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 November 2020 newsletter includes updates on a planned new parking lot and outdoor classroom, and brief highlights from the experiences of student workers at NCOS during the pandemic. The feature story focuses on rodent and reptile monitoring with Sherman traps and coverboards. Community photos include Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii), tropical kingbird (Tyrannus melancholicus), California Towhee (Melozone crissalis), White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys), and a mouse nest.