Desert landscape of small shrubs, grass and small dirt mounds.
Happy Earth Day from the San Joaquin Desert of Carrizo Plain National Monument. Those dirt areas are precincts of Giant Kangaroo Rat, a federally and state listed species. They help clear areas of the invasive annual grasses that dominate the landscape. Most of their habitat is now agriculture. 🌎
Stayed tuned for more about this exciting project!
Area that has been cleared of grass by giant kangaroo rat.
We are hoping to implement a prescribed grazing experiment to test if directed sheep grazing can improve lizard habitat this year. Even if this does not happen, giant kangaroo rat has recolonized our release site; this endangered species helps mow down the grass to keep their precincts clear!
San Joaquin Desert landscape with heavy invasive annual grass cover. This is where our captive population originated.
Heavily grazed San Joaquin Desert landscape that supports a healthy population of blunt-nosed leopard lizards.
One of the major issues for remaining populations of this species is the high coverage of invasive annual grasses that dominate many San Joaquin Desert remnants. Most persisting populations of BNLL live on grazed landscapes that help reduce the grass cover so the lizards can thrive.
Captive born blunt-nosed leopard lizard with solar-powered ultra-high frequency tag
Adult wild blunt-nosed leopard lizard with very-high frequency radio collar.
We monitor post-released lizard with an automated ultra-high frequency (UHF) telemetry array, as well as with temperature sensitive very-high frequency (VHF) telemetry.
A captive born female blunt-nosed leopard lizard with nuptial blush
We work with a population that was facing extirpation on public (BLM) land in 2020. Our breeding colony has been successful, and we have released 37 lizards back to the site over the past two years.
A saltbush shrubland interspersed with a blanket of small yellow wildflowers (goldfields)
These lizards are endemic to the San Joaquin Desert, an ecosystem almost completely converted into irrigated agriculture, resulting in the fragmentation and loss of leopard lizard populations as well as many other threatened species (kit fox, giant kangaroo rat, burrowing owl).
A blunt-nosed leopard lizard watches the landscape
Hi Bluesky, figured I should give a an intro post! I am a postdoctoral scientist in the Conservation Science Department at Fresno Chaffee Zoo. I work on a breeding and repatriation project for the blunt-nosed leopard lizard (BNLL), a species that has been endangered since the inception of the ESA
