AUDUBON CALIFORNIA NOTES

January 2007 e-newsletter

In this issue: Rangewide Western Snowy Plover Conference Jan 24-26 Submit Comments on Salton Sea Restoration Audubon at Home Grants Awarded Collaborative Funding Grants Awarded Napa Creates an Open Space District Council Meeting Dates/Audubon Chapters Assembly Audubon California Discussion Forum Hog Island Leadership Camp

Dear Audubonners,

Happy New Year!

2006 gave us a lot to celebrate!

So many of us worked passionately on conservation issues. Whether you monitored shorebirds on the coast, reviewed new developments in your community, told all your friends about the Clean Water & Coastal Protection bond and explained the hidden traps in Prop 90, wrote letters and attended meetings to ward off attacks on the Endangered Species Act, kept nesting herons in city trees safe or other countless actions; you were part of an undeniably effective effort to keep California leading the nation solving our environmental problems.

With the passage of the Natural Landmarks Program, the greenhouse gas emissions cap, and $5.4 billion dollars for conservation of coasts, riparian habitat and urban parks, we should all raise a toast to our efforts in making this world a better place. So many of our conservation battles are drawn out and victories slow in coming, that lets remember to take a moment and savor the feeling of realizing the change we believe in.

Wishing you a joyful and restful holiday,

Claudia Eyzaguirre and the Audubon California team

Rangewide Western Snowy Plover Meeting,
SF Zoo January 24-26, 2007

Conservation of the western snowy plover involves many hands. In January, biologists, land managers, volunteers and educators will meet for the fourth annual Rangewide Western Snowy Plover Meeting. This meeting reviews the best practices in snowy research and conservation as well as addresses the problems facing the recovery of this keystone coastal bird. Conference also addresses predation, habitat restoration and changes in federal status of plover protection.

Chapters who are or plan to be involved with snowy plover conservation are encouraged to attend this two-day free conference at the San Francisco Zoo. Audubon California is offering to defray costs for Chapter leaders to participate in this meeting. A stipend to help with transportation and food costs is offered in the amount of $80 to Bay Area Chapters and $200 to all others. For agenda, lodging and location information, visit http://ca.audubon.org/snowy_plover_wsp07.html

Salton Sea Restoration Public Comment Period Closes January 16

The Salton Sea is a refuge for literally millions of birds. Over 400 species of birds have been recorded at the Sea. Since the destruction of 95% of California’s wetlands, the Salton Sea now serves as essential habitat to these birds. With water transfers decreasing the volume of water in the Sea, the state of California is required by law to restore the Salton Sea to the maximum benefit of wildlife and air quality. Eight restoration alternatives have been presented. Now the time has arrived for the State to choose a restoration alternative! And its time for you to send a comment letter to the state voicing the importance of restoration that includes maximum possible shoreline habitat, sufficient shallow saline habitat to conserve existing diversity and density of wildlife; and one acre-foot of water for every two acres of exposed Sea bed in order to control dust and not compromise air quality. Restoration of the Salton Sea has huge potential to care for California’s birdlife and human health. We know when birds are healthy so are the humans that share that habitat. A sample comment letter along with additional information can be read here: http://ca.audubon.org/salton_sea.html

Send your comments to SaltonSeaComments@water.ca.gov

Attn: Ms. Dale Hoffman-Floerke
Salton Sea PEIR comments
CA Department of Water Resources
Colorado River & Salton Sea Office
1416 9th Street, Room 1148-6
Sacramento, CA 95814

Or Via Fax (916) 654-4925

Audubon at Home Grants Awarded

In the spring of this year, Audubon California established a small grant program for Chapters to initiate promising pilot projects for the launch of a statewide Audubon at Home – Gardening for Birds and Butterflies program. Our idea is to create a cohesive, recognizable statewide home gardening program designed to engage the public in taking personal action towards conservation. The creation of this new program draws from the widespread gardening knowledge and experience of our broad membership. The framework for the Audubon at Home program evolved from the input of over 80 chapter leaders.

