Sonoma Mountain Institute

The California red-legged frog (CRLF) is the largest native frog in the state. The frog is appropriately named as the underside of its stomach and legs are marked with a red coloring. However, the CRLF vary a lot in color, so color alone is not a good way to identify them. Also, the red on the legs is on the underside and most often not visible unless you pick up the frog (which is not advisable without a permit). The best way to identify them is by confirming the presence of a dorsolateral fold, a fancy name for the raised line that runs down either side of their backs. It looks like piping that’s been sewn on. Also, younger frogs often have a white mustache above the corner of the mouth, and under the eye (like the one with duckweed on its head).

The California Red-legged frog is currently on the endangered species list and for a variety of reason of which are, but are not limited to: the harvesting of frog legs for food (introduced as a delicacy by French gold miners), placer mining, filling in of wetlands, stream diversions, plus the introduction of bullfrogs and non-native fishes are the major threats and/or causes of decline. Disease has been a problem in the past as well but currently is not known as a big issue.

Some exciting news in regards to the California Red-Legged Frog is that people such as Jeff Willcox; a Managing Ecologist for the Sonoma Mountain Ranch Preservation Foundation, is on the continual lookout and advocate for the protection of the CRLF species. The Sonoma Mountain Ranch preservation Foundation’s mission is: “Sonoma Mountain Ranch Preservation Foundation is a charitable, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated to preserving the natural beauty and biodiversity of the Sonoma Mountain area, and providing education and guidance, through research, for the preservation and enhancement of agricultural, natural, scenic, and open lands. The Foundation promotes best grazing practices and management activities that preserve, steward, and enhance Foundation land and maintain habitat for special-status species present there.” Jeff’s work with SMRPF is reflected in their mission as he has reported that from his findings he has seen, “an averaged 11 red-legged frog masses in ponds that were averaging 3.” Jeff has been more than happy to provide awareness and education to all with like-minded missions within the Petaluma area.

Like our Neighbors at SMRPF, we at Sonoma Mountain Institute strongly focus on the benefits of cattle grazing over the land in a holistic manner for a variety of benefits, which also can impact species such as the CRLF. Grazed natural rangelands are the places you can find healthy populations so we have to assume there are no conflicts between responsible grazing and healthy CRLF populations. For grazers, we ask you to please keep doing what you’ve been doing. Stock ponds have become the best places to find these frogs in good numbers. The worst thing you can do, aside from whole scale development, is introduce bullfrogs and fish to your ponds and creeks.

As we say good bye to another great year we want to take a moment to share the successes we came across through our hard work and dedication to holistic land management techniques used here at Sonoma Mountain Institute.

Propagation and Planting: We feel like our grass propagation system is working really well.  With many more years of this we will see the overall health of the property improve significantly. We were able to propagate and plant 9,600 POA, 9,600 purple needle grass, and 300 White Oak Trees on our property in Petaluma, CA.

Star Thistle: With many years of great effort with hand pulling Star Thistle, this year’s man-hours were significantly down from previous years as shown below.  With the new grazing protocol, access to many places that were challenging to pull in previous years are now easily accessible.

2012: 380 hours, 2013: 350 hours, 2014: 276 hours, 2015: 124 hours

Compost: In 2015 we will have made 1 batch of regular feed stock compost using rice straw, wood chips, and green hay and 1 batch using azola and oak leaves. The compost when finished became the feedstock for the 20,000 gallons of compost tea that we applied on a rotation to the sudden oak death effected trees, and also sprayed all grasslands post grazing. In 2016 the spraying will be continued on the sudden oak death effected trees and we will continue to spray on as much grassland as possible.

Grazing: In 2015 we continued to bring the impacts of large animals to the vegetation at the Glen Ellen Property and Petaluma Property. Since this is the fourth year we have been able to manage cattle grazing on the property we were able to fine tune our management protocol while working with grass-fat beef cattle this year.  We saw many positive results in regards to the numbers of native species verses non-natives, annuals species verses perennials, and non-invasive species verses invasive.

As we have previously shared this grazing season we brought on an additional three pieces of property to manage using cattle as a regenerative restoration tool. These three pieces of property are contiguous and together total just over 1,037 acres on the top of Sonoma Mountain. The first of the properties is Mitsui Ranch and it is the largest piece of property at 632 acres. It is owned by the Sonoma Mountain Ranch Preservation Foundation. The second property is owned by James and Sophie Gray and is 128 acres. The third property is called Walsh and is owned by the Sonoma County Regional Park System and totals just over 280 acres.

Godfry: We had another good year at the Godfry!  All 160 acres were covered in a round of invasive species removal. Thinning in the old plantations of pine and fir, were greatly advanced with the aide of the new tractor. Much old debris from the mastication of 10 years ago were raked, piled, and burned. This allowed the planting of native grass seed, Blue Wild Rye, California Melic, and Idaho Fescue to be planted in these areas. A covert was installed and a small access road was grated to reach one of the last areas we will be restoring next season.

Board Meeting: Last but not least, our annual board meeting was held on November 7, 2015 were these annual recap numbers were discussed and the next year’s budget was passed to allow us to continue another year of dedication to restore land as holistically as possible.