April 8, 2004

Increasing wildlife needs monitoring; public needs education
Forum planned for April 15

By Kymberli W. Brady
Staff Writer

The recent efforts by the water district to restore creeks in the area—including Los Gatos, Los Alamitos, and Guadalupe, as well as watersheds in and around Santa Clara Valley—has led to the added need for wildlife monitoring, according to an Almaden resident.

A retired San Jose State University professor, Patrick Pizzo has lived in the Oak Canyon development—an area of open meadows and oak savannas that line the Guadalupe Creek—for 17 years. He admittedly loves the recent influx of wildlife, as do the residents in the area. But with the area’s back-to-nature quality comes concerns about the proximity of wild animals, such as coyote, bobcats, fox and mountain lions, and the potential danger to children and pets.

Since the restoration of Los Alamitos Creek, the Water District’s flood control plan includes using the expanded corridor for interconnecting trails from the Mason Dam thorough Quicksilver Park to Almaden Lake. Another goal is to move water from reservoirs to the streams, creating a continual, year-round flow and an impetus to draw Coho salmon as well as steelhead trout back into the creeks and the Guadalupe River—something that hasn’t happened for many years.

Creating a route for fish to use the creeks as a tributary to the bay, where mercury contamination remains a serious problem, raises yet another issue. “Why are we drawing Coho salmon, which migrate to the world again, by picking up the mercury here and bringing it to everyone else,” Pizzo questions. “The Water District has addressed these issues as best they can, but it still begs the general question of should we really be creating a route for migrating fish to pick up more mercury and other Silicon Valley by-products?”

However, the biggest concern, according to Pizzo lies with the growth of the wildlife habitat, and with it, the introduction of such to residents—quite literally in some cases— right to their front doors. His concerns became apparent upon reading an editorial in the March 12 issue of the Almaden Times Weekly, where Santa Clara

County Vector Control Specialist Mike Phillips said, “There are going to be more problems with animal attacks as we encroach on their environment.” Pizzo argues that on the contrary, an environment has been created to meet their needs within our own high-density, residential community and along with it comes responsibility, management, and public safety. “This, in my opinion, includes control of the number and distribution of wildlife within high-density communities,” he asserts. “And to date, the agencies have not addressed this.”

While the Guadalupe Creek restoration in Almaden is only two years old, cover for wildlife is still in its early stages and the concurrent increase in food supply will likely create a domino effect in the food chain, a propensity for more deer to attract more mountain lions, along with more birds and mammals to attract more coyotes. It is a problem with a potential to affect residents not just in Almaden, but also along the entire Guadalupe River in Willow Glen, Campbell and eventually downtown San Jose as well.

“These animals will have a direct route through all this area that was not previously available to them and it will provide them habitat,” explains Pizzo. “I think we are going to hear more about things happening in places like downtown and so forth, as more of the continuous corridor becomes available to them.”

The riparian zone along the creek, according to Pizzo is alive with new plantings and wildlife has taken nicely to an area that now provides plenty of cover, abundant food, and year-round water flow. Sporadic deer sightings are now a regular event and repeated coyote visits have resulted in neighbors assigning them nicknames. Limpy for example, is a small coyote with a bad front leg, and frequents the meadow on Los Capitancillos.

“Whereas we used to see a couple of deer, we now see several,” explains Pizzo. “Where we had two coyote living along the creek, we now have about a half-dozen. Bobcat and the occasional mountain lion are part of the scene too. They did a great job and we all now enjoy this nice repairing growth that is occurring in and around the creek. We want the wild animals, and yet it is a little scary. We have had pets disappear, sometimes right before our eyes. Some residents are more than a little concerned.”

On one occasion, a fox entered a woman’s home, knocked a birdcage over and took a pet cockatoo right out of her house. Another horrified resident watched, not 10 feet away, as a coyote snatched her cat from her front yard and disappeared over the rocks into the meadow—an increasing scenario that has recently hit too close to home.

Pizzo admits that very few people object to the wonderful climate created along San Jose’s rivers and streams, but warns that it must be one that remains safe to people and pets, especially in high-density areas. He says recent reports show that safety issues have not been fully addressed and will only become more pronounced in the future.

Public forum planned
Pizzo feels that proactive control of the number and distribution of wildlife within the greenbelt areas should be a mandatory consideration of Creek and River restoration projects. In an effort to address this, he has assembled experts in various fields to deal with concerns, answer questions, and offer suggestions during a public forum.

Included will be discussion on the Water District’s future role in maintaining a proper balance, along with educating the public on how to protect pets and children, recognizing that wildlife is a growing part of the environment.

“This is not to put any agency on the spot,” assures Pizzo. “It is to ask the more general question of who has the responsibility to react. Is there a need to do some maintenance—to have surveillance so that we are aware of the population and where they [the animals] are? The Water District has people who have different views on this. It seems that flood control is their priority and they really look at things like this as secondary or tertiary responsibilities, if at all. Yet, for many years, we didn’t have this environment. They created an environment that brings the animals to us. I see that as a difference—one where they should be concerned about these interactions and should have some kind of plan of what to do in certain situations.”

The public forum, titled “Wildlife-People-Pet Interactions along the Guadalupe, Los Gatos and Alamitos Creeks,” will be held on April 15 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Santa Clara Valley Water District, 5750 Almaden Expressway. Santa Clara County Vector Control Agent Mike Phillips, California Department of Fish and Game representative Jeanine DeWald, and Santa Clara Valley Water District’s lead biologist, Doug Padley, are scheduled to speak on the further extension of restoration projects and the growing incidence of wildlife, with suggestions on how to protect people and pets from wildlife interactions.

“We love the wildlife,” adds Pizzo. “But we are also aware of these interactions and I think people have to take a different mindset about their pets and about feeding animals by getting the public to hear from the experts on what they should and shouldn’t do. I want to see proactive policies established and I’m hoping some ideas for that come out of this meeting. The main thing is getting the public mindset that we have a new reality.”