At the last Sacramento Audubon Board meeting, we received a proposal from Dr. Michelle Stevens at CSU Sacramento for work at Bushy Lake. Bushy Lake is located within the Cal Expo Area of the 2008 American River Parkway Plan. In the American River Parkway Plan, the lake is designated as a Nature Study Area and further protected by the 1976 Bushy Lake Preservation Act. The Bushy Lake Preservation Act designates the approximately 86-acre site as a State Nature Preserve, with the primary intent of preserving important vegetation and wildlife species and their supporting ecosystems.
Bushy Lake is an important living laboratory for high-impact faculty-student research, citizen science, and community engagement. In 2015, Dr. Michelle Stevens, Professor, Department of Environmental Studies at Sacramento State, spearheaded an eco-cultural restoration project at Bushy Lake. Restoration included native species that are fire resilient, beneficial to pollinators and wildlife, and plants that honor California Indian people. These included Mugwort (Artemisia douglasiana) which is an important spiritual, ceremonial and medicine plant and white root (Carex barbarae) which is an important basketry plant and a cultural keystone species. Acknowledging the relationship between Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Western Ecological Knowledge provides an opportunity to show respect for the distinctive contributions of both intellectual traditions.
The Bushy Lake Preserve presents a unique opportunity to provide high quality bird habitat while incorporating students from Sacramento State and engaging the public. Sacramento Audubon will be working with Dr. Stevens to create and implement a breeding bird survey, while gathering additional information on plants within the site, continue ongoing photo documentation of mammal communities and overall site condition, while incorporating students at Sacramento State into all phases of the work. This initial year of data collection will be used to develop a long-term breeding bird monitoring program.
The results of this work will guide short and long term management of the site, as well as inform habitat restoration/enhancement projects within the site to promote bird and native plant communities. The addition of wildlife cameras will document mammal use of the site to guide restoration actions and inform bird habitat restoration plans that promote nesting and increased nest success by creating habitat that reduces the probability of mammalian nest predation. Student internship honorariums will be established for Spring Semester with the goal of creating a long term program to incorporate Sacramento State students into the management and monitoring of the Preserve.
We are thrilled to support Dr. Stevens and working with her to both make the habitat at Bushy Lake the best it can be for a diversity of plants and wildlife and develop a long term CSU Sacramento student program the trains students in conservation, habitat conservation and management, while interacting with wildlife professionals and Sacramento Audubon volunteers.
Photo courtesy Bushy Lake Restoration Project