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- Written by: Lake County News reports
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – While its main fundraiser was canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Lake County Land Trust is hard at work creating plans for its two recently acquired properties.
The Lake County Land Trust was created over a quarter of a century ago to preserve and protect the beautiful natural areas in Lake County.
Since its inception, this nonprofit charitable organization has been successful in preserving hundreds of acres of biodiverse habitat for the benefit of all.
The Land Trust owns four properties and three conservation easements, and together with the Nature Conservancy manages the Boggs Lake Preserve on Mt. Hannah.
The group’s most recent acquisition, funded by the State’s Wildlife Conservation Board and donors, is a 200-acre parcel which is part of the Land Trust’s Big Valley Wetlands Preservation Project along the shores of Clear Lake.
The Wright property purchase was the Land Trust’s biggest property acquisition to date.
“These acquisitions are only made possible with community support,” said Land Trust Board President Val Nixon. “Thanks to the combined efforts of many, this diverse wetland habitat is now protected forever.”
Owning properties, however, requires much more than the purchase of land. Following a successful acquisition, a plan must be created for public use. In the long-term, that plan must be implemented and the property must be managed.
The Land Trust’s two-fold goal is to protect land for its biodiverse value and scenic beauty while encouraging people to enjoy the land, inspiring them to live in balance with nature.
Currently, two of the trust’s properties are open for public enjoyment: Rabbit Hill in Middletown and Boggs Lake Preserve near Cobb.
The Land Trust Board, staff and volunteers are now creating management and public access plans for its two recent acquisitions, the 200-acre Wright property and the Melo property, both located within the Big Valley Wetlands.
The Land Trust first inventories plants and animals, identifying threatened or endangered species. Time is spent eradicating invasive species. Signs are created, identifying the land’s status as protected by the Land Trust. Properties are cleaned of all trash, fences and gates are repaired, and hiking paths are created.
This initial cleanup then transitions into regular maintenance that is in accordance with a fire protection and resilience plan: continual weeding out of invasive species, management of buildings and structures to ensure stability and longevity, and regular mowing of hiking paths to keep them user-friendly. Mitigation and rehabilitation to alleviate wildfire or heavy rain damage are often required.
Surveys are conducted regularly, using both GIS technology and on-site personal observation to ensure that grounds are safe and well-managed.
Trails are developed throughout the landscape and dotted with thoughtful educational panels that interpret the natural world in ways that bring it to life, encouraging respect for the natural surroundings. Resting places, picnic tables, shade structures and gates are introduced in the least disruptive way possible.
Structured field trips and standalone educational programs are offered to students, nature days and guided hikes occur on a schedule, and fundraisers are hosted to raise money for all of the above.
This year the Land Trust’s main fundraiser, its annual Dinner with Direction, has been canceled due to the pandemic.
The Lake County Land Trust envisions a bright future where its properties are places of inspiration and education, where curiosity about the natural world is ignited, galvanizing people to care for nature as nature cares for all who inhabit this world.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of border collie, Chihuahua, German Shepherd, husky, Labrador Retriever, pit bull, Rhodesian Ridgeback and Shar Pei.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm for information on visiting or adopting.
Shar Pei-Rhodesian Ridgeback
This male Shar Pei-Rhodesian Ridgeback has a short brown and black coat.
He is in kennel No. 19, ID No. 14132.
Yellow Labrador Retriever
This male yellow Labrador Retriever has a short coat.
He is in kennel No. 20, ID No. 14156.
Male Chihuahua
This male Chihuahua has a short black and brown coat.
He has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 21, ID No. 13638.
Male border collie
This male border collie has a long black and white coat.
He has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 22, ID No. 14150.
Male German Shepherd
This male German Shepherd has a medium-length black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 23, ID No. 14154.
Male German Shepherd-Siberian Husky
This Male German Shepherd-Siberian Husky has a medium-length black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 25, ID No. 14135.
Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short gray and brindle coat.
He is in kennel No. 26, ID No. 14138.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – The US Forest Service said the cooler weather that’s arrived over the region is impacting operations on the South Zone of the August Complex.
The complex, started by lightning on Aug. 16 and 17, has remained at 1,032,648 acres for more than two weeks, with containment now at 96 percent.
The South Zone, the portion that includes northern Lake County and the Mendocino National Forest, is at 499,826 acres and 97 percent containment, according to the Forest Service.
This new weather pattern follows a month of unseasonably warm conditions, officials said.
The Forest Service said the temperature dropped 30 degrees overnight on Thursday at Mendocino Pass with a dusting of snow.
There are 688 personnel on the incident as a whole and 260 personnel working on the August South Zone Complex, the Forest Service said.
Crews are continuing to focus on fire suppression repair in priority areas around the Sanhedrin Wilderness, wild and scenic river corridors, Mill Creek, Eel River and in locations that are prone to landslides along key forest travel routes. On Thursday alone, crews completed six and a half miles of suppression repair.
Forest Highway 7 remains closed to public traffic from Willows to Covelo, the Forest Service said.
