Pepperwood Cosponsors Santa Rosa Premiere of OR7 - The Journey

Join the Center for Biological Diversity, Sonoma Land Trust, Sonoma County Conservation Action and Pepperwood Preserve in celebrating the Santa Rosa premiere screening of the documentary OR7 - The Journey, an inspiring film about Oregon’s famous wandering gray wolf who even made his way into California.

The screening will take place at Summerfield Cinemas at 551 Summerfield Rd. in Santa Rosa on Wed. Aug. 26 at 7pm. 

UPDATE: The Wed. Aug. 26th screening is SOLD OUT but due to popular demand a second night showing has been added on Thu. Aug. 27th, also at 7pm. Tickets are $10.00 and can be purchased here.

OR7 - The Journey documents a remarkable wildlife success story that is taking shape in Oregon and the potential for regional recovery of wolves in the Pacific West. While Oregon's last wolf bounty was paid in 1947, wolves have begun to slowly rebound after they were granted protections under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1973. Oregon is once again home to a fragile, recovering population of gray wolves.

All of Oregon’s wolves resided in the northeast corner of the state until one male dispersed from his pack in 2011 and made history by becoming the first documented wolf west of the Cascades since 1947, and the first in California in nearly a century. In the process, he inspired people around the world and has become an ambassador for recovering native wildlife. That wolf was dubbed OR-7 by biologists and was given the name “Journey” by schoolchildren in a naming contest.

The film tells Journey’s story, not just as an adventure thousands of miles in the making, but representing the return of his species to their native habitats. It explores an awakening in how Americans view native wildlife and wild places, and the increasing conflict between 21st century science and values, and the old prejudices and politics that put the future of wolves - and OR-7 - in jeopardy.

Click the image to the left to watch the trailer. 

Come celebrate wolf recovery, wildlife, and OR-7's epic journey. A Q&A session will take place after the movie with filmmaker Clemens Schenk and Amaroq Weiss of the Center for Biological Diversity. Since California’s state wildlife agency will soon be releasing for public comment a draft state wolf plan, this film screening and opportunity to ask questions about wolf conservation could not be more timely.

 Click here to purchase tickets.

Summer Sleep: The Wonders of Aestivation

By Sandi Funke, Education Director

Newt at Pepperwood, photo by Joel Cervantes

When traveling in Spain over 20 years ago, I experienced some of the hottest driest days of my life. I remember sitting on a train swooning, feeling light-headed and wishing for more, much more water to drink. I also experienced Siesta - an almost mandated time lapse in the “busy-ness” of the day when folks take a break, close shops, and rest. As it was particularly hot during this trip, I really appreciated some time to sleep and wait for the sun to go down.

Imagine you are one of Pepperwood’s salamanders. As you may know, these amphibians need water to reproduce. They also need to keep their bodies moist. In addition, their food supplies may be low in the drier months. As summer arrives, places of moisture such as Pepperwood’s Turtle Pond and Double Ponds begin to dry up. How would you cope with California’s hot and dry summers?

Pacific chorus frog photographed by TeenNat intern Henry O'Donnell

Amphibians as well as many other animals undergo aestivation. Aestivation is a period of animal dormancy, similar to hibernation. It is characterized by inactivity in which animals lower their metabolism. Aestivation takes place during times of heat and dryness, the hot dry season, which in California is during the summer months. Animals that aestivate undergo very similar physiological changes as animals that hibernate. However, when conditions are right, aestivating animals can arouse more quickly than animals which hibernate.

So where do animals hide when they are aestivating? Well, it depends on the animal. Some creatures seek solace underground, often in burrows, other bury themselves in leaf litter and rubble. Some creatures even climb trees or man-made structures to hang on during the hot times of the year.

Newts aestivating under a rock, photo by Celeste Dodge

Several types of animals at Pepperwood aestivate. Last year Preserve Technician Celeste Dodge captured this incredible picture (left) of California Newts aestivating under a rock near turtle pond. Arboreal Salamanders commonly aestivate in the holes of large oaks especially, and are more tolerant of arid conditions than most amphibians. They adapt by curling their body and tightly coiling their tails! California Tiger Salamanders aestivate nine out of twelve months of the year. Turtles, salamanders, and frogs also avoid much movement during the hot summer months, as do some invertebrates including worms, snails, and even beetles. So as another California summer begins to embrace us with its wide, languid arms, maybe we should take a cue from the animals of Pepperwood? Relax and take time for a long nap!

