A natural resource condition assessment for Point Reyes National Seashore

Battles, John; Eschtruth, Anne; Sanders, John; Bartolome, James

The Natural Resource Condition Assessment (NRCA) Program aims to provide documentation about the current conditions of important park natural resources through a spatially explicit, multi-disciplinary synthesis of existing scientific data and knowledge. The objectives of this assessment are to evaluate and report on current conditions of key park resources, to evaluate critical data and knowledge gaps, and to highlight selected existing stressors and emerging threats to resources or processes. This report and the spatial datasets provided with it are intended to inform and support Point Reyes National Seashore (PORE) managers and scientists in developing recommendations for improving or maintaining natural resource conditions in the park. Point Reyes National Seashore was established by President John F. Kennedy on September 13, 1962, to preserve and protect wilderness, natural ecosystems, and cultural resources along the diminishing undeveloped coastline of the western United States. PORE forms a large continuous expanse of land along the central coast of California that includes more congressionally designated wilderness than any other national seashore (32,370 acres or 46% of the park’s total 71,000 acres). Located just an hour drive from a densely populated metropolitan area, the Seashore is a sanctuary for many plant and animal species. Staff from the National Park Service (NPS) and the University of California, Berkeley worked together to identify the natural resources and stressors to include in this condition assessment. The list of priority resources to include in this report was further restricted by the need for sufficient existing information to allow a meaningful analysis. While this list of focal resources is not comprehensive, it includes the natural resources and stressors that are currently of the greatest concern to park management at PORE. The final report includes eight focal resources: • Amphibians/California Red-legged Frog • Breeding Landbird Diversity • Coastal Dunes • Forests • Grasslands • Invasive plants • Rare plants • Salmonids Assessment of the selected resources relied on gathering and reviewing existing literature and data for each focal resource and, where appropriate, analyzing the data in order to provide summaries and create new spatial representations. The discussions of each focal resource included in Chapter 4 provide a comprehensive summary of available existing information regarding the current condition of these resources. These resource assessments review not only the most current published literature, but also unpublished park information and the perspectives of park experts. Each focal resource assessed in this report was characterized by one or more indicators. When possible, existing data for the established measures of each indicator were analyzed and compared to designated reference conditions. The impact of key stressors was also considered in the evaluation of current condition. Following analysis of each focal resource, lead scientists worked with NPS collaborators to assign condition levels to the resource. Where data permitted, the future trend of each resource condition was also projected and the focal resource condition assessments were calculated for each management zone (i.e., natural lands, wilderness, and pastoral lands). The final project framework included 8 focal resources and 25 indicators that were used to evaluate these resources. The condition of each indicator was rated as warranting “significant concern”, “moderate concern”, or as being in “good condition”. Where assessed, the trends were described as improving, unchanging, or deteriorating. These rankings were based on quantitative standards, qualitative descriptions of least-altered resource conditions, scientific literature, and expert opinion. For each indicator and resource, we also ranked (as high, medium, or low) the confidence associated with our assessment.

A natural resource condition assessment for Point Reyes National Seashore

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