After a nearly three-year hiatus, the Shasta Chapter CNPS Executive Board has decided to resume monthly membership meetings, albeit virtually for now. Our first Chapter meeting is scheduled for 7 PM on Thursday, March 16, 2023, via Zoom. Like all Shasta Chapter CNPS meetings, this meeting is open to the public.
We are very excited to present the evening’s speaker, Shasta Chapter CNPS Member-at-Large Chris McCarron, Great Basin Institute Research Associate & Botanical Surveys Crews Leader at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area (NRA), who will speak on Whiskeytown: A Gold Mine of Botanical Treasures. Chris has been leading the Great Basin Institute survey crew at Whiskeytown NRA since 2021. Prior to that, he attended the University of California Berkeley for his undergraduate degree and worked at the University and Jepson herbaria, as well as with the East Bay Regional Parks Botanic Garden.
Whiskeytown NRA is uniquely situated at the southeastern edge of the Klamath Ranges, adjacent to the intersection of the Inner North Coast Ranges and the Cascade Range Foothills bioregions (as denoted by The Jepson Manual). The elevation gradient within the NRA extends from 900 feet on Clear Creek below Whiskeytown Dam, to 6,200 feet at the summit of Shasta Bally. As a result, Whiskeytown NRA has a diversity of vegetation types, species found at the edges of their range, and disjunct taxa from neighboring bioregions.
In 2018, 97% of the NRA was burned during the Carr Fire, opening up over 42,000 acres of land that was previously heavily vegetated. Beginning in 2021, the National Park Service partnered with the Great Basin Institute, hiring a crew to survey Pacific Gas & Electric Company’s infrastructure corridors within the NRA for botanical resources. The following year, the Great Basin Institute hired an additional crew to survey fuel treatment areas within the NRA. Over 2023, a third Great Basin Institute crew will be tasked with surveying the NRA, building on what has been discovered over the past two years.
Significant discoveries have been made in Whiskeytown NRA during these surveys that deserve to be shared and celebrated with the botanical community. Chris McCarron has been the crew leader for all three years and will be presenting some of the key findings and discoveries made during these surveys, along with plans for future botanical work in the NRA.
Please join us as we learn about the exciting work being done to explore this unique and underappreciated corner of the state. There will be a short Chapter membership meeting prior to Chris’ presentation, with time for questions after. Registration is required. (Click here to register. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.) Please contact shastacnps@gmail.com should you have questions. See you there! ~Shasta Chapter CNPS