in the rice fields the next day. And then there were some Dunlin that would spend the nights in the rice fields, but then go to managed wetlands during the day. And so, it just really showed us how important having both flooded rice, and managed wetlands are for these Dunlin. Jim Morris: That's cool because you would not have known otherwise except for that very high tech research that was done. So, unfortunately, over the decades, the worldwide bird population is down. What can you draw from that in terms of trying to maintain what we have here in rice country? Kristin Sesser: It's true that especially shorebirds have declined quite a bit over the last 50 years. And we think one opportunity is... I would like to point out that one of the bright spots was waterfowl populations. Many of them are actually doing much better, than some of the other birds. And if we can expand some of this wonderful habitat for waterfowl, to include a bit more shorebird habitat, which tends to be on the shallower side, I think we can really make a difference for shorebirds. Jim Morris: And when you say shallower, so the water depth is critical, right? Some birds love it, really shallow other birds, like a few more inches in the field. So, that would be very helpful. And I think you were destined to be out here because, in college at Humboldt State, you actually worked on a project involving a rice bird. Can you explain? Kristin Sesser: Sure. So I did my thesis at Humboldt State University, on Long-billed Curlews. So, Long-billed Curlew is the largest shorebird in North America. They have a very long bill, hence the name. And I studied a group of about 10 birds. They nested in Oregon and Nevada, and they came to the Central Valley. And they spend about nine months of their lives in the Central Valley, and only go up to Oregon and Nevada, for those three months, to attempt nesting. And for a set of those birds, they spent almost their entire winters in the ricelands, and the wetlands of the Sacramento Valley. And so, it was a fun place. I spent a lot of time, even before I started work at Point Blue, traveling the rice roads, and looking for my Curlews. Jim Morris: That's awesome. And for those of you who like the 49ers, there's a little bit of history, that actually does somewhat involve a Curlew. Because the curlew is also called the candlestick bird. And that's where Candlestick Point and Candlestick Park, got their name. Do you know what a group of Curlew is called? Kristin Sesser: [Laughs] I don’t. I think it's just a flock. Jim Morris: Okay, well, people have fun names for bird groups. I've read that a group of Curlew is called, a curfew. Kristin Sesser: Oh my goodness, that's great. Jim Morris: So we've established how gorgeous of an area this is, worth protecting, hopefully for generations to come. So, Kristin, what is a perfect day in the field look like to you? Kristin Sesser: Oh, that's a good question. I would have to say, it would include sunrise. So a lot of the work we do is, we try and get out in different times of the day, because the birds move around at different times. Any day I can be out here doing some science to support conservation. And then when I get to see a lot of different species. So, when I'm in rice country, and they're shallow fields, and deep fields. And just the sound is part of it, is there are so... The calls of all the different species, it's really amazing. Jim Morris: I echo Kristin’s thoughts. I get to see wildlife in rice fields several times a week. It always gets my heart pumping, always brings joy. Whether it's seeing a bald eagle, giant garter snake, or any of the nearly 230 wildlife species found in rice. What we have in that environment is exceptional. And one of my favorites is this odd-sounding bird:  [Audio clip of bird call] Jim Morris: That's an American Bittern, which to me sounds a little like an office water cooler. They have brown speckled plumage. They try to hide and rice fields, but you can definitely see them if you keep your eyes open when you're traveling North of Sacramento. That wraps up this episode of Ingrained, but it's just the start of our environmental coverage. Coming soon, we'll have a look at how rice fields help ducks, and how those same fields are poised to help salmon. Very exciting research. Thank you to Kristin Sesser, Point Blue Conservation Science, Charley Mathews Jr., Montna Farms, Page Design, Social Crows, Kurt Richter, and Unearth Digital Media, for all of your help. And please spread the word about our podcast. We welcome your comments and questions. Go to podcast.calrice.org, for much more information. Thanks for listening.

Episode #57 with Breanna Owens is an interesting discussion of the migration of grey wolves into southern Oregon and Northern California and its effect on ranchers. Breanna herself is a rancher and Program Director for Working Circle Partnership which joins the California Wolf Center, Point Blue Conservation Science with local ranchers in Northern California. Her unique perspective provides insights into the challenges of managing wolves and cattle for the benefit of both. Breanna's E-mail: breanna@workingcircle.org for wolf info                            bowens@pointblue.org for Point Blue info Point Blue: https://www.pointblue.org/ California Wolf Center: http://www.californiawolfcenter.org/ Photos: 

Wendell Gilgert and Bre Owens discuss passion, purpose, deep listening, and the importance of collaboration between folks with different land ethics. Bre is the owner of Cobblestone Ranch and the Rangeland Watershed Initiative Coordinator at Point Blue Conservation Science, where she works under the mentorship of Wendell Gilgert to assist owners and operators of working lands in implementing conservation practices designed to improve landscape function for the benefit of wildlife and ranch sustainability. Mentioned in this Episode: Cobblestone Ranch Point Blue Conservation Science Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold The Shepard’s Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape by James Rebanks

During last week's mist net and bird banding field trip with Point Blue Conservation Science at the Palomarin Field Station facility just north of San Francisco, Marcia had the pleasure to hear the stories from four interns in the conservation science field. Marcia thought these stories were great to hear. She is sharing them with you in today's episode, with the goal that these young passionate people will inspire you to know there is hope in future generations protecting our planet.  Enjoy today's show hearing how Chad, Krista, Christian and Francoise  became involved with conservation science and our passionate about inspiring others to share their love and knowledge of the natural world.      Music by bensound.com, Introducation and Closing by Dale Wilman

