Whale Watching Tips

March is the peak season for whale watching along the Mendocino Coast. Many people will charter boats and go in search of whales, while others will grab their binoculars and find a vantage point on a bluff top to spot these massive mammals.

California gray whales migrate from November to May. Other species migrate later in the year. Humpbacks are most commonly seen between April and November, and blue whales from June to October. Orcas may also be seen at times, but do not have a predictable migration timetable. 

Whatever time you are hoping to spot whales, here are some tips to keep in mind to maximize the pleasure of the experience:

Binoculars are helpful, but scanning the horizon with the naked eye will give you a broader expanse and allow you to zero in on a potential sighting. Watch for flocks of seagulls, which tend to gather near whales.For photography, a zoom lens of 70-300mm will yield best results. Bring a tripod to steady your longer lens for less camera-shake and a crisper shot.

Whale watching requires patience. Since you’ll be out there for a while, be sure to bring goodies, sunscreen, and warm clothes-gloves and a hat. 

Bring friends and divide up the horizon. More sets of eyes looking at specific areas increase the odds of spotting whales, and they’ll help you pass the time while you wait.

Don’t be locked into rigid expectations of the experience. There will be times when whales elude you, but being on a trail with friends and good food and watching the many forms of wildlife can still be a pleasurable experience.

Going out on a trail is relatively easy and inexpensive, and not seeing a whale on one outing gives you a great excuse to check out yet another trail on another day. Look at this link for the many MLT trails you can explore!

After you’ve had fun on the trails, it’s time to check out the many whale-related events during March in Mendocino County.

Whale Festivals in the Fort Bragg Area:
https://mendocinocoast.com/whale-home

Here is a link from our friends at MendoParks about local activities:
https://www.mendoparks.org/whale-festival

The Point Cabrillo Lighthouse:
https://pointcabrillo.org/self-guided-whale-trail/

And the Fort Bragg wine walk. (If you don’t see whales, at least you’ll have an excuse. 🙂 )
https://mendocinocoast.com/fort-bragg-whale-festival

MLT Seeking Board Members

MLT is seeking to expand its Board of Trustees and encourages applicants from diverse backgrounds who can help our Board evolve to reflect the diversity of Mendocino County. This is a great opportunity to get involved with a energetic and active team.

Check out our current board members at this link, and read about our history by clicking here.

You may use this link to apply.

Questions? Contact info@mendocinolandtrust.org

Summer 2024 MLT Internship

Mendocino Land Trust Conservation and Trails Internship

Applications Due by 5 PM on Thursday, March 7, 2024

Description: The intern will work as part of MLT’s Stewardship Team on a variety of conservation, stewardship, habitat restoration, and public access trail projects in Mendocino County. These projects will include: stewardship of MLT’s coastal trails and preserves, volunteer event coordination, conservation easement monitoring, new trail planning and construction, and report writing. The intern will also assist with various administrative duties, including grant and permit preparation. The position will report to Anna Bride, Stewardship Project Manager, and will work closely with other members of staff. The internship will last 10 weeks, from mid-June to mid-August (exact dates to be determined). The internship comes with a $6,000 stipend. There is a $600 flat cost for utilities and housing for the 10 weeks.

Responsibilities Include:

  • Help care for and maintain MLT’s coastal trails and preserves
  • Assist staff with social media and outreach efforts
  • Assist staff with documentation of land stewardship and restoration activities
  • Coordinate volunteer events
  • Produce maps for projects or assist with mapping
  • Assist with conservation easement monitoring
  • Conduct field work and office research to support restoration and forestry projects
  • Research and prepare grant and permit documents

Qualifications:

  • Passion for natural resource protection and restoration, desire to learn, and a preference for taking initiative.
  • Interest in living and working on the rugged and remote Northern California Coast.
  • Ability and desire to work indoors in an office setting.
  • Ability and desire to spend full days working outside in the field, occasionally hiking in rugged conditions.
  • Travel to the office in Fort Bragg from the intern’s place of housing will be by the intern’s personal transportation.
  • Intern should have the clothing and personal gear necessary to work outside.

