Management Plan Goals

Key conservation objectives for maintaining the Natomas Basin GGS population include:

Developing a network of habitat reserves with restored marsh habitat and adjacent rice fields linked by water supply canals.

Developing habitat reserves of 400 acres or more and maintaining at least 50 percent of mitigation lands in rice production and 25 percent in managed marsh.

Key conservation objectives for maintaining the Swainson’s hawk population in the Natomas Basin include:

Maintaining upland habitats for nesting and foraging.

Maintaining up to 25 percent of the mitigation land base in uplands.

Providing foraging habitats (e.g. native grassloands, alfalfa fields and grazed pastures).

Preserving and restoring riparian areas for nesting.

Secondarily, the NBHCP is designed to protect and enhance a multitude of other listed and non-listed wildlife species that also depend upon wetland and upland habitats. Important listed species include burrowing owls, tricolored blackbirds, white-faced ibis, greater sandhill cranes, vernal pool fairy shrimp, and valley elderberry longhorn beetles.