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One of the key benefits that CSERC brings to the Northern Yosemite region is that our staff serves as a "watchdog" on the Stanislaus National Forest. At the end of May, we found a number of problems while we were out doing forest fieldwork.
On the Groveland District, Lindsey and Heather discovered a huge ditch that had been dug to drain water off a forest road so that logging trucks could get in and out to a logging site. The ditch was draining Upper Femmons Meadow, causing water to drain prematurely out of the meadow. Draining the meadow is especially harmful for Upper Femmons Meadow because it is already a degraded, super-dry meadow during much of the summer because its soil is highly compacted.
CSERC staff alerted USFS officials and urged them to visit the site to consider corrective action. |
Pocking found in Upper Femmons meadow |
In the same area, CSERC staff found that cows had trespassed into the meadow and caused deep pocking of the saturated soil. Recent snowmelt and rain showers have combined to make the meadow boggy at this early time of the summer season. Cattle hooves plunge deep into wet meadows, creating holes that can affect meadow hydrology. Tiny juvenile frogs can be trapped by the deep, steep-sided depressions. CSERC staff provided photos to the Forest Service to highlight the evidence of livestock trespass into the meadow, which is supposed to be off limits to all grazing.
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Huge ditch found at Upper
Femmons meadow |
 One of many places where the pansy monkeyflower was damaged by OHV's. |
In another separate area of the Forest over on the MiWok District, Julia and Heather discovered a site where off-highway-vehicle (OHV) riders had driven off authorized routes and were damaging rare plants. CSERC staff took pictures of the rare pansy monkeyflowers (Mimulus Pulchellus) that were growing in this secluded location along with pictures of the OHV tracks running through the rare plant population.
All three of these incidents were reported to the Forest Service, with offers to take agency officials to the site to show them the damage first-hand.
Julia documents OHV tracks running through pansy monkeyflowers (M. pulchellus) near Deer Creek
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Pansy monkeyflower (M. pulchellus) is a rare plant species
on the Stanislaus National Forest
By spending literally hundreds of days in the local mountains doing fieldwork and monitoring each year, CSERC is able to identify problems and often get corrective action done by the Forest Service. By locating specific areas with damage, the word spreads that CSERC may be monitoring whatever is happening in the forest. That often leads to more careful actions by loggers, grazing permittees, OHV riders, and others who might be caught by CSERC's vigilant fieldwork.
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