2003 Highlights (so far)

Palo Alto High School students cleared 1,609 square feet of land at the Cottage Site and planted 330 purple needlegrass plugs, 263 blue wild rye plugs, 35 Pacific sanicle, 10 California melic, 8 squirreltail, 16 mule's ear, and 66 plugs of narrow-leaf milkweed. The students worked on the Cottage Site in April removing Italian thistle, milk thistle, bull thistle and purple star thistle that was encroaching on the native plots.

Matt Honaker's Eagle Scouts removed approximately 3,000 square feet of Harding grass from the Cottage Site. From June until April, day laborers removed over 96,000 non-native invasive plants from 17,814 square feet along the Creek Site, Barn Site, House Site, Gate A, Gate B, Portola Pastures, and along the Meadowlark and Wild Rye trails.

Wednesday evening Weed Warriors removed over 27,000 non-native invasive plants from Gate A, Gate B, and the Creek Site, approximately 270,000 square feet.

Our regular saturday volunteers planted 32 flats of native grass plugs in January through the last week of February. Over 1,600 grass plugs were planted covering approximately 3,300 square feet. After they were planted, rice straw was installed around the plugs to reduce weeds from germinating and to hold in moisture.

Oaks and other native trees and shrubs were planted planted between fall 2002 and spring 2003. Of the 82 trees and shrubs planted, 60 plants — or 73% — germinated and are still alive, which is a 3% increase from last year's plantings.

We triumphed over milk thistle on an area of lower Meadowlark Trail (19,800 sq ft), which was measured six years ago and found to be composed of approximately 50% milk thistle. The same area today is composed of approximately 20% milk thistle. An area of upper Meadowlark Trail was also measured six years ago and found to be composed of approximately 75% milk thistle, the same area today is only 15% milk thistle.

We're beating back bull thistle, too. Six years ago, an area covering approximately 1,135 sq ft near Gate B was composed of approximately 15% bull thistle, this area today has fewer than 30 plants. We anticipate complete removal of all remaining plants again this summer and will continue monitoring this area to ensure all remaining seeds that sprout are removed prior to setting new seed.

The hairy weevil has been spotted throughout the preserve, munching away on the evil yellow star thistle. The real star is the hairy weevil – it lays eggs in the ovary of the flower and once the larva hatches it consumes the ovary, leaving the plant unable to produce seeds and thereby interrupting the life cycle of the plant.

2002 Highlights

Logged over 4,200 volunteer hours of habitat improvement at the preserve.

Recruited close to 1,000 volunteers from local businesses such as Beatnik, Genencor, and REI; service organizations such as Volunteers in Asia, Key Clubs, and Youth Community Service; and local high schools and colleges including Palo Alto and Los Altos High Schools, Stanford, and San Jose State University.

Coordinated 20 volunteers who built and monitored 115 bird boxes, resulting in 365 song birds fledging this summer due to these volunteers’ efforts to increase habitat for the Western bluebird, oak titmouse, flycatchers, and wrens.

Planted 3,300 square feet of native grasses, 132 riparian trees and shrubs, and removed bags and bags of invasive non-native plants from the preserve.

Arastradero Preserve History

The Preserve has yielded artifacts from Ohlone Indian campsites that date to the 16th and 17th centuries, suggesting the area was a popular hunting site.

The National Park Service recognizes one of the trails that runs through the Preserve as a recreational spur of the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail. Although the exact route of de Anza's 1776 expedition is not known for certain, it is likely that he passed either through or close by the preserve on his route to San Francisco.

By the late 1700s the land was part of the Rancho Corte Madera Spanish land grant, held by Maximo Martinez. The property was later used for timber drayage from the foothills, and then later as a cattle ranch.

In 1969, 1,600 individual family homes were proposed for development on the 600-acre parcel that is today the preserve. As a result of this intense development proposal, the City of Palo Alto created a progressive land-use policy to protect "open space." This controversial decision resulted in the City being forced to buy the property through an inverse condemnation lawsuit. This innovative "open space" zoning policy has become the model for land conservation throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.