Tag: Audubon Society

books

‘Wild LA’ invites readers to explore urban nature

Let’s get to know the Great Blue Heron, although it could just as easily be the Monarch Butterfly, or the Black Bear, or even the Red-eared Slider.

All of these creatures have their own pages in the breezy and fabulous new book “Wild LA,” created by the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum.

When the rest of the country thinks of LA, it’s Disneyland, beaches, babes, wildfires, but probably not our wildlife. Yet, this pithy guide would have us “explore the amazing nature in and around Los Angeles.”

To accomplish this for the reader, the museum put together a formidable cast of writers and photographers, including Charles Hood, who teaches English and occasionally journalism, shoots engaging nature photography and writes in his book-jacket biography that he is a reformed birder, who stopped counting at 5,000 species.

He and the book’s other authors explore what the term “urban nature” means in several essays about wild Los Angeles, including one about water and the LA River, viewed through the journal of Franciscan missionary Gaspar Portola some 200 years ago, to its current-day role as “an unlikely gem in the city — still a place for wildlife to survive and for humans to thrive.”

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THE AUDUBON SOCIETY was created at the end of the 19th century, in part by women activists, to regulate the feather trade and bring herons and other birds back from the brink of extinction. Believe it or not women’s hats — and the huge amount of feathers needed to create tens of thousands of them — were to blame. (Jim Burns)

Going back to that Great Blue Heron, in the field guide section of 101 LA species readers learn he stands some four feet tall, with a wingspan of six feet. Fair enough. But what makes this book such a gem is that once you’ve read up on a favorite species — and probably discovered many a new one in the book’s pages — the text cross-references trips to areas where, with a little patience,  you can see them.

Sure enough, our Great Blue Heron can be spotted on five itineraries in the book’s final section that features 25 trips for nature lovers, including the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve, Ballona Wetlands and the LA River at Frogtown. Here, herons hunt with that impressive, sharp bill any unwary “fish, frogs, crayfish, lizards, snakes, mice, birds, grasshoppers and dragonflies.”

Make room for this fun guide in your day pack and don’t forget your fly rod.

Wild LA

By Lila Higgins & Gregory B. Pauly

with Jason G. Goldman 7 Charles Hood

332 pps

$24.95

http://www.timberpress.com

See you on the river, Jim Burns

Quick mends

Quick Mends: Army Corps levels 43 acres of Sepulveda Basin habitat
This fly-fisherman just about set the river on fire! Maybe we should send this snap to "Ghost Hunters."
This fly-fisherman is staking carp, a non-native species of the Los Angeles River. Would all carp be killed in the river once reconstruction begins?

I was shocked to read this story in the Los Angeles Times today that begins: “An area that just a week ago was lush habitat on the Sepulveda Basin’s wild side, home to one of the most diverse bird populations in Southern California, has been reduced to dirt and broken limbs — by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”

Read the entire story by Louis Sahagun here.

With the public comment period for the long-awaited ARBOR study coming up this spring, the Corps may have a public relations nightmare on its hands. In this historic moment, the pubic will weigh in on which of four alternative reconstruction plans makes the most sense. That plan will then be sent to Washington for approval and funding. Make no mistake, the river will be changed, no matter which plan moves forward. The Corps and the city of Los Angeles are partners in the redevelopment.

As one highly placed city official emailed me recently (in other words, before this happened), “Remember that the fundamental purpose of the Study is to improve the ecosystem values in the LA River — and that means riparian habitat that is good for wildlife, including fish species.”

Just last week, I walked part of the river with a Corps biologist, who told me that she studied maps from the late 1800s to see which plants were prevalent along the river during that time. Re-establishing those plants along the river will undoubtedly be part of all four alternatives.

Up until this happened, Sepulveda Basin was the beautiful place where environmentalists, river advocates, Los Angeles and the Corps had found common ground.  But with the Audubon Society calling for an investigation into the loss of habitat for 250 species of birds, as well as mammals, reptiles and fish, my guess would be the trust the Corps has been building within the community has been sheared by their bulldozer’s edge. Developing.

See you on the river, Jim Burns