An alligator lizard hides in leaf litter

Learn more about amphibians:

California Herps

AmphibiaWeb

Looking Under the Log - Dr. Vance Vredenburg on Amphibians

We're excited to host Dr. Vance Vredenburg of San Francisco State University for our next Discover Nature lecture on Amphibians!

Amphibians, Amphibian Decline, and Restoration
Friday, August 14, 2015 
7pm lecture, no reservations necessary
$10 suggested donation, students free
Click here for more info.

We hope to see you there! 

---------------------------------

Dr. Vance Vredenburg

Looking Under the Log
Dr. Vredenburg Researches Frogs, Newts, and Salamanders with an Eye Towards Conservation

Responses by Dr. Vance Vredenburg

1) What got you interested in amphibians in the first place?  
I wanted to conduct research on a group of animals where I felt I could have conservation impact. They are so threatened that it seemed to make sense. I also wanted to work in a system where I could directly handle the animals (mammals and birds were out!) and I’ve always been fascinated by amphibians.

All three species of California's newts are found
at Pepperwood! Photo taken at Pepperwood by
Ken-ichi Ueda of iNaturalist.org

2) Your work seems to span the globe. How are challenges to amphibians in Northern California similar or different than the challenges face in other regions? 
In many ways they are similar. A pandemic disease is affecting amphibians in similar ways in Northern California, Chile, Spain, China, and even Palau and humans are the cause of the pandemic. 

3) Can you tell us a little about AmphibiaWeb? What prompted you to start this on-line web portal? 
AmphibiaWeb is an online amphibian conservation portal. I started it with David Wake (a professor at UC Berkeley) when I was a graduate student back in 1998. It was created and is maintained by volunteers interested in saving the world’s amphibians. It provides information (e.g. conservation status, photos, range maps, etc.) on every known species of amphibian and gets over 7.3 million successful queries per year.

Newt photographed by 2014 TeenNat intern Mario Balitbit.

4) What can average community members do to help promote the survival of amphibian species? 
Become educated about the species that live in our natural world, sometimes even in our front yards (e.g. California slender salamanders are the most common amphibian in California), help spread the word that releasing amphibians purchased in the pet trade should never be done, and become involved in a conservation organization. 

---------------------------------
Dr. Vredenburg was raised in Mexico and the United States. His scientific training began as an undergraduate at the University of California Santa Barbara where he worked on ecological research projects in coastal California, Alaska, the Caribbean, and Antarctica. His current research focuses on the ecology, evolution and conservation of amphibians including the ecology of emerging infectious amphibian disease, the role of the skin microbiome in health and disease, and the role of climate change and behavior on disease dynamics. Dr. Vredenburg the co-founder of AmphibiaWeb an online conservation resource for the world’s amphibians. His research seeks to understand how some populations of frogs survive epidemics. Dr. Vredenburg is a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences and will be presenting on the conservation and threats to native amphibians. Learn more at the Vredenburg Lab website.

One Year After TeenNat

By Allie Ahern, TeenNat Intern

Allie examines a specimen near Pepperwood's Double Ponds.

It’s strange for me to think that, as the month of July approaches, it will have been almost exactly a year since the day I started my internship at Pepperwood Preserve. It feels as if no time has passed at all. I can easily imagine it was only yesterday that I was making an observation, finding GPS coordinates, and uploading my photographs onto iNaturalist.com. It’s also extremely strange for me to think that I’ll soon be entering my senior year in high school and that, in a few brief months, I will need to make a larger decision than I’ve made in all my life: to choose the area of study that I will supposedly pursue for a lifelong career, and which university I will go to to study it.

Luckily, my experience in TeenNat has made that choice a little bit easier for me.

Allie (right) and other TeenNat interns at Pepperwood.

Before the internship, I did have a genuine interest in science and nature. In my freshman year biology class I had taken part in the UC Davis CAMEOS (Coastal, Atmospheric, & Marine Environmental Observing Studies) program, collaborating with classmates to design and implement our own experiment. (Ours, interestingly enough, was on cyanobacteria. It kind of worked out). 

