Community Spotlight: Burrowing Owls at the Alviso Bufferlands
Alviso is a bayside residential district of San Jose, located at the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay. It hosts a diversity of bayshore habitat and wildlife; however, due to development, much of the environment is at risk. This is especially the case for the population of Western Burrowing Owls located at the bufferlands between the bay and San Jose-Santa Clara Regional wastewater treatment plant. The small, day-active owls are endangered in the Bay Area, thus motivating conservationists (like us!) to help prevent their extirpation from the region.
We are working in collaboration with Talon Ecological Research Group and Santa Clara Valley Habitat Agency, with funding from Measure AA, to restore the bufferlands area for resilience against flooding while providing habitat for the burrowing owl’s prey base. Our role over the past 5 years working on this project is what we do best—installing and maintaining California native plants with our community. The species we are planting attract the insects and small mammals that burrowing owls eat, such as grasshoppers, beetles, and voles.
With help from the communities of Alviso and San Jose, we are accomplishing our goals and creating opportunities for the public to learn about these special birds. Here are some partnership highlights from the past few months:
An afterschool program from George Mayne Elementary School in Alviso learned about burrowing owls in class. Then, the students had a field trip where they visited our restoration site in the bufferlands to spot the owls in person.
The San Jose Conservation Corps took a break from weeding at their other sites to come help us plant 76 plants and protect them with mulch. They enjoyed planting and were excited to use binoculars to see an owl outside of its burrow during our lunchtime.
Our team collaborated for the first time with Alviso in Action, a local non-profit that seeks to protect and preserve their community and environment. On Saturday, February 7th, Alviso community members came to plant around 60 native plants and see some of the owls out of their burrows. A student from the elementary school had returned and brought her family for the event so they could also learn about the owls. We look forward to hosting more events with Alviso in Action to maintain the species we planted with them!
This season’s events, in addition to our other community volunteer workdays, would not have been possible without our funding from 2016 Measure AA, the clean and healthy bay measure, through the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority.
The Alviso Bufferlands site is not open to the public; however, if you would like to contribute to restoring habitat for burrowing owls and get a chance to see them while volunteering, you can join us at an upcoming volunteer event!
By Andrea Serna, California Climate Action Corps Member
