Chapter 2

The Spanfelner Ranch, Red Bluff, Calif.

Gary Spanfelner on his oak forest in California's Sacramento Valley. "Gary's love of the land is contagious," says his wife, Roxyann.   Photo by Marty Knapp. .

In the 1940s, owners of oak woodlands in California's fertile Sacramento Valley typically cleared their lands for grazing and agriculture. Carl Spanfelner wasn't typical: He left his 6,400 acres of blue oak forests intact. The property, west of Red Bluff, has since been divided among Spanfelner's children. Gary Spanfelner's 2,080-acre portion harbors oaks up to 300 years old, while providing excellent grazing for cattle and habitat for deer, quail and other wildlife.

Spanfelner deeply appreciates his land's natural richness, as his wife, Roxyann, confirms. "Gary's love of the land is contagious," she says. "I used to walk through the ranch and see trees. Gary has taught me how to appreciate and respect not only the beauty of the oaks and the landscape, but also how important it is to maintain it, because this ranch sustains a lot of wildlife. Now when I walk through the ranch it's a world of different wildlife and plants."

Unlike conifer forests, management of oak and other hardwood forests in California is not subject to state forestry practices rules. So the conservation of these productive and beautiful lands often depends on the voluntary actions of private owners like Gary Spanfelner.

Periodic tree harvests on his property are aimed at thinning the oak forest to maintain the grasslands beneath, while generating revenue from the sale of firewood. Spanfelner closely supervises the woodcutters to minimize damage to the land, and his management is based on the Tehama County Oak Woodland Management Guidelines, which he helped develop.

Gary and Roxyann became engaged on the property in 1989, atop a hill with a view of a golden eagle nest site on the opposite ridge. To them, stewarding the land means keeping it in a natural and attractive condition, providing rich habitat for fish, game and wildlife, and managing cattle grazing and wood harvests responsibly.

Shimmering Grasses, Stately Oaks

In 1944 Gary's parents, Carl and Doris, purchased 6,400 acres of oak woodlands west of the Sacramento River, at the northern end of California's great Central Valley. The area is one of gentle hills and plains lying between the nearby Coast Range to the west and the Sierra Nevada to the east.

Oak forests here are dominated by blue oak, but accommodate interior live oak, valley oak and gray pine in the gullies and draws. On hilltops and south-facing slopes the oak woodlands give way to openings of natural pasture. Wild game include turkey, deer, pigs and quail.

The region is known for hot summers and cool, moist winters; the average daily low temperature in January is 37 degrees, while the average high in July is 97. Rainfall averages 22 inches annually. Soils are mostly clay-based loams several feet deep and underlain by a blue-gray hardpan, which in turn rests on top of unconsolidated alluvial material.

In earlier times the area was often visited by fire, which limited brush and young trees while usually leaving older oaks unharmed, thus tending to maintain the grassland and open oak forest. These low-intensity fires ignited naturally, or were started by Native Americans who wanted to encourage the production of acorns and useful grassland plants. The first ranchers also engaged in these burning practices to keep the savanna open for grazing.

After the turn of the century, however, fire suppression became the practice, and over the decades this absence of fire encouraged denser growth of brush and oaks, with a corresponding reduction in grass.

At the time Gary Spanfelner's parents acquired their property, owners of oak woodland in the region were encouraged and even subsidized to clear the trees off their lands in an attempt to favor grass production. But ranchers who did so often found that manzanita, poison oak and other brush grew back in place of the expected grassland.

Rather than cut down the oaks on the family acreage, Gary's father kept the woodlands intact. At first the family grazed sheep on the property, but switched to a seasonal herd of cattle to avoid overgrazing the 6,400 acres.

The property later passed to Gary, his brother, Dave, and their sisters, Nancy and Pat. At one time these lands had been covered with shimmering grasses and park-like stands of stately oaks, but the gradual change continued, from blue oak savanna to shady oak forest that no longer provided good pasture.

Selective-Thinning Harvests

By the 1980s, enough pasture had been shaded out by the oak canopy that not only was it poor for cattle grazing, but Gary Spanfelner also noticed a big drop in deer populations on his 2,080 acres. Twenty years earlier, it was common to see 200 deer or more in a day; now he rarely saw more than four or five.

This decline in the deer population was accompanied by increased sightings of coyotes, and Spanfelner believes predation was the biggest factor in lowering deer numbers on his property. But the drop was also accompanied by a marked change in habitat, and Spanfelner decided to act.

At the time prices for oak firewood were strong, making it a good time for a commercial-thinning harvest. Spanfelner carefully planned cuts on 500 acres, or about a quarter of his land, focusing on the densest woodlands. These cuts were carried out from 1987 to 1991. He selected oaks individually for thinning and personally supervised the logging crews, with the aim of re- creating a multi-aged, layered and spacious woodland.

The standing trees were sold to the firewood cutters by the cord; up to five cords were removed from each acre. Denser forests on steep slopes along the draws and around the creek and reservoirs were left alone. Spanfelner also retained all of the large, open-grown oaks on south-facing slopes. Care was taken to minimize soil disturbance, and wildlife trees and snags were left standing.

"I knew the land needed to be opened up for its own health, as well as to benefit cattle grazing," says Spanfelner. "But my first concern was to leave the land natural and not overcut.

"I knew the tree canopy was too dense, so I decided to leave trees of various stages of maturity -- spacing them 30 to 50 feet apart. By doing the cutting this way, I feel I achieved the right balance."

