Dawn Cunningham

Dawn Cunningham is a senior ecologist with RES, a national ecological restoration company with a regional office in Sacramento. She is responsible for the ecological management of conservation and mitigation banks throughout California, Oregon, and Washington. Several of the banks are vernal pool lands that harbor federally threatened fairy shrimp and a range of rare plants, including a mitigation site that is a SOLC conservation easement. Cattle grazing is among the tools for invasive plant management as well as hydrological connectivity in the ephemeral vernal pool systems, which have shrunken to 40% or less of their historic extent from California to southern Oregon through land conversion and development.