S2 E15 - California Conservation - Randy Morrison and Kevin Zeman

S2 E15 - California Conservation with Randy Morrison and Kevin Zeman

This week’s Talking Mule Deer brings in Randy Morrison, MDF’s Senior Regional Director for the state of California, and Kevin Zeman who used to work for the U.S. Forest Service and now is working for MDF. Kevin’s focus is helping to implement habitat stewardship agreements, partnership opportunities with the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to do larger scale habitat restoration across the West. These agreements are making a huge difference for mule deer conservation in California, which has seen its fair share of catastrophic wildfires in recent years. Randy and Kevin describe how stewardship projects are helping set back the natural ecological succession cycle to create a more natural forested environment that provides diverse habitat for wildlife and reduces fire risk. Kevin also tells us how the state has implemented the California Climate Initiative, and how MDF has received over a million dollars to implement projects on the Plumas National Forest and help provide matching funding for the federal funds used for stewardship projects. Randy also describes how California’s chapters are working to designate their Chapter Rewards funding and their volunteer hours toward these stewardship projects to make a much larger impact on the landscape. They then tell us about some of the creative new projects that are likely on the horizon in the state and the outlook for chapters in the state moving forward – including a new southern California chapter!