Creek on Vina Ranch. Photo © Rich Reiner/TNC Learn More Lassen Foothills Vina Plains Preserve Conservation easements   Get Updates! Join the Great Places Network today and receive monthly e-updates on our conservation work in California.   Deer Creek Canyon. Photo © Rich Reiner/TNC

Deer Creek Canyon rim.
Photo © Rich Reiner/TNC

Protecting a 13,000-Acre Ranch

Legend has it that pioneer Peter Lassen buried his fortune in Deer Creek Canyon and that it still lies there, hidden somewhere near the confluence of Deer Creek and the Sacramento River. Here, in California’s Old West, The Nature Conservancy has worked for more than two decades to protect streams, lands and rural ways of life in the Lassen Foothills.

Although we haven’t found the buried treasure, the Conservancy recently marked a key conservation achievement here with the protection of a 13,136-acre ranch on Deer Creek. In September 2006 the Conservancy bought an easement on Vina Ranch, the missing link in a swath of protected lands that now stretches 15 miles from the Conservancy’s Vina Plains Preserve near the Sacramento River to Lassen National Forest’s Ishi Wilderness.

“Vina Ranch has the beauty of a national park,” says Conservancy Project Director Jake Jacobson. “It’s a stunning landscape with huge conservation value, including over a mile of frontage on Deer Creek.”

Carving a deep, narrow path through oak woodlands and savannas, Deer Creek is one of the few remaining tributaries of the Sacramento River that still supports runs of wild Chinook salmon and steelhead trout. Forested canyon walls tower over the creek, casting shade below and providing dramatic vistas from above. Prairie falcons, burrowing owls, songbirds, yellow-legged frogs and the largest migratory deer herd in California find precious habitat here.

Unlike many of California’s once-wild frontiers, the Lassen Foothills remain largely intact, consisting primarily of cattle ranches and public lands. However, rural subdivision and sprawl from nearby cities threaten to fragment the area, jeopardizing the livelihoods of ranchers and destroying habitat for native wildlife.

“Conservation easements are our primary tool for protecting habitat and maintaining productive ranches in the Lassen Foothills,” says Jacobson.

The Vina Ranch easement will allow the ranch owners to continue cattle grazing but will limit development—including conversion to logging, mining and other land use practices—in perpetuity, thus protecting the ranch’s water quality, habitat and wildlife corridors.

The Conservancy purchased the easement for less than the appraised value. The California Wildlife Conservation Board contributed $1.5 million, while The Nature Conservancy supplied the remaining $1.9 million through a grant from the Calfed Bay-Delta Authority.

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