Catraio Ranch Preserve: An Unexpected Discovery

We were already deep in the creek, nets in hand, eyes keen for any sighting of the elusive California Red-Legged Tree Frog when Tanner saw it peeking through the water. Not the frog, which was the target of our scanning, but something unexpected…

The Catraio Ranch Preserve is made up of 106 acres of rolling rangeland, riparian oak woodland, and a year-round flowing creek. Located in Solano County, near the Solano Land Trust’s Lynch Canyon Open Space and Interstate 80, the land is a habitat for several of California’s threatened and endangered species. Click here to see all our preserves on our map!

GSLC has been carefully monitoring the Catraio Ranch Preserve conservation easement since we recorded it in September 2020. In cooperation with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the US Army Corps of Engineers, we established the Catraio Ranch Preserve intending to protect the habitat of both the Callippe Silverspot Butterfly (endangered) and the California Red-Legged Frog, or “CRLF” (threatened). As part of our stewardship responsibilities, GSLC conducts biological surveys of the Preserve every two years, so this year, 2026, we were out in the field. 

In early June, GSLC executive director Devin Best, two biologists with Blackbird Basin Biological (Nikki and Tanner), and I spent hours from the late afternoon into the evening searching the roughly mile-long stretch of the unnamed creek that runs through the Preserve for signs of CRLF. The frogs had been spotted in the creek within the Preserve in the past. We also had confirmation that they had appeared in similar and connected creeks in the area, so we knew we had a good chance of sighting them with Catraio.

This was a particularly exciting visit for Devin because, while he has been executive director of GSLC since early 2025, this was his first in-person visit to Catraio Ranch Preserve. A biologist by training, he had often spent time gallivanting through creeks with a wetsuit and snorkel, counting fish, in a long-ago role with the National Marine Fisheries Service. Naturally, the opportunity to hike through the water stirred up some fieldwork nostalgia for him.

This might have been Devin’s first visit, but it was not GSLC’s first on-site contact with the preserve this year. Our biological surveying for CRLF at Catraio involves a variety of approaches that require multiple visits. In March, Nikki, Tanner, and I walked along the length of the creek looking for egg masses, tadpoles, or frogs themselves. During our June visit, now joined by Devin, we put on our waders and walked the length of the creek, right through the water. Armed with nets, Nikki and Tanner performed what we call “dipnetting” by dipping the nets in the water as we walked to see what CRLF evidence might appear when they brought them up.

After nightfall, we walked the length of the creek again using high-powered headlamps and binoculars to look for “eyeshine,” once more hoping to pinpoint the presence of CRLF through the glow of their eyes. Illuminated by the headlamps at night, creatures’ eyes show prominently (a bit of biological trivia: this phenomenon is also called “tapetum lucidum”).

Unfortunately, none of our surveying efforts revealed any sign of CRLF this time (which does not necessarily mean they are not there!). However, this and previous surveys have uncovered evidence of plenty of other wildlife on the Catraio Ranch Preserve, including nests and sightings of large birds of prey, river otters (identified by scat Tanner spotted), beavers (dams, lodges, and a probable sighting), reptiles (an alligator lizard, for example), and others. And our eyeshine surveys revealed lots and lots of creepy eyes on one stretch of the creek – spiders’ eyes. 

About halfway through the afternoon dipnetting survey, Tanner also pulled up a creature we weren’t expecting — a Western Pond Turtle! We were absolutely delighted to see her. Western pond turtles are a California species of special concern and are listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

Not only was this turtle an amazing discovery in her own right, but she also happened to be pregnant. This made finding her even more exciting, as it is a sure sign that active reproduction is happening in the area. Moments like these remind us that we aren’t just protecting land, but an entire ecosystem. While we would have loved to have found evidence of CRLF in the Catraio Ranch Preserve, we were thrilled to discover that western pond turtles are reproducing there and calling it home.

If you want to learn about the forms land monitoring can take, check out Stewardship in Action: How We Monitor 35,000 Acres (opens in new tab).