Sacramento River
A century and a half ago, the Sacramento River, California's longest, was lined by half a million acres of contiguous riparian forest averaging four to five miles in width. This lush corridor supported more species than any other river ecosystem in California. By the end of the 1980s, as few as 10,000 acres, or 2% of the riverside forest remained. To reverse this disastrous trend, The Nature Conservancy and its partners have undertaken the largest riparian restoration project in the United States.
Location
Along the eastern edge of the Trinity Alps, to the floor of the Great Central Valley, emptying into San Francisco Bay. Map
Size
350 miles long.
What to See: Plants
Valley oaks, Fremont cottonwoods, California sycamores, blue elderberry, willows, box elder, California rose, and coyote bush
River otters
© Art Wolfe |
What to See: Animals
The riparian forests along the Sacramento River provide habitat for more than 250 species of mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, and white and green sturgeon use the river for spawning. Otters, beavers, turtles, and more than 135 species of native birds depend on the forest as breeding habitat and migratory stopover sites. Neotropical migrant songbirds, including the warbling vireo, the blue grosbeak, and the western yellow-billed cuckoo, have begun to reoccupy some of the Conservancy's forest restoration sites, evidence that the restoration program is working.
Why the Conservancy Selected This Site
California's largest river, the Sacramento is also its most economically important. It not only furnishes Sacramento Valley farmers with water, but supplies 80% of the fresh water flowing into the Delta, accounting for most of the water pumped out of the Delta for San Joaquin Valley farmers and southern California cities. Yet what is a boon to farmers and urbanites has come at great cost to the riparian habitat.
What the Conservancy Has Done/Is Doing
Orchard (left) and restoration site (right),
Sacramento River
© Geoffrey Fricker |
The Nature Conservancy and its partners - including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the California Department of Fish and Game, the California Wildlife Conservation Board, and stakeholders participating in the Sacramento River Conservation Area - have undertaken the largest riparian restoration project in the United States. The goal is to restore a continuous 100-mile stretch of ecologically viable riparian habitat to flood-prone lands along the river between Red Bluff and Colusa. On some sites the river will revegetate its banks and meander through the natural process of winter flooding and deposition. On other sites the Conservancy is contracting with local farmers to plant native trees and shrubs, pumping money into the local economy and helping to generate interest and involvement in local communities in the fate of the river ecosystem.
The Conservancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the California Department of Fish and Game, and the California Wildlife Conservation Board have acquired 14,000 acres along the river. Three thousand acres have been restored thus far to native riparian forest.
For More Information:
The Sacramento River Riparian Habitat Program
http://www.sacramentoriver.ca.gov
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