A mountain lion was sighted at about 5pm Wednesday between Gazos Creek Road and Rossi Road, East of Highway 1 near Costanoa [Google map]. The sighting was made by a San Mateo County Deputy Sheriff, according to the County’s alert system.
The mountain lion had a long tail and was initially in tall grass near Highway 1, but retreated eastward to a hillside area. The Costanoa community was advised.
The Midpeninsula Open Space District (MROSD) is considering purchasing four properties totally 1,300 acres that will connect its Skyline Ridge property with the sea, reports Palo Alto Weekly.
The district’s board will meet at 2 pm Thursday, Jan 22, at the Elkus 4-H Ranch Retreat Center at 1500 Purisima Creek Road. The meeting will be followed at 3:15 p.m. by public tours of the properties. Reservations for the tour must be make by Wednesday by calling Jean Chung, real property administrative assistant at the district, 650-691-1200.
The properties lie due east of the Cowell Ranch State Beach. At the upper end they connect with MROSD’s 3,361-acre Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve that touches Skyline Boulevard just north of Swett Road.
At the lower end they connect with properties over which the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) has an easement, completing the link to the Pacific Ocean.
The combined value of the lands is estimated at between $10 million and $12 million, although precise costs are still being negotiated, according to Rudy Jurgensen, the district’s public affairs manager.
The largest of the four parcels is a 450-acre upper portion of the Elkus Ranch property owned by the University of California, which would retain control of the Elkus Ranch facilities.
Two properties, the 340-acre Lobitos Ridge and the 260-acre Blue Brush Canyon, are owned by POST, which acquires lands and turns them over to public agencies.
The final property is 250-acres of the uplands, non-agricultural portion of the Guisti family’s Purisima Farms.
At the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District’s Board (MROSD) meeting last night, Cecily Harris was sworn in as the newest elected official on the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District’s Board of Directors. She was elected in November by voters in El Granada, Half Moon Bay, Montara, Moss Beach, Redwood City, San Carlos and Woodside. The District is divided into seven geographic wards each represented by a board member elected to a four-year term. Harris replaces Director Ken Nitz, who served on the District’s Board for three consecutive terms.
Harris, a San Carlos resident, is a Financial Services Manager with the San Mateo County Parks Department and served nine years as a San Carlos Parks and Recreation Commissioner. She is interested in single and multiple use trails, interpretive programs, and natural resource protection.
Three new rangers, Steve Gibbons, Brad Pennington and Rebecca Trout, were given their badges at the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District’s Board of Directors meeting last night. The hiring process included extensive interviews, a background investigation, psychological exam and a nine-week ranger academy where they were trained as peace officers.
The rangers will work to preserve and protect the District’s 57,000 acres of public open space land. Rangers interact with preserve visitors providing interpretive and educational information, first aid, and law enforcement. They also patrol and maintain roads and trails, complete projects that enhance and restore the natural environment and work to prevent and sometimes fight fire.
The District has two field offices, each with a staff of nine rangers.
Gibbons and Pennington will work from the Skyline field office and cover District lands in the Skyline and Coastside areas. Gibbons has a degree in biology and interned with the National Park Service where he studied big cats and other wildlife. Pennington holds degrees in park management and business administration and has experience in interpretation, maintenance, resource management and visitor services through his work with the Santa Clara County parks.
You’re invited by the National Park Services to participate in an information sharing workshop about Rancho Corral de Tierra. The session is intended to help the Park Service and the community understand the resources, history, and current uses of the 4,200 acre Rancho, in advance of assumption of management responsibility by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The meeting will be held at the Farallone View School multi-purpose room in Montara on Thursday, January 29, 2009, from 7:00 to 9:00PM, and is open to anyone with an interest in the Rancho. The NPS hopes this will be the first of several productive workshops to be held in 2009.
Agenda
* Discuss the purpose of the workshops: what the NPS hopes to accomplish, what participants would like to accomplish
* Share background information: comments on the GGNRA general management plan preliminary alternatives and the evolving preferred alternative
* Additional questions and answers
* Discuss the next steps to take: future workshops
Click below to see the plan. Please add your comments on the plan to this story.
