Dos Rios Ranch Preserve

Based on years of learning by doing, River Partners is designing a habitat preserve that goes far beyond single-species or single-suite focus. We are actively balancing the habitat needs of the entire ecosystem, and using real-life lessons to guide our actions. The site provides large-scale provision for riparian brush rabbit, riparian woodrat, Swainson’s hawk, Central Valley Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, least Bell’s vireo, yellow warbler, sandhill crane, and the entire suite of neo-tropical migratory songbirds.

Our collective efforts at Dos Rios united stakeholders from diverse sectors who worked together for years to grow a thriving river forest on a reconnected floodplain where it had once been lost and disconnected.

Julie RentnerPresident, River Partners

Our pilot studies at Dos Rios document the growth benefits of floodplains for foraging for juvenile salmon, and we are in the process of building agency consensus around the design of a water control structure that will increase residence time for floodwaters to benefit foraging juveniles. We have installed wildlife monitoring cameras that have identified new occurrences of threatened and endangered species (riparian brush rabbit) which have guided the placement and configuration of habitat features for rabbits. With partner bird monitoring organizations, we have documented that the diversity of the breeding bird populations in restored habitats at Dos Rios is similar to that of mature forests after just two growing seasons.