The Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve

Who’s on the Preserve?

Animals

The Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve’s rich confluence of salt and freshwater ecosystems are home to hundreds of species, many of them endangered. Mountain lion breed and raise cubs on the preserve, while California sea lions and northern elephant seals rest and raise pups along the beaches. Burying owls and acorn woodpeckers nest and forage for food in the preserve’s woods and grasslands, while Grant’s cormorants show off their shiny blue necks offshore along rocky intertidal areas that protect important marine life.

TNC also maintains a small cattle herd on the preserve as a conservation tool to reduce fire fuel loads, manage invasive species and promote endemic species. These herds continue the preserve’s ranching history, which began with the arrival of the Spanish in the 1770s.

Plants

The preserve is a window into what once grew wild across California and how natural processes like fire governed ecosystems before European settlement. Pockets of grassland are speckled with native species like purple needle and rye grass. In springtime in years of good rain, these fields are painted orange, blue, yellow, purple and pink by abundant wildflowers. Chaparral scrubland cover 9,000 acres of the preserve, and fire and drought-resistant species like the California lilac, manzanita, California coffeeberry and the rare La Purissima manzanita thrive here. The plant life underwater is equally rich, home to underwater oases full of rockweed algae, bull kelp and sea stars.

Indigenous Culture

The preserve protects a confluence of historical and cultural resources across Native American, Spanish and U.S. histories. This part of the coastline is culturally and spiritually important to Chumash people, who once integrated the preserve’s unique resources into many aspects of everyday life. For example, offshore reefs’ unique tar seeps, born from ancient oil deposits, served as caulking for canoes and baskets.

TNC is working with the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians and other Chumash to be part of the re-discovery, protection and celebration of the extraordinary cultural record at the Dangermond Preserve.

Technology

TNC scientists and partners are constantly working with technology to advance human understanding of the wildlife and the environment in the face of climate change. The Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve’s size and biodiversity marks it as a good candidate for new kinds of management, research and discovery. With wildlife cameras, GPS collars, acoustic sensors and much more, TNC seeks to expand the ways this landscape is maintained and explored.

This vision has catalyzed the start of a new institute, The Point Conception Institute (PCI), a conservation enterprise based at the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve. PCI harnesses the power of open science to tackle urgent global challenges related to climate change and biodiversity loss through diverse research collaborations, data stewardship and sharing and innovative technological solutions. The institute is building a Digital Twin of the Dangermond Preserve—a working model of the 25,000-acre protected area, updated in near real-time by a vast network of sensors strategically positioned across land and water This digital rendering is built for distribution and will be available online, allowing researchers to study many aspects of the preserve from anywhere in the world.

Background

The Dangermond Preserve’s rich cultural history extends back more than 9,000 years to some of the earliest human settlements in North America.

The Bixby family first arrived in California from Maine amid the Gold Rush of the 1850s. The family bought huge swaths of land in Los Angeles County and Orange County for ranching and farming. Then, in 1912, Fred Bixby purchased the 9,000-acre Cojo Ranch in Santa Barbara County, uniting it with the 16,000-acre Jalama Ranch 27 years later. Hollywood and Southern California’s urban and military development left the area largely untouched as the Bixby Ranch, which allowed nature and natural processes to continue relatively undisturbed.

A Preserve Is Born

TNC and its partners understood what the Bixby Ranch’s expansive, well-preserved habitats could mean for conservation efforts in California. It was one of the last large, privately owned and still-undeveloped coastal tracts in Southern California—one of the country’s most expensive real estate markets. Jack and Laura Dangermond, the founders of the geographic software company Esri, were among those watching what happened to the property. They, like many, cherished the area. In December 2017, the Dangermonds made TNC’s acquisition of the Preserve possible with the largest philanthropic gift in TNC history.

A Shared Vision Creates a First-of-Its-Kind Living Laboratory

TNC and Jack and Laura Dangermond share a vision to make the preserve a living laboratory that will draw researchers and students from nearby University of California, Santa Barbara and other universities. With the help of the Dangermonds, the preserve is becoming one of the world’s most studied preserves, outfitted with environmental sensors to better understand the impact of climate change on the region’s natural resources.