Wolf Creek Community Alliance Wolf Creek is Special

Wolf Creek Community Alliance Wolf Creek is Special! • • • It’s all about diversity: Geography Geology Biodiversity History Human Impacts

3, 000 ft Wolf Creek Watershed 20 miles long 50, 000 acres 78 sq miles 1, 200 ft

Effects of Geography (and Geology) • Low Sierra mountain setting means that not much of the precipitation in the watershed falls as snow • Top third of watershed flows East to West • Bottom two thirds flow North to South • Geologic diversity as well – volcanic flows, granitic strata, gabbro and serpentine soils

Biodiversity • Geography and geology provide biotic diversity • The watershed has at least seven general types of plant communities • The plant communities in turn support diverse animal communities

Plant Communities • • • • Annual Grass Blue Oak Woodland Blue Oak-Foothill Pine Closed Cone Pine-Cypress Douglas Fir Mixed Chaparral Montane Hardwood-Conifer Montane Riparian Ponderosa Pine Sierran Mixed Conifer Wet Meadow

Rare Plants

Rare Animals

Rare Habitat – Low-Altitude Mountain Meadows

The Diverse History of Wolf Creek • 500 – 7000 years of continuous habitation by Maidu peoples • People of European Origin enter the area – the Emigrant Trail runs along South Wolf Creek • Discovery of gold in Wolf Creek • A hundred years of gold mining, followed by: • Sixty years of recovery

The Diversity of Impacts • The main reach of upper Wolf Creek, and South Fork of Wolf Creek, have been heavily effected by mining • South Wolf Creek had almost no mining • Wolf Creek around Grass Valley is urbanized • South Wolf Creek is almost entirely rural

The Diversity of Possible Futures • The Wolf Creek watershed is being rapidly developed • Much of the watershed could soon be like the urban reach in Grass Valley • There are still open spaces that can be preserved… • What kind of future will we choose for the Wolf Creek watershed?

Wolf Creek Community Alliance www. wolfcreekalliance. com 530 -272 -2347