Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration

The Cheadle Center at UCSB manages the North Campus Open Space (NCOS), which is a project that has restored 136 acres of upland and wetland habitats that existed before the area was converted into the Ocean Meadows Golf Course in the 1960s. The NCOS restoration project began in 2017 with a fine-scale grading of the site in order to recreate the salt marsh and use the excavated soil to rebuild the upland habitats to the southwest, which are now called the NCOS Mesa. In addition to re-establishing native biodiversity, a key goal of the restoration is to utilize the site as an educational, scientific, and recreational resource. This archived version of the December 2018 newsletter includes updates on the return of a Western Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata) to the site, trash removal from Phelps Creek, and best practices with pets in the nearby neighborhood to keep them from hunting wildlife. The feature story focuses on K-12 field trips to NCOS. Community photos include the NCOS landscape during storms, and a burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia) and ground squirrel (Otospermophilus beecheyi) sharing a hibernaculum.