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 February 2022 newsletter includes updates on a newly funded Research and Monitoring Mentorship Program focusing on soil research, Kids in Nature field trips, parking lot and outdoor classroom construction, and the planned grand opening of the Mesa Trail and other landscape features. The feature story focuses on aquatic macroinvertebrate and water quality monitoring. Community photos include Sora (Porzana carolina), Northern Shoveler (Spatula clypeata), Bufflehead (Bucephala albeola), Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata), Red Maid (Calandrinia ciliata), Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium bellum) and Succulent Lupine (Lupinus succulentus).