Wildlands Announces Bank Expansion in Sutter County, California

ROCKLIN, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wildlands announces the approval of Phase II of Gilsizer Slough South Giant Garter Snake Conservation Bank, in Sutter County, California. The bank is dedicated to mitigation of habitat impacts to the threatened giant garter snake (GGS), and serves portions of an eight-county area including Sutter, Butte, Yuba, Placer, Sacramento, Colusa, Tehama, and Glenn.

Bank credits are purchased by public works agencies and the development community to fulfill permit obligations of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game for impacts to GGS habitat.

The 91.4-acre expansion increases the bank size to 379.4 acres. The bank is adjacent to Wildlands' 162-acre Gilsizer Slough GGS Preserve, completed in 2004. The contiguous spread of habitat provided by the bank and preserve has shown a steady increase in GGS population, and Wildlands’ biology and land stewardship teams are confident that Phase II will continue this trend.

Wildlands ecologists and landscape architects designed habitat features to comply with the goals outlined in the Draft Recovery Plan for the Giant Garter Snake (US Fish and Wildlife Service 1999) and created a management plan to maintain the site in perpetuity. Including the Gilsizer expansion, scheduled for construction in 2009, Wildlands will have restored over 2,000 acres of GGS habitat in the Sacramento Valley, more than all other conservation banking entities combined.

For more information about the Gilsizer Slough South GGS Conservation Bank, please contact Julie Maddox at (916) 435-3555.

Wildlands, a private mitigation banking firm based in Rocklin, California, has been in business since 1991. With projects and offices throughout the West Coast and Southeastern U.S., Wildlands has preserved and protected over 30,000 acres of habitat, offering wetland mitigation and species conservation credits to public and private developers.