In the late 1940s, a graduate zoology student named Kenneth S. Norris began observing a community of desert iguanas near Palm Springs, California. After spending weeks sweating amid the desert dunes, he returned one day to discover his field site razed, the iguanas scattered, and a motel under construction. Later, as a professor of the University of California, Norris learned many colleagues had experienced similar losses of field sites. Human populations were booming in post-World War II California, and development was consuming the fields and forests natural scientists had studied for years. Instead of merely bemoaning the situation, Norris set out to do something about it. In 1965, Norris and the University of California founded what is now the largest university-administered reserve system in the world.
The UC Natural Reserve System is a network of wildlands managed specifically for research, university-level education, and public service. Its 39 reserves range across 600 miles of California north to south, 450 miles east to west, and more than 14,000 feet of elevation. As a result, the system includes examples of most major habitats in the most biologically diverse state in the nation. Its holdings include coastal wetlands, oak savannas, evergreen forests, vernal pools, inland deserts, sandy beaches, and much more. Altogether, NRS lands now cover more than 1,200 square miles.
NRS reserves contain an astonishing degree of biological diversity. Of California’s roughly 8,000 native or naturalized vascular plant species, more than 3,300 species, or 41 percent, are found within the NRS. Santa Cruz Island Reserve alone protects 44 plant species found nowhere else in the world, like the Channel Island tree poppy (Dendromecon harfordii) and the Santa Cruz Island bush mallow (Malacothamnus fasiculatus suppnesioticus). Animals found on reserves run the gamut of native species, from black bear (Ursus americanus) to California quail (Callipepla californica) and Costa’s hummingbird (Calypte costae).
NRS reserves are working lands. Their primary purpose is to permit experimentation and instruction. That means visiting scientists may install equipment like sap flow meters, capture and release animals to demonstrate field methods to students, and take samples of plants for herbarium collections. Most reserves also have visitor accommodations such as beds, kitchens, showers, and internet service. Some also provide laboratories, office space, and even vehicles.