The University of California Natural Reserve System (UCNRS) is a system of protected areas throughout

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. The reserves support UC's mission of teaching, research, and public service. Unlike national and

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "Federated state, state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on accou ...

s, they are not available for recreational uses, because they were specifically created to enable UC scientists to conduct research free from such distractions. The system began with

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

zoology professor

Joseph Grinnell Joseph P. Grinnell (February 27, 1877 – May 29, 1939) was an American field biologist and zoologist. He made extensive studies of the fauna of California, and is credited with introducing a method of recording precise field observations known ...

. In 1937, near the end of his career, Grinnell began to work on a proposal to establish UC's first wildland field station for zoology teaching and research. He had initially looked to the U.S. national parks for research sites, but became frustrated with the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

and how its other priorities often got in the way of his priorities. Grinnell became convinced that only a natural reserve owned by the university itself "would provide the permanent protection necessary for long-term teaching, research, and monitoring of California's ecosystems." (at p. 10.) Grinnell did not live long enough to see his proposal succeed. In May 1939, two weeks after Grinnell's sudden death from a heart attack, the

Regents of the University of California The Regents of the University of California (also referred to as the Board of Regents to distinguish the board from the corporation it governs of the same name) is the governing board of the University of California (UC), a state university sys ...

voted to accept his proposal and created the oldest reserve in the system, Hastings Natural History Reservation. On January 22, 1965, at the suggestion of Kenneth S. Norris, the UC Board of Regents voted to formally join together Hastings and six other reserves into the Natural Land and Water Reserves System. (at p. 12.) In 1970, it was renamed to the Natural Reserve System.

List of reserves

References

External links

*
UC's Natural Reserve System use dataUC Nature Reserves
at Flickr {{authority control Nature reserves in California Natural Reserve System

List of reserves

References

Further reading

External links