News
Last week a few lucky Big Year folks got to see San Francisco garter snakes at Sharp Park during the San Francisco Natural Areas Program tire corral removal project!
Also in restoration news, check out this video of the Presidio's Thompson's Reach. This video highlights the creek daylighting and extensive restoration that has been going on for over 3 years now. If done right, the Tennessee Hollow Watershed, not to mention other Presidio wetlands, could be home to Red-legged frogs - the SF garter snake's favorite treat!
Other GGNRA Big Year events
Help restore the California Least Tern's nesting habitat with Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Refuge. RSVP required: Call 510-522-0601 or e-mail.
Cal Academy Releases Monarchs on Opening Day
From Liam O'Brien, local lepidopterist and Nature in the City steering committee member:
"I was watching the local coverage of the opening day festivities at the new California Academy of Science. Then boom, I almost choke to death on my dinner: there's Gavin, and all the dignitaries, the world-famous architect and, to my complete horror, a cloud of Monarch butterflies 'released' for the ceremony.
No doubt many people didn't have the same visceral response that I did. Over 60 companies in the U.S. raise butterflies for the sole purpose of sending them off for release at weddings, graduations, baptisms, etc. But for me, as a San Franciscan lepidopterist who has volunteered much of his time in the last few years to monitor the return of this creature annually to our county, I watched on television a complete compromise of this season's data. This arrogant, ill-advised gesture by the Cal Academy did not take into consideration a history roost ( a place where monarch gregariously cluster and overwinter together in the Eucalyptus trees) just down the road from the new building in the S.F. Botanical Garden. Take a deep breath and say out loud: this has emanated from an Academy of Science!
The Xerces Society was in contact with them asking them NOT to do this. And they did it anyway. Kimi Eisele, in an article called Magic for Sale, said: 'Ecological impacts aside, I'm more interested in what the phenomenon suggests about our relationship to nature. Butterfly releases represent just one more example of the many ways we consume, beautify and use nature -- and ultimately exert power over it. The fact that they're available for sale at all suggests something about the way we distinguish ourselves from nature.'
Finally, in an article by Jeffrey Glassberg, the president and founder of the North American Butterfly Association, entitled: There's No Need to Release Butterflies -- They're Already Free, he concludes: 'A solution that better serves the public interest is to ban the environmental release of commercially-obtained butterflies. The intentional release of native birds was outlawed in 1947. The time has come to do the same for butterflies.'"
Check out the Earth Island Journal to read an article about Monarch butterfly releases, recently published in the Fall 2008 edition.
Recreation and Parks Department Director Out
Check out these articles from the City Insider, the SF Chronicle, and the SF Examiner reporting on today's resignation of the Recreation & Parks chief, Yomi Agunbiade, as well as the appointment of a very environmental, interim, general manager.
From Josiah Clark, local naturalist and Nature in the City steering committee member:
"After years of trying different things and encouraging robust vegetation in a small shaded strip of dirt, I have finally achieved a truly birdy backyard!
Recent management changes and additions to the backyard in the past months have included funneling bath/shower water out a window into a funnel and hose that irrigate the ground below. In the past months plants have put on significant new growth and there is much more understory. I have let the jasmine and potato vine grow up into the birch tree I planted and this has become a focal point. The water feature trickles water over a big slab of flagstone, bringing in lots of birds for bathing and drinking. Most recently I erected an 18 foot long cypress log in the ground. Before I put it up I drilled lots of 1+'' holes into it with spade bit. I placed some pine cone covered branches above the garage rooftop in hopes of attracting the nuthatches from nearby Presidio pine trees.
Native plants are the single best way to attract wildlife to your garden. The HANC recycling center located near Kezar stadium is currently the best source for affordable native plants. I also happen to have a surplus of a few kinds of native plants at the moment if people are looking to purchase some to establish this coming wet season.
Note: I will be running a training for backyard habitat gardening on October 25th through the Garden for the Environment if people would like to go.
Final note: If you feed birds, I recommend stopping for the season once all the winter sparrows have left, and do not start again until they arrive. Summer time brings in the bullies and overly common generalist species. The most important thing is to keep track of what you are feeding. If starlings, blackbirds, house sparrows, jays or other bold aggressive species become too common, its probably time to cut them off or change the feeding practices. Keep all feeders clean and avoid feeders that concentrate many individuals at once to avoid the spread of diseases."
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A lawsuit bearing the Earth Island name came before the US Supreme Court on October 8: Summers v. Earth Island Institute. People may be asking, "What's up with Earth Island at the Supreme Court?" It's been pretty challenging to understand the important but legally arcane issues being raised in this suit.
Briefly, if they prevail, it will preserve the right of groups such as Earth Island to challenge federal agency procedures more generally through litigation by contrast with, for example, a suit simply opposing a specific timber sale event. This suit grew out of the work of the John Muir Project.
Read this post for further explanation.
NATURE Gets to the Heart of It
The scientific journal Nature has asked the two major Presidential candidates to answer questions about how science would factor into the work of their administrations. We particularly like Obama's answer with respect to evolution. Not only did he talk sensibly about the role of non-scientific theories of life and the universe, but also he responded by using the more general term "evolution" as opposed to "evolution by natural selection," a more narrow view of biological evolution that many scientists currently question as being too simplistic a definition of this most complex, dynamic process. (For a podcast of a Terrence McNally interview with one of the experts, click here.)
Click here for Obama's answers. Republican candidate, John McCain, did not respond to Nature's request.