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- Written by: Frank Tavares
Since astronomers confirmed the presence of planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, humanity has wondered how many could harbor life. Now, we’re one step closer to finding an answer. According to new research using data from NASA’s retired planet-hunting mission, the Kepler space telescope, about half the stars similar in temperature to our Sun could have a rocky planet capable of supporting liquid water on its surface.
Our galaxy holds at least an estimated 300 million of these potentially habitable worlds, based on even the most conservative interpretation of the results in a study released today and to be published in The Astronomical Journal.
Some of these exoplanets could even be our interstellar neighbors, with at least four potentially within 30 light-years of our Sun and the closest likely to be at most about 20 light-years from us.
These are the minimum numbers of such planets based on the most conservative estimate that 7 percent of Sun-like stars host such worlds. However, at the average expected rate of 50 percent, there could be many more.
This research helps us understand the potential for these planets to have the elements to support life. This is an essential part of astrobiology, the study of life’s origins and future in our universe.
The study is authored by NASA scientists who worked on the Kepler mission alongside collaborators from around the world. NASA retired the space telescope in 2018 after it ran out of fuel. Nine years of the telescope’s observations revealed that there are billions of planets in our galaxy – more planets than stars.
"Kepler already told us there were billions of planets, but now we know a good chunk of those planets might be rocky and habitable," said the lead author Steve Bryson, a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. "Though this result is far from a final value, and water on a planet's surface is only one of many factors to support life, it's extremely exciting that we calculated these worlds are this common with such high confidence and precision."
For the purposes of calculating this occurrence rate, the team looked at exoplanets between a radius of 0.5 and 1.5 times that of Earth's, narrowing in on planets that are most likely rocky. They also focused on stars similar to our Sun in age and temperature, plus or minus up to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's a wide range of different stars, each with its own particular properties impacting whether the rocky planets in its orbit are capable of supporting liquid water.
These complexities are partly why it is so difficult to calculate how many potentially habitable planets are out there, especially when even our most powerful telescopes can just barely detect these small planets. That's why the research team took a new approach.
Rethinking how to identify habitability
This new finding is a significant step forward in Kepler's original mission to understand how many potentially habitable worlds exist in our galaxy.
Previous estimates of the frequency, also known as the occurrence rate, of such planets ignored the relationship between the star's temperature and the kinds of light given off by the star and absorbed by the planet.
The new analysis accounts for these relationships, and provides a more complete understanding of whether or not a given planet might be capable of supporting liquid water, and potentially life.
That approach is made possible by combining Kepler's final dataset of planetary signals with data about each star's energy output from an extensive trove of data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission.
"We always knew defining habitability simply in terms of a planet's physical distance from a star, so that it's not too hot or cold, left us making a lot of assumptions," said Ravi Kopparapu, an author on the paper and a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Gaia's data on stars allowed us to look at these planets and their stars in an entirely new way."
Gaia provided information about the amount of energy that falls on a planet from its host star based on a star's flux, or the total amount of energy that is emitted in a certain area over a certain time. This allowed the researchers to approach their analysis in a way that acknowledged the diversity of the stars and solar systems in our galaxy.
"Not every star is alike," said Kopparapu. "And neither is every planet."
Though the exact effect is still being researched, a planet's atmosphere figures into how much light is needed to allow liquid water on a planet's surface as well.
Using a conservative estimate of the atmosphere's effect, the researchers estimated an occurrence rate of about 50 percent – that is, about half of Sun-like stars have rocky planets capable of hosting liquid water on their surfaces. An alternative optimistic definition of the habitable zone estimates about 75 percent.
Kepler's legacy charts future research
This result builds upon a long legacy of work of analyzing Kepler data to obtain an occurrence rate and sets the stage for future exoplanet observations informed by how common we now expect these rocky, potentially habitable worlds to be.
Future research will continue to refine the rate, informing the likelihood of finding these kinds of planets and feeding into plans for the next stages of exoplanet research, including future telescopes.
"Knowing how common different kinds of planets are is extremely valuable for the design of upcoming exoplanet-finding missions," said co-author Michelle Kunimoto, who worked on this paper after finishing her doctorate on exoplanet occurrence rates at the University of British Columbia, and recently joined the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "Surveys aimed at small, potentially habitable planets around Sun-like stars will depend on results like these to maximize their chance of success."
After revealing more than 2,800 confirmed planets outside our solar system, the data collected by the Kepler space telescope continues to yield important new discoveries about our place in the universe.
Though Kepler's field of view covered only 0.25 percent of the sky, the area that would be covered by your hand if you held it up at arm's length towards the sky, its data has allowed scientists to extrapolate what the mission's data means for the rest of the galaxy. That work continues with TESS, NASA's current planet hunting telescope.
"To me, this result is an example of how much we've been able to discover just with that small glimpse beyond our solar system," said Bryson. "What we see is that our galaxy is a fascinating one, with fascinating worlds, and some that may not be too different from our own."
Frank Tavares works for NASA's Ames Research Center.