Preserving community connections to the land
FRLT is partnering with a local hunting group, Sierra Valley Waterfowlers, to offer limited waterfowl hunting opportunities at the Sierra Valley Preserve. The program is specifically designed to serve the local communities of the Feather River region. Read on to learn more about this program’s history, purpose, and how the impacts of the program are monitored.
Maintaining connection to the land
The wetlands on the Sierra Valley Preserve provide excellent habitat, forage, and breeding grounds for various waterfowl. The properties that make up the Preserve have been hunted, with permission from previous landowners, by generations of local people, and by Maidu and Washoe people for millennia.
Since our founding in 2000, FRLT has worked not only to conserve and restore land, but also to conserve and restore people’s relationship to land.
Hunting is one way that many people connect to the natural world and practice sustainable harvesting of local food. Love of wildlife and a passion to conserve their habitat is a core value for many hunters in the Feather River region. The limited hunting program at the Sierra Valley Preserve is coordinated with local Sierra Valley Waterfowlers volunteers. Through this program, FRLT seeks to offer local hunters, particularly youth, opportunities to deepen their connection to the land, learn more about conservation and the importance of protecting wildlife habitat, and engage more people in direct stewardship of lands FRLT has conserved.
History of hunting at the Sierra Valley Preserve
From 2003 to 2019, the Land Trust worked with conservation partners, donors, agencies, foundations, and volunteers to purchase the properties that make up the 2,575-acre Sierra Valley Preserve. FRLT manages the Preserve with the goals of protecting and improving wildlife habitat, protecting wetlands and water quality, and providing public access to this beautiful and unique landscape.
FRLT allowed limited hunting by permission on the East side of the Sierra Valley Preserve from 2005 to 2015 (known as the Maddalena parcel, located along Hwy A-24). From 2015 to 2019, FRLT expanded the Preserve by nearly 2,000 acres, adding the properties that now encompass the North and West entrances of the Preserve (along Hwy A-23).
Trial Hunting Program
With expanded lands to manage and a plan to increase opportunities for all types of recreation, FRLT evaluated its approach to hunting at the Preserve and associated policies and procedures.
As an outcome of this assessment, during the winters of 2017–2019, FRLT partnered with the Sierra Valley Waterfowlers to conduct limited trial hunts as part of a larger effort to understand desired public use and the impacts of such a program on wildlife and other land stewardship efforts.
The trial was limited to approximately 500 acres of the preserve with set days, staff oversight, and volunteers from the Sierra Valley Waterfowlers group.
FRLT and the volunteers closely monitored the level of hunting, species taken, and potential impacts on species and habitats, and documented all bird species observed during the trial. FRLT founder and wildlife biologist Paul Hardy also conducted extensive monitoring of the Preserve before and after hunts and a literature review of hunting impacts on waterfowl.
The results of the trial and study indicated that although hunting causes direct and indirect biological impacts on individual birds, the limited hunting program at Sierra Valley Preserve, when assessed at scale, is sustainable with the long-term management of waterfowl species and their habitat. It also offers opportunities to connect more people to FRLT’s mission.
The trial resulted in new recommendations for how to structure any future hunting program to minimize and mitigate negative impacts. These included: delaying the start of the hunting season, limiting the number of hunting days, limiting access to a small portion of the Preserve, and prohibiting the harvest of Redheads.
With these new policies and rules, a limited hunting program was offered in 2020, including the Sierra Valley Waterfowlers group, and other members of the public.
Hunting Program revised for 2024-2025 season
In 2023 and 2024, FRLT’s Board of Directors voted to continue the hunting program at the Sierra Valley Preserve, with certain limitations. Continuance of the hunting program will be evaluated each year.
FRLT is working in partnership with The Nature Conservancy and the Northern Sierra Partnership to enhance public access and nature-based learning, recreation, and stewardship at the Preserve. Together, we’re building new interpretive trails and a Nature Center and stewardship headquarters, to be opened in 2024. As the Nature Center is being constructed, the interactions between hunters and the public will be limited to ensure safety and minimize impacts to wildlife and natural resources.
For the 24-25 season, FRLT is limiting waterfowl hunting to three specific dates and the Preserve will be closed to other public access at that time. This ensures safety for both the public and the hunters and minimizes closure time to allow ample opportunities for people to enjoy other types of recreation during the waterfowling season.
Monitoring
With support from the Sierra Valley Waterfowlers, FRLT will monitor the species of waterfowl and other wetland birds before, during, and after hunting at the Preserve.
Hunting and conservation
working together to steward the land
FRLT believes that land conservation and stewardship is only successful long-term when our entire community is engaged to appreciate nature and work together to protect it. Engaging local hunters with a strong code of ethics and commitment to land stewardship is one way that FRLT connects people to conservation.
Dave Valle, a member of the volunteer Sierra Valley Waterfowlers group and retired Portola High School teacher, is passionate about the connection between hunting and caring for the land: “a hunting experience such as this encourages a unique connection to the land, the wildlife, and encourages wildlife protection and stewardship.”
Hunters make significant contributions to wildlife conservation by generating revenue for federal and state land conservation programs through purchase of hunting licenses and tags and other fees and taxes. Grants available to FRLT for conservation and restoration projects through agencies such as the CA Department of Fish and Wildlife, for example, are funded in part by fees paid by hunters.
The local volunteers helping to run this program through Sierra Valley Waterfowlers are also committed to helping FRLT with hands-on land stewardship projects, educating hunter participants about the preserve and FRLT’s mission, and monitoring wildlife species at the Preserve.
Enter this year’s public hunt drawing, or read more details about this year’s program:
For more information about FRLT’s approach to the hunting program, contact Conservation Director Shelton Douthit at sdouthit@frlt.org or (530) 283-5758 x10.