Spring is the busy season for the avian ecologists and interns of Point Blue Conservation Science working at the Palomarin Field Station just north of Sausilito, California. Point Blue Conservation Science has been at the forefront of protecting nature for over half a century. The Palomarin Field Station is one of the premier national locations for long-term studies on birds and their habitats and training of the next generation of conservation scientists. I was able to visit with staff members and interns of Point Blue at the station on a gorgeous April Saturday morning. The woods were filled with the singing of very active songbirds getting ready to migrate or nest.  As I got my equipment ready to record the visit for the podcast, a few smiling interns walked by empty handed and then disappeared into the brush. People who works outside like this always look so happy and carefree, it made me smile. A few minutes later the interns re-appeared holding a white cotton bag they said contained a Ruby Crowned Kinglet that had flown into their mist nets, which you will hear more about in the podcast audio. Mark Dettling, the Point Blue avian ecologist was handed the bag and he clipped the bag onto a strap across his chest and began to warm up his hands for handling the bird for the bird banding process. Lishka Arata, the Outreach and Education Coordinator for Point Blue was also present and assisted Mark in explaining the procedure. The interview started with the bird banding but instead of beginning the audio there, I decided to put the bird banding explanation toward the end of this episode and lead with Mark and Lishka’s introductions. After the introductions, Mark and Lishka took me outside to walk to the net locations so I could get a better understanding of what the process and their research. We began at the closest mist nets and then walked the property around the station to several other mist net locations. My goal with the field trip was to take you, the listener, through the process in hopes you get the desire to visit the field station or a similar station near you to learn more about birds and how this research can give insight into the health of environment, how it is changing and how the birds, animals and plants are adapting. During this show you will hear ambient sounds such as some Townsend Warblers and other birds we encountered. You will also hear us slushing through mud puddles, breathing a little hard as we walked uphill and wind in the microphone. I hope you can get a feel for the walk, maybe close your eyes and listen and concentrate on the sounds of the outdoors. Enjoy the show and the photos of our trip in the show notes. More pictures of the bird banding and mist nets can be found at www.beprovided.com. Music by bensound.com and Introduction by Dale Wilman and Photos by Duperron Photography

Topic:Adapting to a changing climate Guest & Organization:Ellie Cohen, President and CEO of Point Blue Conservation Science since 1999, is a leader in catalyzing collaborative, nature-based solutions to climate change, habitat loss and other environmental challenges. She and Point Blue’s 160 scientists work with natural resource managers, ranchers, farmers, local governments and others to reduce the impacts of environmental change and develop climate-smart conservation approaches to benefit wildlife and people. Ellie is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Observer Organization representative for Point Blue. She is Immediate Past Chair and Steering Committee member of the CA Landscape Conservation Cooperative, an invited member of the SF Bay Area’s Resilient by Design Research Advisory Committee, and co-founder of the Bay Area Ecosystems Climate Change Consortium. Ellie was honored with the Bay Nature 2012 Environmental Hero Award for her climate change leadership. Ellie received her undergraduate degree in Botany with honors at Duke University and an MPP from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government where she was honored with the first Robert F. Kennedy Public Service Award. She speaks regularly on the urgent need to include nature-based approaches in the climate change solutions toolbox. http://www.pointblue.org/about-pointblue/our-team/president-ceo/ (Learn More about Ellie and her work here.) Jonathan Parfrey is the Executive Director and Founder of Climate Resolve, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, founded in 2010, that is dedicated to creating practical solutions to meet the climate challenge while making Southern California more livable and prosperous today and for generations to come by inspiring people at home, at work, and in government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution, as well as prepare for climate change impacts. Climate Resolve is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, founded in 2010, that is dedicated to creating real, practical solutions to meet the climate challenge while building a better city for Angelenos. Their mission is to make Southern California more livable and prosperous today and for generations to come by inspiring people at home, at work, and in government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution, as well as prepare for climate change impacts. Resources:http://infiniteearthacademy.com/podcast/bonn-chance/ (Infinite Earth Radio Episode 096: Bonn Chance) with Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists http://cityclimateplanner.org/ (City Climate Planner from the World Bank) http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/climatechange/brief/city-climate-planner-certificate-program (City Climate Planner Certificate Program) https://www.rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/the-Carbon-Free-City-Handbook-1.0.pdf (Carbon-Free City Handbook) (a publication released at COP23 at the UN 2017 climate conference in Bonn, Germany that helps city staff implement climate policies and actions that resolutely place their communities on an aggressive path toward sustainable, low-carbon economies) http://www.pointblue.org/ (Point Blue Conservation Science) http://climateresolve.org/ (Climate Resolve) https://www.lgc.org/ (Local Government Commission ) https://www.newpartners.org/ (2018 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference– February 1-3, 2018)

Some speed interviews highlighting various topics: Seabird Die off on the West Coast of the US, the creation of the largest marine protected area in the world in the Pacific Ocean, and an update on seastar wasting disease. (Guests: Russ Bradley, Point Blue Conservation Science, Lance Morgan, Marine Conservation Institute, and Pete Raimondi, UC Santa Cruz)

Hear passages and an overview of author Liz Cunningham's upcoming book Ocean Country. Liz travels to Indonesia, the Mediterranean, the CA Coast, the Turks and Caicos and more to discover how ocean conservation challenges are affecting real people and places right now. At the end of the show, we get an ocean update from Jaime Jahnke, Point Blue Conservation Science about the highlights from the latest Applied CA Current Ecosystem Studies (ACCESS) cruise.