This week’s warm, calm weather may be a prelude to something different over the weekend, reports the Merc.
The pulse looming large on satellite imagery is the byproduct of a gale spawned off the coast of Japan late last week. The system is expected to be tracking southeast today toward the international date line and making a beeline for the coral reefs off Oahu and Maui.
If it stays on course, it will release its fury there Wednesday and Thursday. Then it will hurtle toward Northern California with the potential for clean 40-foot wave faces jutting from the shallow rocky shelf off Pillar Point on Friday and Saturday.
The Peninsula Open Space Trust has announced the purchase of three more properties on the Coastside: 17 acres at Pillar Point, the 952 acre Toto Ranch near San Gregorio ("ne of the largest remaining open space properties on the Coastside"), and 32 acres with a view of Half Moon Bay from near the top of Skyline Ridge.
On December 31, POST purchased 17 acres near Moss Beach at Pillar Point. Informal trails have crossed this private property for years; eventually trails will be improved and opened officially to the public. Said Moore, "The property offers a logical future extension of the segment of California Coastal Trail just completed on POST’s Pillar Point Bluff property nearby."
POST bought the land for $1.825 million from private owners Pillar Point Preservation Partners. Just west of Highway 1, the land is part of the scenic backdrop of open hills visible from Highway 1 near Half Moon Bay Airport. It is adjacent to Fitzgerald Marine Reserve and to land owned by the United States Air Force as well as San Mateo County Parks. Located next to Pillar Point Marsh wetlands, the largely coastal terrace prairie terrain is rich in native plant and wildlife habitat considered rare and sensitive by the California Coastal Commission. "Had POST not stepped in to protect this land, it might have become three home sites blocking access to this portion of the bluff," Rust said.
The largest of the recently acquired properties is Toto Ranch, 952 acres rising up in a series of gentle, grassy slopes along the east side of Highway 1 north of San Gregorio. In a generous bargain sale concluded December 24, Kathleen Scutchfield of Woodside sold the ranch to POST for $3 million. The appraised value of the ranch is more than $7 million; the difference between the appraised value and the sale price is considered a charitable gift for tax purposes.
POST’s purchase of Toto Ranch—one of the largest remaining open space properties on the Coastside—is the result of a longtime relationship with Scutchfield, who last year donated a conservation easement over the ranch to POST. That easement limited the property’s development potential so as to protect natural resources including critical wildlife habitat, important watershed land and panoramic views of the San Gregorio and Tunitas Creek valleys.
"Highway 1 along the San Mateo Coast is a scenic thoroughfare unlike any other in the United States. The acquisition of Toto Ranch, brimming with natural resources, means a significant stretch of this road will maintain its breathtaking impact," said POST President Audrey Rust. "We are immensely grateful to Kathy Scutchfield for her ongoing generosity to POST. Luxury estates could have covered Toto Ranch as a result of subdivision, but thanks to Kathy’s easement gift and now this bargain sale, this sweeping coastal landscape will be protected forever, avoiding any future threat of development."
With nearly 200 acres within the Tunitas Creek watershed, Toto Ranch has significant impact on the health of the watershed and of habitat for threatened and endangered animals such as steelhead trout, Coho salmon and California red-legged frogs. The property is also home to bobcats, coyotes, mountain lions white-tailed kite, peregrine falcons, Cooper’s hawks, sharp-shinned hawks and golden eagles. The ranch has a long history of grazing, with a cow/calf operation, sheep and goats pastured there in recent years. Title to the ranch gives POST a chance to steward natural resources on the land while looking for a new conservation owner capable of managing the property long-term. Said POST Executive Vice President Walter T. Moore, "It is remarkable to find a large, intact property like this on the Coastside with easy access to paved roads that has not been parcelized or disturbed by any kind of building."
