A new Save the Redwoods League program is coordinating free bus rides to redwood parks for organizations serving Black, Indigenous, and people of color as well as low-income communities. Redwood Rides removes the largest barrier preventing underrepresented communities from visiting …
The pandemic presented both a daunting challenge and the opportunity to take a flying leap toward an idea that had long been in the making. Since early March, the North Coast Redwoods District’s interpretation team has been delivering five to 10 PORTS programs each week, as well as daily Facebook live programs to the general public. During this period, more than 5,000 students have received coast redwood-related PORTS programs, and their Facebook Live presentations have been viewed over 250,000 times. As to how his team came to the decision to hold daily events in the middle of a national crisis, Robbins deadpanned: “We just decided to do it.”
Students from around the world can have the opportunity to learn about these incredible trees through the distance learning program at Calaveras Big Trees State Park.
These nocturnal critters are mid-sized carnivores in the weasel family. Females have home ranges up to 10 square miles, and males have even larger home ranges since they mate with multiple females.
Imagine this: There’s an amazing neighborhood farmers’ market that’s a safe and easy walk from your house. You shop for fresh local produce there every week, until one day, the market is relocated to a spot that’s just out of reasonable walking distance. To top it off, there’s now a six-lane freeway that you’d have to cross to get to it. Your habitat has just been fragmented.
We tapped Victoria Reeder’s expertise to learn a few simple tricks, from the basics of iPhone shooting to tinkering with camera lenses. Ready to get your best redwood shots ever? Here are some pro tips.
Snapshots from Alder Creek, the largest unprotected giant sequoia grove on Earth. Photos by Max Forster.
And now, we can announce the pending acquisition of the largest unprotected sequoia grove. Alder Creek is located near Camp Nelson off Highway 190, and is surrounded by the Giant Sequoia National Monument. It’s no exaggeration to call Alder Creek a crown jewel of the giant sequoia. In both size and conservation value, it is comparable to the famous Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park’s iconic giant sequoia stand.
Giant sequoia are remarkably fire resistant, so it was unusual to find at least 50 monarch trees (sequoia greater than three feet in diameter) that were killed in the Black Mountain Grove.
As the manager of the Redwoods Rising Apprenticeship program, I don’t get out in the field very often, but I get to see growth in the apprentices in snapshots. It’s remarkable to me how a short 11 weeks can contribute to a young person’s life. I’m so grateful that I can help to provide an invaluable experience to people only just beginning their careers.
Anthony Castaños, the League’s land stewardship manager, recently captured this drone footage above our ongoing restoration at the Big River-Mendocino Old-Growth Redwoods project.
If you’ve been following our social media over the last week or so, you’ve heard about the Usal Fire, which started July 27 and burned about 180 acres. About 150 acres of the fire took place on our Shady Dell property. The fire is now almost completely contained.
According to a recent report from the National Parks Conservation Service, that last part of the equation is problematic at several national parks, including Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite National Parks. Startlingly, the report names Sequoia and Kings Canyon as among the parks with the worst air pollution in the country, meaning that the parks “had unhealthy air for most park visitors and rangers to breathe for more than two months of the year, mostly in the summer months.”
There’s a magical place in Sonoma, California where hundreds of acres of centuries-old redwoods have gone untouched. The land was owned by the Falk family for generations, until they recently sold it to Save the Redwoods League to preserve, with plans to allow the public in.
Save the Redwoods just led a team of researchers and land stewards from all over California to learn about using prescribed fire (controlled burning) on private lands. Take a peek behind the scenes to see how we use fire as a tool to reduce hazardous buildups of combustible vegetation and improve the health of our forests across League properties and the redwood range.
Your voice is needed to support the new Botany Bill (H.R. 1572), which promotes plant research, improves staffing of trained botanists on federal lands, grows the market for native plant materials, and supports federal programs to protect rare, endangered, and native plants such as those species found in our redwood forests. Botanical science research is an essential element in our fight against climate change.
Take our redwood animal personality quiz and see which member of the redwood forest resembles your personality best.
Park Interpretive Specialist Jenny Comperda reports on the nearly 10,000 students who experienced the giant sequoia forest through virtual field trips at Calaveras Big Trees in 2018-19.
The League’s wildlife cams at Cape Vizcaino (Cape Viz) in Mendocino County caught animals in action playing, prancing, grazing, and generally doing what animals do. The property provides habitat to a variety of wildlife including (but certainly not limited to) American black bears, ospreys, black tailed deer, and pumas living among stands of old-growth coast redwoods, grasslands, chaparral, and a scenic, rugged coastline.
Park Interpretive Specialist Jenny Comperda reports from Calaveras Big Trees State Park, where 10,000 students from around the world experienced the giant sequoia forest through the League’s virtual field trips.
