To Build or Not to Build in Coyote Valley
by Kaleb Zamora. This is from a 6th grade, argumentative essay assignment by a student at Daniel Lairon Elementary school about whether or not to develop in Coyote Valley. Daniel Lairon Elementary School is one of 16 schools in the Franklin-McKinley School District located in San Jose, CA.
I have decided that building a city in Coyote Valley would be the wrong thing to do. Why would you want to build on beautiful grasslands where many animals live and move through? Coyote Valley is also home to farmlands. If you build in Coyote Valley you’re destroying the last natural corridor between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range. Coyote is a vital key to wildlife populations that surround it.
“This is a wonderful place for people to get in touch with nature and see the beauty of an area so close to where we live.” This is what Mark Landgraf, external affairs manager of the Santa Clara Open Space Authority said. Coyote Valley is home to many different plants and animals. Animals include the golden eagle, mountain lions, coyotes, Tule elk, badgers, and bobcats. There is also the endangered Bay checkerspot butterfly. Cows play an important part for the plants by eating the star thistle an invasive plant. Some other plants include, California poppy, flowering lupines, poison oak, and many, many other plants. All this wildlife and more will be destroyed if a city is built.
Coyote Valley is home to a variety of farms. Coyote Valley even has its own nursery, which provides bedding plants retailers and landscape professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area. Coyote Valley has many other farm including a mushroom farm and a bunch of family owned farms. Farms are an abundant resource in Coyote Valley.
Coyote Valley is a critical link between Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range. If a city is built, the natural corridor between the two Mountain Ranges will be severed, the culverts under Highway 101 are the last way for animals to get from the Diablo Range and the Santa Cruz Mountains or vice versa. ‘A corridor isn’t just a trail,” said Dave Johnson, an environmental scientist. Coyote Valley shouldn’t be destroyed because it is the safest way between the two mountain ranges.
Coyote Valley is too important to the wildlife surrounding it. It’s home to many plants and animals including the dwindling Tule elk. There are also many farms and nurseries are in Coyote Valley. Coyote Valley is the last corridor between the Diablo Range and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Destroying Coyote Valley means ruining important habitat and maybe destroying many innocent animals.
To pledge your support to protect this remarkable place, go to Protect Coyote Valley.
About Protect Coyote Valley
The Protect Coyote Valley campaign is led by the Committee for Green Foothills and supported by Greenbelt Alliance, Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful, Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter, and SAGE — Sustainable Agriculture Education. It aims to preserve Coyote Valley, San Jose as open space that offers flood-buffering wetlands, an essential wildlife habitat and migratory area, and active farmlands.
Visit our blog to read more on how we’re protecting Coyote Valley!