Photo by Allie Ahern.

For four years, I had been on my schools’ running teams, and training runs took me up and down the beautiful trails of Annadel State Park. While I was running I not only got to be surrounded by nature, but enjoyed feeling as if I was part of it. My love for the outdoors is ultimately what drew me to the TeenNat program.

         

A whole new world of investigative science was opened to me at Pepperwood. We were told that even the tiniest observations were significant. Nobody thought it was the slightest bit strange for Celeste (Pepperwood's Preserve Technician) and I to be crouched on the ground for ten minutes, observing and intensely discussing an insect the size of my fingernail. I realized then that I couldn’t move on from a learning experience unless I felt my understanding was full and complete. 

Western Fence Lizard, photo by Allie Ahern.

Whenever I go on hikes or runs now, I’m usually in the back. Chances are something has caught my eye, like an intricately patterned moth, or perhaps a plant that doesn’t look quite like the others. Usually I end up asking, why? Does the pattern serve as camouflage? Has the plant succumbed to a disease? I am now much more observant of my natural surroundings, and more conscious as to how my presence is affecting them. Conscious enough that I’m seriously considering Environmental or Earth Science as my choice for a major in college. The work that we did during TeenNat, in making observations and in following experimental procedure, gave me a taste of what a career in these fields would be like. I absolutely loved it, and because I cherish the beauty, complexity, and bounty of nature, I feel as if I must pay it back for all it’s given me.

Manzanita gal with aphids, photo by Allie Ahern.

Additionally, TeenNat has left me feeling a whole lot more prepared for the “real world.” From meeting up with professionals in science careers to emailing back and forth with TeenNat leaders, I got a better understanding of what it means to “network.” Our leaders shared their personal experiences, both educational and professional, and now I realize that success doesn’t have to mean a straight-shot to college and a career. Paths can meander. I can pursue internships, do volunteer work, or maybe even take a year off for travel. So, not only did I learn skills valuable to my future, I am more confident in my own abilities and in myself. I can’t wait to see what comes next!

---

Click here to learn more about Pepperwood's TeenNat program.

Community Highlight - Wendy Herniman

Responses by Wendy Herniman, Pepperwood Steward

Wendy (right) helping with the initial planting of
the Demonstration Garden.

How long have you been a Steward, Tracker, or Volunteer with Pepperwood?
I started volunteering about four years ago and then became a steward last summer, after going through the Bio-85 program at SRJC and becoming a California Naturalist.

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you became interested in Pepperwood. What keeps you motivated?
I grew up in the New Forest in England, so my backyard as a child was an ancient 1000-year old forest where the local ponies and donkeys had free rein to wander wherever they liked. There wasn't a lot else to do other than spend time in the woods, heathland and streams, so I became very comfortable outdoors and a love of nature and a desire to take care of the environment grew from that. As a teenager I became a member of the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers and spent my summers restoring wetland habitats and scrub-bashing (removing invasive species) near Stonehenge. I then went to college and majored in biology, but meandered into healthcare rather than my favoured field of ecology. A few years have passed since then, bringing me to Sonoma County. Luckily, I discovered Pepperwood in 2011 when I brought my son, Peter, up here for a field trip for a summer SRJC class; as soon as I arrived, I decided that I needed to spend as much time as I could at the preserve. Every time I drive through the Pepperwood gate, I'm reminded of why I made that decision. 

One of the oaks Wendy monitors as part of the
Phenology Project. (Photo by Wendy Herniman)
     

What projects have you worked on?
I enjoy helping with the community events like the lectures, classes, hikes, gallery exhibits and the wildflower festivals. The volunteer workdays have given me the opportunity to help with the creation of the demonstration garden and the gathering ground. I've also been involved with the Phenology Project for almost two years now, where a group of stewards and trackers monitors plants twice weekly to see which life cycle stages they are exhibiting, such as leafing out, flowering, producing seeds, etc. My favorite part of the Phenology Project has been the group of oaks which I have been monitoring for the last year. I have learnt so much about these plants, and oaks in particular, through doing this project. I've also helped with the fieldwork for other climate change projects like the Terrestrial Biodiversity Climate Change Collaborative (TBC3)'s 50 woodland plots, some of which are located in the less-visited parts of the preserve, giving me a great opportunity to explore Pepperwood in more depth.

