Community Corner

Pillar Point Bluff Added to Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

The Peninsula Open Space Trust transfers 140-acre Pillar Point Bluff near Moss Beach to San Mateo County.

The rocky shore and bluffs of the James V. Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in Moss Beach just got a little bigger.

The Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), a private, nonprofit land trust dedicated to preserving the beauty, character and diversity of the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Cruz Mountain range, recently transferred 140-acre Pillar Point Bluff near Moss Beach to San Mateo County, which purchased the land for inclusion in the James V. Fitzgerald Marine Reserve with a $3 million grant from the Wildlife Conservation Board.

The bluff top is home to a section of the California Coastal Trail and is a natural extension of the James V. Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, a habitat-rich shoreline at the foot of the bluff teeming with birds and sea life.

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“Our partnership with the county to ensure permanent protection of Pillar Point Bluff illustrates what POST does best: negotiate purchases when land is for sale, hold land until a conservation partner is ready to acquire it, and improve the land for habitat and public enjoyment while it’s in our care,” said POST President Walter T. Moore in a press release. “We’ve done a lot of work at Pillar Point Bluff, improving trails, adding a small parking lot to facilitate public use, restoring the native landscape and improving wildlife habitat. We also helped line up the acquisition funding so the property could transfer to public ownership at no cost to the county. Our goal was to leave the land better than we found it, and we’re glad it will continue to be in good hands with the county.”

POST purchased the bulk of Pillar Point Bluff in 2004 and additional parcels in 2007 and 2008. Since then, POST volunteers and vendors have carried out extensive stewardship projects on the land, including removing invasive Pampas grass, re-routing hiking paths away from eroding slopes, and reseeding worn patches of bluff top with native plants. POST also removed the crumbling foundation of a former dairy barn and restored abandoned irrigation ponds used by seasonal birds and resident wildlife.
Generous donors have helped make each step from acquisition to stewardship to public enjoyment possible. A memorial fund established by Kathy and Al Lauer of Portola Valley was a major source of funding toward the purchase of the land and installation of an important link in the California Coastal Trail named for the Lauers’ late daughter, Jean. POST also received a generous grant of $1 million for Pillar Point Bluff from the California Coastal Conservancy.

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“Pillar Point Bluff is a stunning addition to the County Park system,” said Assistant San Mateo County Manager David Holland in a press release. “This area provides great hiking and nature watching opportunities for the public and completes the landside portion protecting the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. We are grateful to POST for their stewardship of this property until we could acquire it.”

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