Nature Study at UCLA Reserve to Continue

The University of California’s Natural Reserve System and the Mountains Restoration Trust have signed an agreement allowing the continued use of portions of the UCLA Stunt Ranch Reserve for popular student environmental education programs.

The 67-acre ranch, a chaparral- and oak-filled riparian reserve located about four miles inland between Malibu and Calabasas, is used by researchers, students and local educational groups to study resource management, wildlife ecology and archeology.

The nature reserve has long been used by a group called the Cold Creek Docents, a division of the Canoga Park-based Mountains Restoration Trust. The docents conduct environmental education and resource conservation field trips for students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

In 1982, the docents remodeled an equipment shed at the ranch and opened a nature education center, but the building was destroyed in the 1993 Malibu fires. The center was reopened in a trailer and has continued to play host to thousands of students each year, through an informal arrangement with UCLA.

“We consider the Cold Creek Docents to be one of our major educational partners,” said Carol Felixson, UCLA project manager for the reserve.

“The most significant impact of this new agreement is that it ensures their programs are going to continue” at the ranch.

Felixson noted that Stunt Ranch land was transferred by the state of California to the university in November 1995 in return for 400 acres of land in the Santa Monica Mountains donated by the university to the state 12 years ago.