How to apply:

Please submit a cover letter and resume by email to Anna Bride at anna@mendocinolandtrust.org, In your cover letter, make sure to address the following:

Why are you interested in an internship with the Mendocino Land Trust?

How will your past experience benefit the Land Trust during your internship?

About Mendocino Land Trust

The Mendocino Land Trust conserves and restores habitat, scenic areas and working lands while also providing public access to beautiful places.

Visit mendocinolandtrust.org to learn more about our work.

For a brief history of our internship program and testimonials, click here.

You may also use the “handshake tool” to apply with this link.

Stella’s Story

James Ranch’s Colorful Cattlewoman

Colorized historic photo of Stella James riding her horse.News article about Stella James and her artwork used to make a celebratory belt buckle.

by Robb Lightfoot, photos courtesy Kevin and Judy Schulz

The old saying, “They don’t make them like that anymore” is a fitting tribute to the life of Stella James, a woman who could feed 40 cowhands and then walk out the door to break and train a string of horses all by herself. 

Stella’s great nephew, Kevin Schulz, said that just a week before she died at age 97, Stella was working alongside him helping him load his truck with firewood.

“Stella and I would walk the property to check fences and check cattle, and she would never leave the house without her .38 Smith and Wesson, as long as she lived.”

Stella died in April of 2013, but it was her wish that her beloved ranch, west of Willits, be cared for even after her passing.  Since then, her family has continued to keep the land as a working ranch and honor her wishes. In December of 2023, her descendants, collaborating with Mendocino Land Trust, received a grant that will allow the James Ranch to be protected in perpetuity much as it is now thanks to a conservation easement. 

Stella's map of Sherwood.Stella the Artist at work

Conrad Kramer, Executive Director of MLT says that both he and the landowners are “overjoyed” with the grant and “extremely grateful” to the grantor, California’s Strategic Growth Council, or SGC. 

Included in this grant were the funds to conserve almost 1,300 acres that constitute the unique and picturesque landscape known as James Ranch. MLT believes it is fitting that the James Ranch was selected for protection. 

James Ranch has been in commercial agricultural production since the 1800s. The ranch is comprised of mixed Douglas fir and redwood forests, oak woodlands, annual grassland, and mixed chaparral. It is a gem situated in the Sherwood Valley.

But a ranch isn’t a really a ranch unless it is being worked, and the work is hard. It takes a special kind of person to be out there, year after year, every day no matter what the weather. Stella James was such a tough, can-do, and inventive person.

The Willits News wrote in June of 2013 an article celebrating her life. In that article, she was described as a “topnotch cowhand,” able to mend fences, haul hay, and do all that was required on a working cattle-ranch—feeding and branding cattle. She often fed large gatherings of cowhands and was “used to hauling water and washing dishes over a campfire.” A goodly part of her life-story was in a world without the conveniences of running water or electricity. 

She was a no-nonsense person when it came to debt—she would have none of it. If she couldn’t afford to buy things cash, she would improvise or do without.

But Stella knew how to have fun, too. She loved riding in parades, and it was in once such parade, while still in school, that she met her future husband, Edgar. They both knew “right away” that they were drawn to one another. They were married shortly after she graduated from Willits High School in August 1933. Over their years in rodeo—a passion and a pastime both she and Edgar shared – Stella racked up many awards. She was top cattlewoman of 1937 in the five-counties area that includes Mendocino, and in 1948 she was the Fortuna Redwood Rodeo Queen. 

And while all this effort made for long days, Stella still found time to exercise her substantial skills as an artist. The Willits News article noted her contributions to the Frontier Days events.  “I used to draw all of the pictures for the posters,” she said. “I once drew a life-size bucking Brahma bull on a plywood back.” The artwork was used to promote the rodeo. Later, in 2000, Stella designed a belt-buckle for the same Frontier Days events. She was 84 years old.

Much of what is known about the ranch’s history is because Stella passed it on, and her great nephew remembers her story-telling style. 

