Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration

This report provides an update to the delineation of potential wetlands that meet federal and state standards on the Cojo Terrace of the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve in Santa Barbara County, California. This section of the preserve, hereafter referred to as the Study Area, consists of approximately 1,046 acres of coastal scrub, grasslands, dunes, and wetlands. A comprehensive wetland delineation study was previously conducted in 2012 by Althouse and Meade, Inc. of the entire 24,000 acres of the preserve. In the subsequent decade, the local climate underwent periods of drought and changes in management and land use. The Study Area covers the historic Cojo Ranch, which was managed as cattle rangeland since the 1800s. In 2017, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) acquired the Study Area as well as the adjacent Jalama Ranch and founded the Dangermond Preserve with the mission to preserve and steward the undeveloped land and protect and restore its biodiversity and wildlife connectivity. In 2022, a pilot study on the removal of invasive highway iceplant (Carpobrotus edulis) began in the northern, coastal section of the Cojo Terrace (Zone C and D, Figure 2). To further inform restoration efforts in the dunes and scrub, TNC contracted the Cheadle Center at UC Santa Barbara to update the 2012 wetland delineation and provide recommendations for wetland restoration.