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Los Gatos Creek

Watershed Collaboration

Forest Health Grant Update

Status Update

Forest Health Grant has been working with the rain and working when conditions permit. The work has been in Santa Clara County Parks and San Jose Water. Total acreage for April 2024: 29.68 acres. San Jose Water Company: 5 acres, Santa Clara County Parks: 18.84 acres, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District: 5.84 acres

The Loma Prieta Road and Santa Cruz Kangaroo Rat Habitat Pilot Project has been awarded to Campbell Forest. The Santa Clara County FireSafe Council (SCCFSC), San Jose Water Company (SJW), Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) and Santa Clara County Parks (SCCP) have formed a collaborative partnership known as the Los Gatos Watershed Collaborative to implement forest health treatments on approximately 938 acres strategically located throughout the Los Gatos Creek Watershed in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The portion of the project for this bid is approximately 79.5 acres, primarily along roadsides. These treatments will thin underbrush and remove dead and dying trees to improve forest health and fire resilience. 5.5 acres of the 79.5 will be for a pilot project for Santa Cruz Kangaroo Rat habitat. Additional information can be found on the project at LGwatershedhealth.com.

Santa Cruz Kangaroo Rat

Within the large expanse of the Sierra Azul Open Space preserve lives a small rodent, known as the Santa Cruz kangaroo rat (SCKR). Although small in stature, kangaroo rats are considered a “keystone” species, meaning its activities have great influence on the plants and animals that make up its habitat. As granivores that cache seeds in shallow burrows, SCKR have a mutualistic relationship with manzanita, and other plant species that make up their diet. Manzanitas are fire adapted plants and by burying manzanita seeds, SCKR protects them from getting too hot when a fire passes through. The smoke and ash from fire will promote germination of these cached seeds, leading to a new cohort of manzanitas. Click here for more information. 

Facts about the Santa Cruz Kangaroo Rat:

• Neither a kangaroo nor a rat -- more closely related to gophers and chipmunks
• Large hind legs with an unusually long tail
• Live in burrows, but poor diggers - requires loose/sandy soils
• Bipedal locomotion - need clear/open ground to hop, including under shrubs
• Majority of diet is seeds, so vegetation types and plant species diversity is important
• Non-hibernating - collect and cache seeds
• Does not need water - can get it from foods; bathes in sand baths

Through the Forest Health Grant there is an upcoming Loma Prieta Road and Santa Cruz Kangaroo Rat Habitat Pilot Project. The project site is an environmentally sensitive area where the Santa Cruz Kangaroo Rat has recently been found again. Contractor shall take all precautions and measures necessary to protect the environmental integrity of the site. Manzanita trees will be flagged for retention and project work will enhance the SCKR habitat. 

For Forest Health Grant Second Collaboration we are working on the planning phases, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and expanded Project Specific Analysis (PSA). 

To implement forest health treatments on approximately 1778 acres of strategically identified areas, The Santa Clara County Firesafe Council has partnered with the San Jose Water Company, Santa Clara County Parks, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District and smaller, private landowners, to form the Los Gatos Creek Watershed Collaboration.

The Los Gatos Creek Watershed Collaborative Forest Health Grant is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide program that puts billions of Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment — particularly in disadvantaged communities.

Santa Clara County FireSafe Council 

A local 501(c) non-profit organization

Info@SCCFireSafe.org

408-975-9591 

www.sccfiresafe.org

Tax ID Number: EIN 56-2368255