What are three words that describe Pepperwood to you?
Biodiversity, community, balance.

What does your experience at Pepperwood mean to you?
Being surrounded by the gorgeous Northern California landscape, with the grasslands, oak woodlands, and the redwoods, puts everything in perspective for me and brings balance to my life. Additionally, I really appreciate the community which the preserve attracts, the staff, the scientists, volunteers, and visitors, who all seem to value the landscape and care about protecting the environment. It's been especially rewarding that my sons have found a good niche here, too, with Sam spending a wonderful summer here as an intern and going on to study ecology, and Peter thoroughly enjoying the first TeenNat program.

Wendy in the field at a Volunteer Workday.

What’s the most surprising thing you've learned or seen at Pepperwood?
I was surprised to discover that I was brave enough to hold a snake during a Bio-85 reptiles and amphibians class. It was only a little gopher snake, but that was pretty amazing. One of the most beautiful things I've seen was a huge King Snake stretched out across the trail.

What’s the one thing you’d want to share with someone who is thinking about volunteering?
There's something for everyone here, whether they want to enjoy the outdoors, work on a computer or at public events, take part in science projects, learn more about plants or animals, tend a garden, pull out invasive plants or even love to cook, and the community is so welcoming.

What do you like to do in your spare time?
I like to spend time with family and friends, as well as enjoying all that Sonoma County has to offer, such as hiking, art, local good food and wine, and traveling further afield to Yosemite and the UK when I get the chance.

 --- Interested in volunteering? Check our website for more information.

Upstream Investments & Pepperwood - A Winning Partnership

By Sandi Funke, Education Director

Students from Calistoga Elementary School
visit Pepperwood. Photo by Sandi Funke.

Pepperwood year-long environmental education program for area elementary schools, SCENIQ (Students Conducting Environmental Inquiry), has recently qualified for Sonoma County's Upstream Investments Portfolio at the Tier Three level for Innovative Practices. The Portfolio of Model Upstream Programs is a collection of local evidence-based programs proven to help eliminate poverty in Sonoma County and ensure equal opportunity for quality education. Programs included in the Portfolio have completed a rigorous application and review process to demonstrate a solid basis in research and a commitment to program evaluation. Pepperwood Foundation’s SCENIQ program is an innovative conservation program based on best practices that promotes lifelong environmental stewardship.

 “SCENIQ is a true Upstream success story," said Joni Thacher, Training and Technical Assistance Manger for Upstream Investments. "Pepperwood has demonstrated a remarkable commitment to designing and implementing a program with a solid research base and a commitment to demonstrating learning outcomes. Through the SCENIQ program, Pepperwood provides youth with opportunities for hands on science experiences. The outdoor education program incorporates common core standards while teaching students about outdoor safety and conservation. Upstream Investments applauds their efforts to provide high quality educational experiences to the youth in Sonoma County.” 

The mission of Upstream Investments is to promote effective and prevention-focused approaches that will ultimately uproot poverty and reduce monetary and societal costs to our community. The Portfolio of Model Upstream Programs is a collection of evidence-informed programs. Programs undergo a rigorous, iterative process to join the portfolio. Programs are listed as Tier 1, 2, or 3 depending on where they are in the process and the type of program. Pepperwood’s application to Upstream Investments engaged the expertise of not only Pepperwood staff but our Education Advisory Committee as well as technical advisers from Upstream. Funders are using the portfolio to guide their investments.

Students from San Miguel Elementary School explore nature artifacts
during a visit by Pepperwood educators. Photo by Sandi Funke.

“I am very excited that the SCENIQ program from Pepperwood has been included in the Upstream Investments Portfolio. For many of my students, their participation in the SCENIQ program is their first and most extensive foray into the natural world,” said Doug Day, 5^th grade teacher at San Miguel Elementary School in Santa Rosa.

Pepperwood’s SCENIQ program provides the community’s diverse youth and their families with the knowledge, motivation, and skills to get outside and enjoy exploring nature, not just during their visit to Pepperwood, but over their lifetimes. Educators pique students’ curiosity and excitement and inspire a long-lasting appreciation for the natural world. This is accomplished by teaching schoolchildren fun, hands-on, nature observation skills they can apply in their communities and having them practice these skills at Pepperwood.