Nine Chapters applied to develop pilot projects. All grants were full of great ideas, gardening experience or even projects already underway. After close review, we selected three Chapters as grant recipients. These Chapters are San Diego, Palos Verde/South Bay, and Santa Clara Valley. These Chapters will be working hard and creatively to create pilot projects that will provide materials and serve as a model for expanding the program to other Chapters across the state in coming years. To read about the Audubon at Home Framework go to http://www.ca.audubon.org/chapters_at_home.html.

Collaborative Funding Grants

In the second year of Collaborative Funding for California Audubon Chapters, we are pleased to have granted 11 chapters with funding to take on new projects in education, outreach, and habitat conservation. We received 16 applications this year down from 19 last year. The awarded projects are:

Conejo Valley - Nature Fair and Education Project $2,500.00

Eastern Sierra - Mono Basin Willow Flycatcher Project $2,500.00

Golden Gate - Outreach and Diversity Enhancement Program $2,500.00

Kern - Web Site Establishment/Development $500

LA & Santa Monica Bay - Least Tern/Snowy Plover Monitoring & Education Programs $2,500.00

Napa Solano - Community Nesting Box Construction $1,789.00

Sacramento - Binocular Purchase for Inner City Children's Nature Programs $1,850.00

San Bernardino - San Jacinto Wildlife Area Conservation Plan $2,500.00

Santa Barbara - Eyes in the Sky/Meet Your Wild Neighbor $2,500.00

Santa Clara Valley - Burrowing Owl Recovery Study $2,474.00

Wintu Audubon - Shasta County Birding Trail Brochure $2,500.00

The funding process also function to open communication between Chapters and the state program on conservation issues. When Buena Vista Audubon applied for funding to help acquire a wetlands parcel in Northern San Diego County, Audubon California realized that we could provide them $10,000 from a separate source of funding specifically for acquisitions. Without the grant applications we may have never known about this opportunity.

These grants represent a small portion of the amazing conservation and education work undertaken by Audubon Chapters throughout the year. Thank you to everyone who applied. For more about Collaborative funding visit: http://www.ca.audubon.org/collaborative_funding.html

Chapter President Helps Hand Napa a New Regional Parks District

Napa Solano Audubon Chapter President Cheryl Harris has been busy. Cheryl spent the summer and fall working as the chair for the Napa Open Space Campaign. But she is also quite happy. Cheryl knows that her favorite place to bird, Skyline Park along with another 100,000 plus acres of open space in Napa County will be protected and improved under the newly created Regional Parks and Open Space District.

Cheryl never intended to become chair of the Yes on Measure I campaign. But after three years on the advisory committee, and standing in front of the County Supervisors in a packed meeting room to get the Regional Parks and Open Space District on the county ballot, she was just the women to take on the job.

‘Yes on I’ won with 54% approval, and Napa became the last county in the Bay Area to create a Regional Parks and Open Space District. For over 30 years the Napa County Board of Supervisors have been talking about the creation of a Regional Parks District, but had never gotten around to doing so. It took an active advisory committee, a packed county board meeting, strong fundraising and an organized ballot campaign to realize the Regional Parks and Open Space District.

Cheryl has been president of Napa-Solano Audubon for just over a year. And she’s been president of the Skyline Park Citizens Association during its creation but being the chair of an election campaign came with some new territory. Cheryl found herself overseeing mailing pieces, writing fundraising and thank you letters, managing the bank account and tabling at the farmers market. There were many committee meetings that lots of people showed up for, but still a lot of the actual work of fell to Cheryl.

Napa-Solano Audubon was very supportive of the Open Space Campaign but since most of the board lived in Solano County, few Audubon members were very actively involved. Audubon California was a source of inspiration, energy and support with a $5000 campaign contribution and the state Chapter Coordinator coming up weekly to Napa to help with the phone banks.