“Anytime her friends or family took Stella into town as she got older, she would start talking and literally never stop until she got back home,” Schulz said. “It was a rare occasion if you got a word in. She would point here and there, often touching your nose with her hand as she swung it to and fro, telling you where this person lived, their names, the names of their children, where the grist mills were, where old man so and so had his accident, and so much more. She had a photographic memory. Friends and neighbors would send her packets of old pictures for her to identify.”  

In addition to her oral histories, she drew a large picture, from her own memory, that depicted a map of Sherwood, which once stood on the James Ranch. The town sat directly alongside the railway, and it boasted a hardware store, and general store.

Stella knew and lived so much of the history of her ranch, but her life was not confined by its boundaries. She was able to get out and see the world. According to her great nephew, she traveled to Alaska, seeking adventure everywhere she went. When she visited Australia, she took a rafting trip, adding those experiences to her rich repertoire of stories.

So many stories. So many memories. Stella was a tireless force of nature who combined hard work, wit, grit, and a passion for the land to craft an amazing life. She will be long remembered by those who knew, respected, and cherished her. And the James Ranch that bears her name will carry on in a way that honors its rich history and natural beauty. It will continue to do her proud as a working ranch, conserved and protected for all time thanks to her descendants and MLT.

MLT Lands $1.5 Million Grant

Behren’s Silverspot butterfly

A small butterfly just got a big break.

MLT will begin work this month as it coordinates a team of experts to bolster the population of the Behren’s Silverspot butterfly, a federally endangered species. In December, the Wildlife Conservation Board awarded MLT a $1.5 million dollar grant to work with State Parks, the Bureau of Land Management, the Laguna Foundation, the Sequoia Park Zoo, and Wynn Coastal Planning & Biology. This joint, team-effort will oversee a multi-stage, four-year plan to help this butterfly, once a common sight on the Northern California coast.

The restoration will collectively cover 53 acres. 

MLT’s Stewardship Project Manager, Anna Bride, spearheaded the grant-writing process. Executive Director Conrad Kramer acknowledged the importance and magnitude of this grand-award.

“With the staunch support of hundreds of biophile MLT donors, we were able to dedicate the staff time to work with our partners to secure the funding to allow us to restore habitat for this tiny beautiful creature,” Kramer said.

The first phase of this project entails habitat restoration. Paid staff and volunteers from these agencies will remove invasive plant species in three different North Coast locations, and then plant more than 35,000 native plants reared in nurseries. These native species will include a mix of native grasses, early blue violets, and other nectar species.

The focus of this effort is in multiple sites. The number of native species to be replanted varies from site-to-site and includes planting seeds at some locations as well as using controlled grazing to eliminate invasive plants in others.

This plant-restoration effort will continue for several years.

In addition to habitat restoration, the grant will fund a two-year program of captive rearing of the butterflies. Experts from the Sequoia Zoo will collect female butterflies from the wild in late summer and the butterflies’ eggs will be hatched in a protected environment. The caterpillars will be raised to the pupae stage.

Then, the following summer, 50-200 butterflies will be released into the improved habitat. Their numbers will be monitored each season for three years thereafter.

The grant writing process is demanding and requires abundant documentation as well as establishing solid collaboration among many agencies. MLT’s winning this grant is a victory for the butterfly and a testimony to the dedication of all of these organizations.

The WCB was established in 1947, and it has evolved today to be an organization that has three primary goals: land acquisition, habitat restoration and development of wildlife oriented public access facilities.

On its website, WCB details 17 programs, ranging from butterfly rescue to forest and desert conservation. You can see the full range of its efforts at this link. 

In memoriam: Betty Barber

MLT wishes to acknowledge its deep debt to Betty Barber, who passed on December 2, 2023.

She was 103 years old.

Betty was a visionary and dedicated conservationist who, along with her partner Grail Dawson, were essential players in the early days of MLT’s work. Their efforts set MLT on the path to become what it is today. It is impossible to overstate the importance of their contribution.

Grail passed in 2019.

In a radio interview back in May of 2020, Betty told KZYX interviewer Jim Culp that her interest in tennis led her to the Mendocino Tennis Club. In 1977, Betty arrived in town with a new car and a new sleeping bag to begin her life in Fort Bragg. 

“I played tennis very early in my life and enjoyed it,” Betty said in this interview, “and I was able to be a teacher, a pretty good teacher. In fact, one of the reasons I moved up here was the Mendocino Tennis Club. I enjoyed my life then because of tennis.” 

It was on those courts that she met the man that was to become a life-long partner, Grail Dawson.

“I did meet him (Grail) there and enjoyed playing with him. I didn’t always like the way he played, or some of the strokes that he had, but he was a good player and a good competitor. And we had a lot of fun.”

Betty and Grail not only played together, they worked, and worked hard. They fought poorly planned development that threatened the area’s environment, culture, and unique lifestyle. 

In a June 2018 interview in the Mendocino Beacon, Betty recounted some of her early efforts. She and Grail worked together in radio as reporters for the Mendocino News Service. She became familiar with the people of Mendocino County by interviewing many of them. According to the Beacon, their efforts helped keep MLT together until there was money to hire a professional to run the non-profit. 

Chet Anderson, a long-time MLT Board member, recalled his time with her. “Betty and Grail were the inspiration for me. Because of them, I saw the value of the organization (MLT). I had a small vision and innocence, I wasn’t even aware of all the possibilities.“

But this soon changed as he became deeply involved with the causes and campaigns of those times. Anderson retells the highlights below.

“Her personality was big, and she touched a lot of lives,” Anderson said. “They (Betty and Grail) came along at a time when MLT needed leadership and work, and they provided this.

“There are a lot of people who identify Betty with the Land Trust and the Land Trust with Betty. It’s hard when there is a couple to separate their work. Grail and she were partners and owned a home together. Grail was a bit more of a politician, an activist, Betty was behind him. There were two big coastal projects, one was at Navarro Point. Betty and Grail were very much involved.

“The other one that is important, south of Mendocino, overlooking the Bay. There’s a piece of land privately owned that had beautiful ocean views and ocean access. The people who owned it wanted to build a house on an adjacent property. They had no interest in coastal access or letting the public share it. But the Coastal Commission, when the owners went to get the permit, extracted something from them to approve the project. So, in this case, the Commission extracted a public easement. The owners then built a house overlooking Big River Bay. 

“Now, the Coastal Commission can create an easement, but it has no meaning unless someone accepts the responsibility for it,” Anderson explained. “That’s what MLT did, and it’s the best viewing site of Mendocino Bay and the town of Mendocino.

“This easement and trail access entailed some controversy because the owner didn’t like that, even though they were getting the benefit of Coastal Commission approval. The owners actually sued the Land Trust, and this is where Betty and Grail got involved because MLT didn’t have money to hire attorneys. But Betty organized a dinner at the Cafe Beaujolais to hire an attorney. It might not have been necessary, ultimately, but we did prevail. The owner had to go away. It was still his land, but the easement remained.

“The dinner at the Cafe–from my perspective– was one of the most notable things Betty did. It set in motion the gradual, upward movement in terms of ability in terms of what we (MLT) could do and our reach…. Good hires, continual progress, outreach, projects, larger scope of the conservation easements. Not as sexy as acquiring Navarro Point, but they are an extremely important part of the project.”

Betty and Grail also were instrumental in acquiring and helping conserve the Big River Estuary.

All of this, and much more, happened because Betty and Grail were among the leaders of a group dedicated to conserving the land and providing public access. These two embodied the core mission of MLT. MLT is today, what it is, in no small part because of the dedicated work of Betty.

And, by all accounts, Betty also had a long and satisfying life all along the way.

In the radio interview, celebrating her 100th birthday, she said that she found satisfaction in “having friends, having fun, and being able to laugh. … I live in an incredible area, and I have had the love of two fine men in my life,” she said. Her advice on reaching a ripe old age is worth noting, too.

“Drink a lot of water. Try to eat good. Try not to get too impatient. Try to control some of the negative things, and just go on being lucky.”

Betty was, herself, lucky–a woman loved and admired by many.

She will be missed. 

If you would like to remember her in meditation, we suggest you head out to one of Betty and Grail’s favorite spots, the Mendocino Bay viewpoint, where MLT erected a bench in 2012 in honor of the two of them. Click here for information.