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| Mike with his game face on |
Where are you from? What’s your background?
I am a third generation Southern Californian. I was born in Los Angeles, grew up in the San
Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, and moved to the San Diego area for college
where I studied ecology at UCSD.
You’ve been involved with conservation on Tejon Ranch for a
while now. What would you say is the most important aspect of the 2008
Ranch-wide Agreement?
I would say that protecting 240,000-acres of habitat was a
pretty important aspect of the Agreement!
However, to my mind demonstrating that the environmental community and a
large private landowner can find common ground and commit to work together to
further conservation is one of the most important results of the Agreement.
The website says you just completed drafting the Ranch-wide
Management Plan. What are the top conservation priorities for Tejon Ranch
Conservancy over the next few years?
Our top priorities are to work with the cattle lessees at
Tejon to enable grazing management that can enhance riparian and wetland
habitats and benefit grassland species such as native wildflowers, blunt-nosed
leopard lizard, San Joaquin kit fox, and burrowing owl. We are also focusing
our attention on better understanding the feral pig population on the Ranch and
the ecological damages they cause to inform development of pig management
strategies.
Is there anything in particular on Tejon Ranch you are
excited to see?
At the present time I would really just like to see it
rain! While I am easily excited by most
everything biological on the Ranch, I am very interested to see the results of
some of the botanical work that has been started. Range extensions for several species have
been documented, and there is a possibility of finding new undescribed taxa. Even if the Ranch doesn’t support undescribed
species, it will almost certainly change the way we think about the plant
taxonomy in this part of California.
Please describe one amazing nature moment you had in 2013.
Watching two mountain lions crossing right in front of my
truck one late afternoon.
We at the Conservancy are pretty big audiophiles. Can you
list 5 of your favorite albums?
So in my heart I am still a 1970s rocker. One of the most amazing but not well known rock
albums from that time is David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane. I like most anything by the Grateful Dead,
but the Europe 72 albums are a great and easily accessible sample of that
period. I just recently listened to Bob
Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, which is timeless stuff. My wife Jerre and I really enjoy Mana’s
Unplugged, one of our standard road-trip albums. A cool indie band out of San Diego is The
Vision of a Dying World, and they have a great album called Skelephone Call
from the Eastern Side that is worth looking for.
We like to talk about how Tejon Ranch is at the confluence
of 4 of Ca’s major ecoregions (southwestern Ca, SJV, Sierra Nevada, Mojave
Desert). Do you have a favorite one?
I really love seeing how the ecoregions “slosh” together,
but my favorite ecoregion is probably the Mojave Desert (Antelope Valley). There is always a diversity of colors and
textures that I enjoy seeing and plenty of secret spots to explore!
Besides Tejon Ranch, can you list 5 California locations you
love?
Anza Borrego Desert State Park, eastern Sierra Nevada, Tahoe
Basin, Central Coast region, and my private stretch of beach in Leucadia.
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| Mike contemplates the future of Tejon Ranch while looking down Bronco Canyon |
