Is Mount Tamalpais at Peak Health? The Updated Report

The partners of One Tam work together on the health of Mount Tamalpais. In June 2024 they released an update of their assessment of the mountain's ecological health, called Peak Health. The news was shared on the Bay Area Nature & Science Blog by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

The first assessment

In 2016 the One Tam partners published the first-ever assessment of Mount Tamalpais' health. It was the first time more than 60 partner staff and scientists from across the region had come together to examine indicators of the mountain's health — such as notable wildlife species and plant communities — across the whole landscape.

That first look found:

• some species and plant communities were doing well, while others needed help;
• the mountain's overall health was fair; and
• information was missing on some key species and ecosystems.

The partners kept issuing updates on individual indicators, planning a full update of the mountain's overall health from 2022.

What the update adds

The new report, Peak Health: An Update on the Status of Mt. Tamalpais' Ecosystems, is the first update of the original effort. It includes:

• new condition, status and trend ratings for wildlife and vegetation indicators;
• new indicators — bats, bees and salamanders — filling gaps in knowledge since 2016;
• climate vulnerability information for each indicator; and
• new data sources, among them the Marin County Fine Scale Vegetation Map.

So is Mount Tam at peak health?

Overall, the update found the mountain's health is still fair. The details are more mixed than that headline:

• some indicators improved and some did not;
• for others, the seven years between reports were not long enough to show a change; and
• the partners changed several metrics to better fit their goals, so those could not be compared across the two reports.

The update also has more information than the first, particularly on vegetation cover.

The One Tam partners described Peak Health as the foundation of their landscape-wide science and community programs — a way to judge the mountain's health as a whole and to see where working together can make a difference.

Sources

• Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, on the National Park Service's Bay Area Nature & Science Blog: "Is Mt. Tam at Peak Health? New Report Available."
• One Tam: Peak Health: An Update on the Status of Mt. Tamalpais' Ecosystems.