By Laurie Koch Thrower
The Press-Enterprise
RIVERSIDE
It's not a pretty sight: A badger on the attack, charging through the snow with its jaws wide, jagged teeth bared.
The "dangerous encounter" is one of the entertaining features on a UCR-run Web site that actually has a serious purpose: mapping western Riverside County's wildlife.
Under the direction of UCR biology professor Tom Scott, UCR's Center for Conservation Biology is providing the database that Riverside County planners are using to craft a plan to set aside up to 510,000 acres for imperiled wildlife.
The information UCR has collected is on the Internet, displayed on maps and colorful pictures.
The Center for Conservation Biology was founded at UCR to provide decision-makers, builders and environmentalists with unbiased scientific information for evaluating development projects.
"The whole goal was to keep people from fighting about data," Scott said.
He and a small army of students have collected thousands of pieces of data to track imperiled plants and animals in the county. That information has become the database used by the county's paid consultant, Dudek Associates, to create a preserve system.
"It's probably the most extensive database that's ever been used for this type of planning effort," said Kristi Lovelady, the project supervisor for Riverside County.
The idea to collect biological data took shape more than a decade ago, when Riverside environmental activist Jane Block came to Scott with the concept, Scott said.
Block said that it became apparent to her during the building boom of the 1980s that the effects building projects would have on the environment were being evaluated without sufficient biological data.
The Center for Conservation Biology aims to provide that data.
"This is something that really is a gift to the community, a gift to the county," Block said.
The data collection kicked into high gear when Riverside County began its planning effort. The county hired UCR and Scott's lab for about $198,400 to create and run the Web site, to provide the biological data and for Scott to act as the plan's science adviser, Lovelady said.
To pinpoint the spots where more than 160 species of sensitive animals and plants have been recorded, Scott's researchers slogged through hundreds of environmental impact reports, field notes from biologists and museum records.
The maps show general areas where threatened or endangered plants and animals have been found, not individual properties.
Among the tidbits on the Web site:
- Want to know where mountain lions roam? Sightings from biologists and other sources are recorded in the database.
- How about the California gnatcatcher, another protected species? There's also a map of gnatcatcher sightings.
- The nimble long-tailed weasel eats various mice and isn't above going after the endangered Stephen's kangaroo rat.
- Wildflower enthusiasts looking for the purple-and-blue California beardtongue had better be quick: It blooms only from May through June. The Web site shows where.
- And, if you want to see a charging badger or hear the roar of a mountain lion, you'll find that, too.
So far, most of the Web site's visitors are people involved in the county's planning effort, Scott said, but the hope is that the public will latch on to the interactive tool -- either for fun or because they want information about species in their area.
"The idea is that this is for the general public and that this is a way of getting information out," Scott said.
Scott said he and the other scientists with the Conservation Biology center aren't going to tell Riverside County what its preserve system should look like. They're just providing the data to help form the plan.
"We want to be known," Scott said, "as the objective source of information."
Laurie Koch Thrower can be reached by e-mail at lthrower@pe.com or by phone at (909) 248-6130.
The site The Web site: UCR's Center for Conservation Biology database for Riverside County's planning project can be found at http://ecoregion.ucr.edu/mshcp/
The site includes information and locations of wildlife and plants found in western Riverside County.
Published 1/21/2001
