Kern Fan Recharge Site
Buena Vista Lake Shrew Habitat Management Plan and On-going Monitoring
From 2004 to present, Live Oak Associates developed a special habitat management plan for the federally endangered Buena Vista Lake shrew on the Kern Fan Water Recharge Area, a 2,800-acre area owned and managed by the City of Bakersfield in Kern County.
The USFWS had proposed the entire 2800-acre unit as critical habitat, a designation that might have substantially affected the City of Bakersfield’s use of the site as a water recharge facility. Live Oak Associates developed a special habitat management plan for the explicit purpose of providing the USFWS with information demonstrating the ability of the City to continue to rely on the water recharge facility while preserving those features that were considered essential for the species. This plan needed to meet several objectives including:
Demonstrating a species conservation benefit
Providing assurances that the conservation management strategy will be implemented
Demonstrating that the conservation management strategy will be effective
Live Oak Associates developed and conducted a detailed vegetation-sampling scheme using the primary constituent elements proposed by the USFWS that demonstrated that only about half of the site actually satisfied the proposed criteria. The Plan then focused on managing the 1400 acres that did support the primary constituent elements. The USFWS then relied on this special management plan in excluding the entire Kern Fan Recharge unit from the final rule. Since that time, Live Oak Associates has been performing the on-going annual monitoring for the City of Bakersfield.
Client
City of Bakersfield
Location
Kern County, California
Dates
2004-Present
Project Description
Live Oak Associates developed a special habitat management plan for the federally endangered Buena Vista Lake shrew on the Kern Fan Water Recharge Area, a 2,800-acre area owned and managed by the City of Bakersfield in Kern County.