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 January 2023 newsletter includes updates on the Year 5 NCOS monitoring report, invasive plant removal, and blooming wildflowers at the Lagoon and the bluff side of Henley Gate. The feature story focuses on the response of the NCOS wetland system to recent rains. Community photos include Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), Coyote (Canis latrans), Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis), Say’s Phoebe (Sayornis saya), Long-billed Curlew (Numenius americanus), and Dark Eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis).