Expert Witness or Testimony
Expert Witness or Testimony is provided by Connectivity for Wildlife staff on request. The field of wildlife linkage (corridor) issues is not well known or understood by most public officials, their staff, highway department agency personnel, the general public and others responsible for decisions effecting viable wildlife corridors. The science is rapidly evolving and keeping up with the latest scientific information can be a challenge. Below is a sample of CFW’s comments on the Monterey County California General Plan update and revision: (entire comments available upon request at info@cfwildlife.com)
2) Salinas Valley (east-west) and Salinas Valley (north-south) pg 2-154 & 155
1) In the discussion section, it states that the SVCS is intended to address San Joaquin kit fox, however in order to provide for adequate habitat and connectivity for the kit fox, low foothills are key habitat for kit fox, and the assessment if development and agricultural pressure that are due to the AWCP will be included in the SVCS assessment.
This review is not adequate from a scientific perspective. It is too limited. What also needs to be included is that valley floors are prime habitats that Kit fox are found in and is their primary habitat (Cypher et al 1998, USFW Kit fox Recovery Plan).
2) Within the discussion on pg 2-155, several Policies are listed that stated to prohibit development and protect these areas, such as Cachagua Area Plan policies CACH-3.7, South County Policies Policy SC-5.3, Stream Setback Ordinance BIO-2.1 for riparian movement corridors, Bio-3.1. However, it is then stated that before mitigation impacts to these wildlife corridors are considered less than significant for agricultural development, which is not correct as the proposed Agricultural Wine Corridor Plan, the new policy that would allow agricultural conversions on land with slopes over 25%, and most importantly the food safety issues involving fencing off vineyards from wildlife which foreseeable would be included in vineyard development, could severely cut off the all the described linkages within this section (Outdoor California, Department of Fish and Game Bulletin, Volume 69 No.2 pgs. 13-18 2008 Thorne at al 2002). The EIR failed to consider feasible mitigations for these impacts, such as prohibiting fencing around vineyards. Poisoning is also a threat to wildlife linkages, and the EIR failed to consider a mitigation that would prohibit poisoning or bait stations.
Under description of Linkage 323: Eastern Salinas Valley Foothills: Its stated that: "Low foothills along the eastern edge of the Salinas Valley provide critical north-south connectivity as well as east-west connections from Salinas Valley to the interior of the Diablo Ranges. Vineyards are spreading into this important area." The EIR discussion fails to contradict that statement, and does not adequately investigate the impacts, analyze them, or mitigate them. The pattern of development shows that the foothills on the east and west sides of the Salinas Valley are increasingly being developed or converted to agriculture.
Critically, the description of the linkages in this geographical area is for multiple species. To maintain a viable habitat connections corridor widths need to be 2km wide (1.2miles) to facilitate movement for multiple species (South Coast Missing Linkages, Penrod et al 2006, pg. 14). http://www.scwildlands.org/projects/scml.aspx
The EIR failed to investigate whether 2km wide linkages would remain after development, to analyze the impacts, or to impose sufficient mitigations to the impacts. As a result, there will be significant unmitigated impacts to the linkages in the Salinas Valley.