Students from Hidden Valley Elementary School
hike at Pepperwood. Photo by Sandi Funke.

SCENIQ includes a four-hour hands-on, science-based field trip in the fall, a one-hour classroom lesson in the winter, supplementary teacher-directed lesson plans, and a follow up four-hour field trip in the spring. The program utilizes bilingual English-Spanish nature journals customized for each grade level with illustrations of local plants and animals by artist John Muir Laws. Over 800 students participate in SCENIQ each year from schools in Santa Rosa, Calistoga, and Healdsburg. Pepperwood prioritizes serving classes from Title One schools and provides bus transportation scholarships to enable their participation.

Interested in supporting Pepperwood's SCENIQ program? Click here to make a donation.

Grappling with the Drought

By Lisa Micheli, PhD, President & CEO

Yesterday I talked to a man about getting a fake lawn.  I now look out my home office window rather guiltily at the horseshoe shaped natural green carpet in my backyard. I know my family wants a place to play, yet this grassy patch will use more water over the summer than a pool of the same size. And we are on the hook to reduce our water use by 25% compared to last year because of the drought. So I am actually considering pulling the whole thing up, laying down some gravel, and covering it with the equivalent of a backyard "toupee."  Meanwhile, I'm committed to letting any trees just die if they can't make it through the summer without irrigation.

More lawns in our area are left to the seasonal transition from
green to brown undergone by the surrounding hillsides. Above:
view from Pepperwood's Dwight Center, photo by Lisa Micheli.

Given that my work at Pepperwood exposes me to a lot of data about where water is used and perhaps wasted in our region, I'm acutely aware of the fact that outdoor irrigation of rural residential yards like mine are probably one of the chief culprits of water waste, and where we could achieve the greatest savings without compromising drinking water or agricultural water supplies.  And that all the water we consume without recycling creates a deficit somewhere in our natural system that won't be refilled until the next time we get a good old-fashioned rainy season.

This is the kind of nexus between personal choices and community resilience being forced upon us in the face of the drought. In our region, water awareness is now at an all time high.  For example, next Wednesday I've been asked to present on the drought and what we can do about it at my town's local environment commission, then Friday at a conference dedicated to the watershed of the Napa Valley.  This is a more and more typical week for me as our community ponders two questions: "how bad will it really get?," which requires a crystal ball to answer, and "what am I willing to give up?," which requires some serious soul searching on the part of each one of us.  I notice most people opt to talk more about the former than the latter.

Above: TBC3 co-chairs Dr. Lisa Micheli of Pepperwood and Dr. David
Ackerly of UC Berkeley at one of Pepperwood's weather stations.

Pepperwood's TBC3 research team is using computer models to explore how much "droughtier" our future may be as a result of climate change. What the models show is what you intuitively know: warmer weather helps to dry things out. So as temperatures continue to rise, the effect is something like aiming a blow dryer on high heat at the Earth.  The result is increasing the total amount of evaporation, or where plants are growing, evapotranspiration (the combination of direct evaporation plus water used by the plants).  For the North Bay, all of the models, even the ones with significantly higher than normal rainfall, suggest that on average an additional 3 inches (or so) of rain per year will be vaporized due to higher temperatures than compared to today.  In some places that amounts to an additional 10% of incoming rainfall being lost due to warming.

So this means that water, the most precious of perhaps of all resources for life, is getting only ever more precious.  I get inspired by those cultural creatives like our friends at Daily Acts who are figuring out how to make water conservation and recycling both fun and social, rather than an overwhelmingly weighty moral conundrum.  So besides tackling the lawn, I am finally going to do what I've been planning to do for years but never got around to - and that is put in a laundry-to-landscape system.  What the heck is that you may ask?  It's a simple plumbing solution to take the water used by my washing machine and route it directly to irrigate my front yard.  And this year that's all the roses are going to get (we stopped irrigating the front lawn years ago, letting it go "rough"). Oh - and I'm ordering a load of mulch to help keep as much water in the ground this summer as possible.

So what are your water-wise solutions? How can you make it fun and get your neighbors to help or even try it out themselves? How much easier will we all breathe and sleep when we are successful in leaving smaller footprints on the planet?

- Lisa Micheli, PhD, President & CEO