This Magical Sonoma County Farm Combines Ranching, Recreation, and Restoration

In unincorporated Sonoma County, Salmon Creek Ranch sits perched two miles off California’s coast.

Scottish Highland cattle graze across John and Lesley’s 400 rolling acres, which are bordered by the property’s namesake creek that flows into the Pacific. Near the organic farm’s living quarters, ducks, goats, and sheep roam wide pens while Anatolian shepherds keep watch.

These, at least, were wildlife biologist Jason Fitzgibbon’s first impressions of the expansive swath during a land assessment in partnership with Hipcamp. Salmon Creek Ranch is a working ranch, but also a Hipcamp property offering tent and RV campsites, plus a magnificent treehouse. As part of the land assessment, John and Lesley met with Fitzgibbon as well as Dr. Len Necefer, an expert in Indigenous ecological traditions, to share and support stewardship practices that may preserve their land’s biodiversity.

“While the ranch is productive,” Fitzgibbon observed, “the owners obviously aim to minimize their impact on the land. The guard dogs deter predators so as to avoid culling, the cattle is rotated sufficiently enough that native shrubs and trees persist, and the agriculture is all a significant distance from Salmon Creek.”

Fitzgibbon, who also works as a nature photographer, noted that Salmon Creek Ranch is “topographically amazing” and blessed with “incredibly diverse” flora and fauna species: bay laurel, coast redwoods, native grasses, deer, yellow-legged frogs, and more than 20 flying species, including bats and great horned owls. During his assessment, he also found that in addition to its well-maintained campsites, the area is laced with miles of hiking trails, all set in a mixed riparian forest topped by coyote brush scrub at its higher elevations.

With such a vibrant ecosystem and some positive eco-efforts already in place, Fitzgibbon set out to dig deeper with an overnight ecological assessment—to provide a snapshot of what’s happening on the land and encourage Lesley and John to continue what’s working, improve what isn’t, and ask questions to help them keep getting better.

As Hipcamp ecology advisor Charles Post points out, land fragmentation is one of the greatest threats to nature and biodiversity.

“The more land we can help remain as nature, the better. By keeping landowners on their land, and by keeping that land off the open market, we can prevent it from being carved up or developed.”

With this, Fitzgibbon’s key recommendations included not allowing fishing at Salmon Creek Ranch—it was already prohibited—and telling guests to stay out of the cold creek between November and May, prime spawning season for coho and steelhead salmon. Anyone wading into the water is likely to step on the eggs of endangered fish species, crushing them.

Lesley also asked for suggestions around how to keep wildlife in mind when it comes to trimming or removing plants as needed. Fitzgibbon then shared that the pair should restrict any vegetation maintenance to before nesting season—mid-March at the latest, so as not to disturb the mating birds—and that dogs be leashed during nesting, between March and July for most bird species. He told the couple it’s best to encourage guests to keep food and trash stored and protected, especially after dark, to discourage bears, raccoons, and foxes from rummaging.

Fitzgibbon mostly praised the state of the Salmon Creek Ranch though: “You have good, sufficient habitat to support all sorts of species,” he informed them, and expressed that he’s quite impressed at its current state of biodiversity.

John and Lesley also got input from Dr. Len Necefer, a Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) expert and a member of the Navajo nation.

“We’re working to position landowners as partners with local tribes to further conservation goals and manage cultural resources,” Necefer says. “We believe that equipping them with a tribe’s specific ancestral knowledge of the land is the first step toward this goal.”

In this region, Necefer says, there’s a direct link between eco-diversity and native cultures—historically, for example, Miwok people used plants on this land as medicine. And it’s likely that native artifacts, like shell piles, arrowheads, and baskets could turn up on Salmon Creek Ranch. If that happens, Necefer advises, “Leave it be. Because quite honestly, that’s the best way to preserve it.”

Of the advice he and the ecologists have provided to Lesley and John, as well as other Hipcamp Hosts, Necefer says, “Overall, the information has been met with enthusiasm.”

Post agrees: “As we teach landowners more about the biodiversity and ecological fabric of their land, they have shared that their relationship with nature has grown.” This awareness, he posits, is meant to inform the ways in which they manage their properties, and will also trickle down into how they engage and educate Hipcampers about the places they’re visiting.

“Knowledge facilitates respect,” Fitzgibbon says.

“And being aware of the ecological resources that are present on your property, or where you are visiting, is a great way to garner appreciation for a place.”