BLM, River Partners welcome volunteers for habitat restoration project

REDDING, Calif.- Volunteers are welcome to help the Bureau of Land Management and River Partners plant more than 30,000 trees along Battle Creek south of Anderson, kicking off a project to restore 150 acres of habitat critical for fish and other wildlife. The project is set for Friday and Saturday, Oct. 11 and 12, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day, at 3770 Gover Road, Anderson.

Anyone interested in helping should meet at the Gover Road site. They should wear long pants and closed-toe shoes, bring lunches and water, and bring hand trowels, if possible.

Work will take place in an area known as Rancho Breisgau, where a walnut orchard has been removed, setting the stage for restoration of streamside habitat that will benefit four runs of Chinook salmon and steelhead, reduce habitat fragmentation, and support the recovery of critically endangered wildlife species.

"We only have around five percent of riparian habitat left in the Sacramento Valley. Many species of plants and animals rely on this habitat to survive," said Brooke Thompson, an ecologist with the Bureau of Land Management Redding Field Office. "In a time when the climate is becoming hotter and drier, it's important to have connectivity corridors where wildlife can move through the valley and have refugia, places where they can survive during unfavorable conditions."

The 306-acre Rancho Breisgau Unit is part of the BLM's Sacramento River Bend Area of Critical Environmental Concern, managed by the Redding Field Office. It is one of the last remaining parcels where restoration is needed to connect a major wildlife corridor of continuous riparian habitat stretching from the Sacramento River up to the headwaters of Battle Creek in Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Details on the project and its importance are available from River Partners. The organization website also has a directional map to the project site.

Participants should complete a liability waiver formand bring it with them to the project site. Forms will also be available onsite.

The Rancho Breisgau project is supported and funded by the California Wildlife Conservation Board, Western Shasta Resource Conservation District, Tehama County, and California State University, Chico.