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 2020 newsletter includes updates on the importance of not feeding wildlife, the presence of three burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia), Marsh Trail improvements, and planned removal of the Ellwood Marine Terminal tanks. The feature story focuses on bat acoustic monitoring, which has revealed a total of 8 species potentially using the space. Community photos include Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus), Wilson’s Snipe (Gallinago delicata), Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Poloptila caerulea), Barn Owl (Tyto alba), and White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus).