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The University of California Natural Reserve System (UCNRS) is a system of protected areas throughout California. [1] The reserves support UC's mission of teaching, research, and public service. Unlike national and state parks, they are not available for recreational uses, because they were specifically created to enable UC scientists to conduct research free from such distractions.
The system began with UC Berkeley zoology professor Joseph Grinnell. In 1937, near the end of his career, Grinnell began to work on a proposal to establish UC's first wildland field station for zoology teaching and research. He had initially looked to the U.S. national parks for research sites, but became frustrated with the National Park Service and how its other priorities often got in the way of his priorities. Grinnell became convinced that only a natural reserve owned by the university itself "would provide the permanent protection necessary for long-term teaching, research, and monitoring of California's ecosystems." [2]
Grinnell did not live long enough to see his proposal succeed. In May 1939, two weeks after Grinnell's sudden death from a heart attack, the Regents of the University of California voted to accept his proposal and created the oldest reserve in the system, Hastings Natural History Reservation. [2]
On January 22, 1965, at the suggestion of Kenneth S. Norris, the UC Board of Regents voted to formally join together Hastings and six other reserves into the Natural Land and Water Reserves System. [3] In 1970, it was renamed to the Natural Reserve System.
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, the system is composed of its ten campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz, along with numerous research centers and academic abroad centers. The system is the state's land-grant university. Major publications generally rank most UC campuses as being among the best universities in the world. In 1900, UC was one of the founders of the Association of American Universities and since the 1970s seven of its campuses, in addition to Berkeley, have been admitted to the association. Berkeley, Davis, Santa Cruz, Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and San Diego are considered Public Ivies, making California the state with the most universities in the nation to hold the title. UC campuses have large numbers of distinguished faculty in almost every academic discipline, with UC faculty and researchers having won 71 Nobel Prizes as of 2021.
The University of California, Riverside is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on 1,900 acres (769 ha) in a suburban district of Riverside with a branch campus of 20 acres (8 ha) in Palm Desert. In 1907, the predecessor to UCR was founded as the UC Citrus Experiment Station, Riverside which pioneered research in biological pest control and the use of growth regulators.
The James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve, a unit of the University of California Natural Reserve System, is a 29-acre (120,000 m2) ecological reserve and biological field station located at an altitude of 5,200 feet (1,600 m) in a wilderness area of the San Jacinto Mountains near Lake Fulmor in Riverside County, California, United States.
The Granite Mountains are a small mountain range in San Bernardino County, California, USA, located in the Mojave Desert. They are in the Mojave National Preserve, in the National Park Service system.
Joseph Grinnell was an American field biologist and zoologist. He made extensive studies of the fauna of California, and is credited with introducing a method of recording precise field observations known as the Grinnell System. He served as the first director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley from the museum's inception in 1908 until his death.
The history of the University of California, Riverside, or UCR, started in 1907 when UCR was the University's Citrus Experiment Station. By the 1950s, the University had established a teaching-focused liberal arts curriculum at the site, in the spirit of a small liberal arts college, but California's rapidly growing population made it necessary for the Riverside campus to become a full-fledged general campus of the UC system, and it was so designated in 1959.
Sagehen Creek Field Station is a research and teaching facility of the University of California at Berkeley's Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, the Berkeley Natural History Museums & the University of California Natural Reserve System. Sagehen is also a member of the Organization of Biological Field Stations.
The Central Sierra Field Research Stations—CSFRS is a regional group of University of California, Berkeley field research & education reserves located on both sides of the crest of the Sierra Nevada range, north of Lake Tahoe in California.
The Box Spring is a spring in Riverside County, California, around which grew the town of Box Springs. It is in the Moreno Valley, five miles (8.0 km) east-southeast of downtown Riverside on Interstate 215/State Route 60. Box Springs is named on the 7.5 quadrangle map, Riverside East (1967).
The Water Resources Collections and Archives (WRCA), formerly known as the Water Resources Center Archives, is an archive with unpublished manuscript collections and a library with published materials. It was established to collect unique, hard-to-find, technical report materials pertaining to all aspects of water resources and supply in California and the American West. Located on the campus of the University of California Riverside (UCR), it is jointly administered by the UCR College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (CNAS) and the UCR Libraries. WRCA was part of the University of California Center for Water Resources (WRC) that was established and funded in 1957 by a special act of the California State Legislature and was designated the California Water Research Institute by a federal act in 1964.
San Felipe Creek is a stream in Imperial and San Diego Counties of California. It arises in the Volcan Mountains of San Diego County 33°11′57″N116°37′35″W, and runs eastward, gathering the waters of most of the eastern slope of the mountains and desert of the county in the San Sebastian Marsh before it empties into the Salton Sea. It is probably the last remaining perennial natural desert stream in the Colorado Desert region. In 1974, the San Felipe Creek Area was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.
The Philip L. Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center is one of the original seven of the total 39 sites in the University of California Natural Reserve System. It contains lands originally donated to the University by regent Philip L. Boyd in 1958. The Research Center is contained within UNESCO's Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve.
Angus Munn Woodbury was an American zoologist and ecologist from Utah. He was professor at the University of Utah for over 20 years, and also worked for many years as a ranger-naturalist at Zion National Park. He produced over 100 publications, many focused on the biology of reptiles and birds, but also on insects, ecological succession, and the history of Utah. He and his wife of 55 years, Grace Atkin Woodbury, died in an automobile collision on August 1, 1964, near Loveland, Colorado.
The Kendall-Frost Mission Bay Marsh Reserve is a 20-acre University of California Natural Reserve System reserve on the northern shore of Mission Bay in San Diego County, California. Administered by UC San Diego, the site is owned by the University of California and managed for teaching and research.
Younger Lagoon Reserve is a 72-acre (28-hectare) University of California Natural Reserve System reserve on the northern shore of Monterey Bay in Santa Cruz County, California. The site is owned by the University of California and managed for teaching and research. It is adjacent to Long Marine Laboratory.
The Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve is a 303-acre nature reserve that is part of the University of California Natural Reserve System. It is located near Yucca Valley, California in San Bernardino County, California. Administered by UC Irvine, the reserve is owned by the University of California and managed for teaching and research.
Stunt Ranch Santa Monica Mountains Reserve, also known as UCLA Stunt Ranch, is a 121-hectare (310-acre) University of California Natural Reserve System reserve and biological field station located in Los Angeles County. The reserve protects habitat surrounded by the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The address is 1201 Stunt Road, Calabasas, California.
Kenneth S. Norris Rancho Marino Reserve is part of the University of California Natural Reserve System. The reserve is located along the coast of San Luis Obispo County at the south end of the town of Cambria, California. It is named for Kenneth S. Norris, a University of California professor, renowned naturalist, and founder of the UC Natural Reserve System. It is operated by the university under a use agreement, as it is privately owned and funded. There is no public access.
Scripps Coastal Reserve is a 126-acre University of California Natural Reserve System reserve located west of UC San Diego in the La Jolla Farms area of La Jolla, California. Administered by UC San Diego, the site is owned by the University of California and managed for teaching and research.
The Steele Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center is a research center at the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in southern California. The facility is a spawn of the joint partnership between the University of California, Irvine, the Anza-Borrego Foundation, and the administration of the state park. UC Irvine originally had facilities on 3.75 acres of land in the area, and their reach was expanded by a 75-acre donation from the Anza-Borrego Foundation. The facility was formerly a country club. The complex includes a hall, two classrooms, a laboratory, and a kitchen. The area in which the facility is located receives 5-7 inches of rain per year.