POST purchased the 32 acres in Half Moon Bay on December 23 from private owners for $650,000. The land sits near the top of Skyline Ridge and connects Mills Creek Open Space Preserve and Burleigh-Murray State Park. "This strategically located parcel, situated at the heart of 1,600 acres of already protected public lands, shows what a big difference protection of a small property can make," said Rust. "By protecting this land, we can make sure that recreational trails can be connected, animals can roam freely and people can enjoy uninterrupted views of the Coastside."
On a clear day, downtown Half Moon Bay and adjacent open lands including POST-protected properties Johnston Ranch, Madonna Creek Ranch, Pillar Point Bluff and Wavecrest are all visible from the property. Twinberry, coyote brush and lizard’s tongue grow profusely on its steep slopes, and dense coastal scrub and Douglas fir top its ridges. All 32 acres are located within the Arroyo Leon watershed, and seasonal Leon Creek runs through the property’s lower portion, providing habitat for steelhead trout, California red-legged frogs and San Francisco garter snakes. Within the next two years, POST anticipates transferring this property to a public agency for long-term protection.
A mysterious illness is leaving pelicans on the California coast disoriented and eventually dead, probably because they are unable to feed themselves, reports the Merc.
"As a conservative number, we’ve seen over 60 live, sick pelicans in the last five days," said Rebecca Dmytryk, the spokesperson for WildRescue, a nonprofit wildlife rescue organization based in Moss Landing. ...
But there hasn’t been an increase in sick birds in Santa Cruz, said Molly Richardson, the director of the Native Animal Rescue of Santa Cruz. ...
"I’ve been rescuing birds since 1981 and I’ve never seen anything like this," Dmytryk said. "It’s absolutely unusual." The source of the illness that leaves the birds disoriented and starving is unknown.
Save Our Shores is asking the public to report any sick or dead pelicans in the area, the contact number for WildRescue is 866-WILD-911.
There will be a free e-waste recycling day at Shoreline Station Saturday, Jan 10, for 10am to 2pm. The proceeds will benefit the Half Moon Bay Crossfire Youth Soccer team.
You can drop off anything with a plug (computers, televisions, monitors, cell phones, fax machines, stereo equipment, cables, keyboards, telephones, power supplies, cameras)—just anything with a plug working or not working.
Just bring your unwanted electronics to the parking lot at Shoreline Station / Riace Deli. They will unload your car and insure that all items are properly recycled free of charge. Please bag or box any loose items.
If you have some items and can’t make it on that date please call Kathy Winslow at 726.7857 and she will make arrangements for a drop off at your convenience in El Granada or a pick up if you need it.
Teh team is also collecting ink cartridges and cell phones until July. You can either bring them on Saturday or call Kathy Winslow at 726.7857 or Cindy Turgeon at 726.1545 and they will arrange for drop-off or pick up.
The National Weather Service is forecasting a "significant storm event" early next week.
There is some forecast uncertainty regarding the strength and timing of this storm system. However…There is increasing confidence that a period of wet and windy weather will develop. If this storm event occurs there would be a threat of urban and small stream flooding… As well as mud slides and debris flows over burn scarred areas from this past summer’S fires. Persons in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties who are near the burn areas should pay very close attention to this developing situation since it appears that heavy rainfall will be possible in both areas.
It’s that time of year again, when the Grey whales migrate 7,00 miles from the freezing waters above Alaska to southern California to give birth to their enormous 1,500 pound calves. These mammals have been making this journey for thousands of years only to return to the icy waters again in the spring.
If you would like to catch a glimpse of these majestic creatures it’s not to difficult. There are thousands of miles of pristine beach and plenty of tours that go out hourly just to watch as they pass.
The Oceanic Society (San Francisco), a nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to protecting marine life, offers whale-watching tours from San Francisco, Bodega Bay and Half Moon Bay. Prices are reasonable and it’s a great activity to spend with the children.
As usual there will be many great whale watching festivals around the area with wine tastings, chowder and seafood, and lots of activities for the little ones. So go out and get your sea legs ready for an unforgettable season of giant mammals.
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