In managing these harvests, Spanfelner became active in the Tehama County Hardwood Advisory Committee, which helped develop oak woodland management guidelines. The committee advises ranchers harvesting oaks for fuel or range improvement to:

· Maintain an average leaf canopy of 30 percent or more.

· Retain trees of all sizes and of all species represented at the site.

· Leave old hollow trees and those actively being used by wildlife for nesting, roosting or feeding, if safety permits.

· Pile limbs and brush to provide wildlife cover, if fire risk and aesthetics allow.

Spanfelner developed these specific guidelines for the firewood cutting crews:

· Cut all stems to ground level, for aesthetics and to reduce the risk of hitting them with equipment.

· Conduct limited cutting or none at all in the seasonal riparian areas and steep draws (greater than 30 percent slope).

· Avoid driving when the ground is too wet, to minimize soil disturbance and compaction.

· Restrict vehicles to developed roads at all times except as necessary to pick up wood.

· Leave no garbage on the property.

· Avoid starting fires; carry fire equipment such as shovels, use spark arrestors on chain saws, and maintain catalytic converters on all vehicles.

· Work only in winter months to minimize fire risk. (In early summer, Spanfelner allowed some tree falling before 10 a.m.)

The Hardwood Advisory Committee was created because so many landowners had clearcut their oak woodlands for commercial firewood, only to discover later that oak regeneration was poor or nonexistent.

"We were trying to educate them, to show the value of not doing that," explains Bob Kerstiens, who was chairman of the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection for six years. Kerstiens, a Red Bluff resident, played a key role in the formation of the committee.

"They need to use the mosaic standpoint. Go in somewhere, thin it out, but leave some other area just like the good Lord made it," Kerstiens says. "He's pretty well done that," he says of Gary Spanfelner. "We use his property as kind of an example of how to do it."

Grassland Returns

In the areas of the Spanfelner Ranch thinned in the late 1980s, at least a third of the oak canopy was removed, allowing the sun's energy to reach the ground again. Now, 10 to 15 years after the thinning, the once-barren floor of leaves and soil beneath the oaks is a continuous expanse of grassland. Where a canopy of even-aged oaks used to exist, the spacious woodlands have a diversity of tree ages, heights and sizes.

Because Spanfelner specified that stumps be cut to ground level, it is often difficult for a visitor to see that a harvest took place. The landings used by the woodcutters are back in grass now, and resemble natural openings.

The only noticeable signs of the harvest are the brush piles left from the woodcutters. Some of these were burned, but when Spanfelner realized that songbirds and quail made use of them for nesting and protection, he decided to retain them onsite and let them rot slowly.

And here's a twist: The thinning harvest seems to have stimulated oak regeneration. The low-cut stumps propagated many more oak sprouts than Spanfelner anticipated, a phenomenon he thinks may be related to cutting the stumps to ground level -- near the soil and shaded by grass -- where they retained enough moisture to sprout. There are markedly more sprouts from stumps cut close to the ground than from the few stumps that were mistakenly left higher.

Today, trees sprouted from these harvested stumps are 15 feet high or more. "I chose not to poison the stumps, and as a result I've had a 90 percent- plus regrowth rate," says Spanfelner.

Seedling recruitment was also high. Mild summers in 1996 and 1997, with some rainfall and cooler days in conjunction with good seed years, produced a carpet of new seedlings. The young oaks now pose a challenge in terms of brush control. As a result, what Spanfelner originally perceived as a one-time entry may need to be followed by future entries if the grassland is to remain.

In the meantime, the young oak foliage provides browse for deer. "In the three to four years after the trees were thinned, the deer moved into these open areas and really enjoyed feeding on the regrowth of the oak shoots," Spanfelner says. The game on his ranch seems to be coming back, and he believes good forest management has helped bring this about.

Elder Creek is the main watercourse on the Spanfelner Ranch. It runs dry in the summer, but over the years Spanfelner has constructed five small reservoirs that are recharged by winter rainfall and perennial. The shallow ponds range in volume from 10 to 30 acre-feet, and in length from 80 to 150 yards. They're stocked with bass and catfish for fishing. and help support a striking array of wildlife: He has observed or seen signs of cougar, coyote, bobcat and black bear. Birdlife includes golden and bald eagles, American kestrels, acorn woodpeckers, great horned owls, California quail and many species of songbirds.

Compatible Uses Continue

In 2002 Gary Spanfelner supervised another firewood harvest on his property, smaller than the one a decade earlier but with the same goals of improving the woodland and range while generating modest revenue. He sold the wood to the same cutters, who understand and follow Spanfelner's requirements about stacking brush, protecting the soil, and leaving no garbage.

Spanfelner's main livelihood comes from walnut growing, which he pursues with his brother on 200 acres at another location. But the periodic, carefully supervised woodcutting harvests on his ranch also generate income, and Gary and his siblings continue to lease their contiguous rangeland as a single unit for cattle grazing.

They are careful to ensure the property is not overgrazed. The cattleman renting the land is as concerned about overgrazing as Spanfelner himself, and does not overstock the property. Spanfelner considers this more important than potential additional income. While neither he nor anyone else resides on the ranch, which remains undeveloped, Spanfelner and his family value their oak woodlands greatly and visit frequently. One of his favorite activities is walking the property and observing its fauna.

"I've spent my whole life in the outdoors observing and appreciating wildlife," Spanfelner says. "If the land is managed right, it can easily support cattle and wildlife. In fact, proper tree harvesting improves habitat for all animals on the ranch.

"There's an amazing amount of game on this property, and I plan to do whatever I can in the future to perpetuate and increase their numbers."

(Back to Stewardship Forestry at Work)

Chapter 1