Hollister Hills Grassland Study

About an hour south of bustling Silicon Valley, Hollister Hills State Vehicular Recreation Area (SVRA) offers 6,800 acres of oak woodlands, rolling hills, lush canyons, and seasonal creeks, with hiking, bicycling, and equestrian trails—plus almost 200 miles of off-highway vehicle trails. This multi-use area allows cattle grazing and implements a program using goats to control invasive, non-native plants.

MIG botanists worked with State Parks staff to develop and implement a Rangeland and Grassland Monitoring Program to enhance and restore native grasslands and oak woodland habitat, increase habitat diversity, control the dominance of exotic annuals and invasive weeds, and protect wetland and riparian areas while supporting the park’s unique holistic grazing program and opportunities for interpretation of historic ranching. We also helped develop a statistically robust plant sampling design used to quantify plant community characteristics and track vegetation responses to management actions over time.

State Parks integrated the Program into the park’s Wildlife Habitat Protection Plan and will use Program results to direct future management actions that improve and conserve the function and quality of habitats within the SVRA. MIG continues our botanical work in Hollister Hills SVRA, building on our long relationship with the SVRA and broader State Parks system.