Delhi Sands Flower-loving Fly

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The Riverside Land Conservancy (RLC), in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), and University of California Cooperative Extension will restore and improve fish and wildlife habitat in San Bernardino County. Several conserved sites that support the Delhi Sand flower-loving fly (DSF) have been recently transferred to the RLC for perpetual stewardship, management, and monitoring of DSF habitat to improve the habitat values. Much of the habitat on the sites is overgrown with invasive, non-native plant species that has limited the amount of suitable DSF habitat available for the species. The sites were transferred to RLC with little funds to perform much needed management such as controlling the invasive, non-native plant species. Funding for the project will be used to perform invasive, non-native weed control; annual monitoring to document site conditions and note changes in conditions over time; clean-up of trash; trespass control through maintenance of fencing and signage; and record-keeping to document site conditions and management activities. The sites will also be monitored to determine the success of the management actions and the species' response to the management actions. The goal will be to remove the invasive, non-native plant species and allow for native plant species to re-colonize the sites. We expect that University of California Cooperative Extension will be a partner in this effort and will be contributing staff time to the project.

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