Margaret Fusari UC Santa Cruz Collection

This collection consists of Margaret Fusari’s records pertaining to NRS and reserve administration, research, and activities at UC Santa Cruz. Fusari was the former UCSC NRS administrative director. This collection includes five series.

The Local and Regional Land Management Reference Files series includes: (1) files on Santa Cruz County and the Santa Cruz Mountains watershed related to municipal planning, land use and management in the area, development plans, waste management plans, water resources, and open space, from 1972-89, (2) files on the the Big Sur coast region’s geology, ecology, agriculture, natural history, and regional land use, mostly made up of article reprints and reports, from 1968-89, (3) files related to the Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregional Project of the early 1980s.

The Reserve Administration Files series consists of: (1) reserve administration files for Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve, including memoranda, reports from reserve managers, correspondence between reserve staff and stakeholders, committee records, brochures, lists of research conducted on the reserve, files on partner organizations, management plans, copies of legal documents from LHBC such as easements, annual reports, and liability waivers from 1977-2002, (2) administration files for Younger Lagoon Reserve, including copies of legal documents, agreements with California Coastal Commission, environmental assessments, and research administration documents from 1980-2006, restoration planning materials, budgeting, use data, the Terrace Point Development, the US Abalone company (neighboring landholder) and saltwater runoff into the lagoon in the early 1990s, mussel monitoring, bird banding programs, and correspondence about beach access issues, (3) administration files for the UCSC Campus Natural Reserve (CNR) including general correspondence, operations records, publications, research information, and the campus arboretum, which is part of the CNR, (4) files concerning Año Nuevo Island Reserve including correspondence, reports, and reference information, (5) files concerning Fort Ord Natural Reserve including advisory committee materials, legal documents, user data, annual reports, a 1997 lizard survey, and general operations and research reference materials covering from 1996-2005.

The General NRS Files series includes: (1) comparative use data for the reserves, system-wide academic plans, informational files on land use issues such as pesticides, long range development plans, material on Mono Lake, a 1997 survey of reserve use, (2) NRS official correspondence, files on an NRS external review from 1987-88, letters of support for UCSC reserves, historical files on the NRS system from 1965-78, and (3) information on Santa Cruz Island Reserve, Quail Ridge Reserve, and the Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory. Documents of special note include: copies of some of Kenneth Norris’s correspondence, student reports from 1981, James Griffin and Robert Norris’s scientific and historical surveys of the Gamboa Property and Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center, and Ray T. Collett's papers consisting of early UC reserve memoranda and correspondence.

The Assorted Materials series consists of publicity materials, datasets, and photographs on shelves. Specific contents include: (1) general reserve materials including NRS Brochures, article reprints, survey data for UCSC reserves, brochures, publications pertaining to the Environmental Field Program, (2) materials mostly provided by John Smiley from the Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve, including weather, kelp fish, and water quality data, manager’s daily logs from 1986-95, and a road kill survey, a photo album compiled after the 1999 Big Creek fire, theses from research conducted there, and two large cases of slides, and (3) an indexed UCSC NRS photograph and slide and print photograph collection, including many photos taken by Maggie Fusari.

The Squirrel Monitoring Files series includes plans for controlling the squirrel population at UCSC, budgeting for the project, reference information on the ground squirrel, and student reports related to ground squirrels. These records also contain discussions, from 1981-90, about whether to use poisons for controlling squirrels 1981-90.