Who We Are
The Santa Cruz Mountains Reserve (SCMR) is a collaboration between UC Santa Cruz Natural Reserves and partnering land managers of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Through this collaboration, SCMR provides University of California and collaborating institutions’ students, faculty, and interns with access to over 23,000 acres of coastal prairie, redwood forest, and riparian streams all within 20-30 minutes of UCSC’s main campus. SCMR’s partners include state, federal, non-profit, and private entities all dedicated to conservation and stewardship of our local ecosystems. Students will have the opportunity to explore SCMR lands as outdoor classrooms as well as living laboratories where they can gain experience conducting research focused on managing ecological problems including wildfire, climate change, and habitat conversion. SCMR provides a gateway for students to become active stewards and participants in the next generation of natural resources professionals.
Founded in 2022, SCMR is the newest addition to the UC Santa Cruz Natural Reserve System’s family. We work closely with our other reserves in the system, including the Campus Natural Reserve, Younger Lagoon Reserve, and Año Nuevo Reserve. Due to the wide variety of ecosystems, land management, elevation, history of recent and historic wildfire, and sensitive watersheds; SCMR provides complimentary experiences to our other reserves. Students, researchers, and community members that utilize SCMR will have the opportunity to learn and analyze natural resource management, fire ecology, watershed health, and conservation goals on a regional scale.
Currently, SCMR is involved in a number of projects across our partnering lands., Throughout the year, we are involved with biodiversity surveys for regional flora and fauna: birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, and plant communites. In addition to general biodiversity surveys, SCMR helps support targeted surveys for sensitive species including amphibians (California red-legged frog, federally threatened), reptiles (San Francisco garter snake, federally endangered), salmonids (coho salmon, federally endangered; steelhead, federally threatened), and mammals (Santa Cruz kangaroot rat, CA species of special concern; San Francisco dusky-footed woodrat, CA species of special concern).
If you are interested in learning more about SCMR and our partner lands, feel free to contact us.