Alviso Shoreline Habitat Restoration

This grant funds Grassroots Ecology to restore and enhance two acres of marsh-adjacent upland habitat with a focus on benefits to the burrowing owl and monarch butterfly within the Alviso district of the City of San Jose and, through work with local community groups, to provide stewardship, education, and workforce development as part of conducting the restoration and enhancement. 

The North San Jose Baylands area contains the largest remaining populations of breeding western burrowing owls, a California Species of Special Concern, in the South Bay region. Habitat loss from urbanization and land use trends have led to steep population declines across the region. Within the Alviso district, excessive flooding at the start of the breeding seasons between 2017 and 2019 reduced breeding and foraging habitat, resulting in declines from 17 nesting pairs in 2017 to only 2 nesting pairs in 2020. While on-the-ground efforts led to a recovery to 5 nesting pairs in 2023, this subpopulation needs continued support through interventions designed to address the loss and degradation of bay shoreline habitat.  

Additionally, monarch butterfly populations, which are identified in California’s Wildlife Action Plan as a Species of Greatest Conservation Need, have declined across the Western U.S. by 90% over the past four decades. A key driver to their decline is the decimation of milkweed, which serves as both its primary food source and its sole host plant. The location of the Alviso district within the monarch’s annual migration corridor presents an opportunity to expand beneficial vegetation for monarchs.