Cheryl says her favorite part of the campaign was the personal relationships developed, and talking to people one on one and sharing their vision. She also believes in the long term that forming partnerships with other environmental organizations will have a positive impact on the County. Most challenging was getting volunteers to make phone calls to the community to inform voters about Measure I says Cheryl. With the measure passing by 3000 votes out of 41,000 every contact with voters mattered.

One lesson Cheryl wants to share with other Audubon leaders is the value of building a wide coalition group, beyond the obvious environmental groups. “We should have been involved with the arts community, tourism and historical community early on” says Cheryl. Reaching beyond the usual partners would have been extra helpful when unexpected opposition to the creation of a regional parks district surprised the campaign. A diverse coalition could have helped educate the community about the real value of county parks. To effectively build coalitions, “we have to look at what other people lives are about, what it is they love about their community that Audubon also cares about. So we talk about what a beautiful place we live in because it’s part of quality of life” says Cheryl.

What is President Cheryl Harris going to do next? She says she will work as president of her Chapter to create visibility locally. “We’re not even in the phone book” she says.

Cheryl Harris is just one of the many Audubon stars that are making a real difference in our mission of conserving and restoring natural ecosystems for the benefit of birds, wildlife and people of California. Our greatest appreciation to Cheryl for her dedication to conservation and we are so pleased to have her in the Audubon family.

2007 Audubon Regional Council Meetings

The northern California Audubon Chapters met for a regional council meeting in Clearlake for the first time in many, many years. Our Audubon grassroots base in Humboldt, Mendocino, Butte, Lake, Shasta, and Glenn counties are making sure that birds and wildlife are protected and environmental consciousness grows.

Many councils have set their meeting dates for the year.

Meeting Dates are posted on the California Chapter Resources page http://www.ca.audubon.org/chapter_resources.html

Save the Date - Audubon Chapter Assembly October 7-9, 2007. Mark your calendars now for the next Chapter Assembly, scheduled for three days, two nights at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove Monterey on October 7-9, 2007. More program and other details will be available soon.

BookMark this!
Resources for Chapters & Discussion Forum

The National Audubon Society Chapter Resources pages are full of useful information such as training manuals, how-to fundraising, membership contacts, and ordering outreach materials. It’s a good page to have bookmarked! http://www.audubon.org/local/index.html

And Audubon California has a discussion forum just for members to share and gather information. Many members have asked for a way to communicate and now we have it. Join the discussion forum today by registering at http://ca.audubon.org/forum/. To receive the forum messages in your email inbox like a list-serve, use the “subscription” feature.

Audubon Leadership Camp – Hog Island, Maine August 19-25, 2007

Designed especially for active Chapter leaders, this weeklong leadership camp will build and deepen your expertise and ability to enhance Audubon's effectiveness at all levels. Led by top-level State and National Audubon program staff and thoroughly experienced Chapter volunteers, participants will enjoy a combination of daily workshops, special presentations, and lively discussions, as well as the traditional Maine field trips, serenity and fine food that are hallmarks of the Hog Island Camp. Daily sessions will include an in-depth focus on key Audubon conservation programs including IBAs, Audubon at Home, education and citizen science, as well as State-Chapter partnership opportunities, fundraising, leadership development and training. Last year's participants found the camp session provided great information, useful networking, inspiration, and fun!

A special National scholarship of $200 per person is available to registrants in with a matching scholarship of $200 from her/his local Chapter. (A $250 tuition reduction by Maine Audubon is already included in the price to all workshop registrants.) For registration details visit: http://www.audubon.org/local/leadershipWorkshop.html

For pictures and bird lists:
http://birdchaser.blogspot.com/2006/08/audubon-leadership-workshop-on-hog.html

California Chapter Coordinator

– Chapter Coordinator

Audubon California
4225 Hollis Street
Emeryville, CA 94608
(510) 601-1866 x (extension) 3
(510) 601-1954 Fax