AUDUBON CANYON RANCH Number 46 BULLETIN Spring 2010 Honoring our Past œ Celebrating the Future Gathering to Restore Oak Woodlands by Jeanne Wirka and Jennifer Potts On a recent Friday morning, 22 students from Sonoma Valley High School were playing “PVC golf” in the courtyard of David Bouverie’s house at Audubon Canyon Ranch’s Bouverie Preserve. Instead of clubs and greens, this golf game involves racing a golf ball across the courtyard through many short lengths of PVC pipe without touching the ball, dropping it, or going backward. It’s harder than it sounds, a fact not lost on the ACR staff members who, having been drafted to one of the two teams, are running in circles waving pieces of pipe. After six or seven tries, one of the teams manages to convey their golf ball to the finish line amid an explosion of hoots and high fives. Laughing and energized, the students reconvene and Students secure grow tubes with stakes to ensure the seedlings are protected when get down to the business that brought they emerge. them to the Bouverie Preserve in the (SSCRCD), grew out of ACR’s Habitat on Highway 12 and was therefore first place: laying over a mile of drip Protection 15-Year Action Plan, which willing to fund restoration at the line and installing emitters for the 400 identified the abandoned vineyards Bouverie Preserve. Because it could oak trees they helped to plant back in at the Bouverie Preserve as a high not contract directly with ACR due December as part of ACR’s new habitat priority for ecological restoration. to its non-profit status, CALTRANS restoration project known as Project As luck would have it, Bouverie staff developed a cooperative agreement GROW (Gathering to Restore Oak was approached about three years with the SSCRCD, which then Woodlands). ago by the California Department subcontracted the restoration to Project GROW, which is a of Transportation (CALTRANS), ACR. Through this agreement, ACR partnership between Audubon Canyon which needed to mitigate for oak trees will receive approximately $273,000 Ranch and the Southern Sonoma that were lost due to construction over the next four years to fund the County Resource Conservation District > Please turn to GROW, page 4 Page 2 Audubon Canyon Ranch Honoring our Past œ Celebrating the Future BURNISHING ACR’S LEGacY by Andy Lafrenz Audubon Canyon Ranch has always who will continue as Senior Advisor IERCE P been an organization that keeps one eye and Executive Director Emeritus on the legacy of its past, protects and to lend his considerable talents in honors that legacy, while at the same furthering ACR’s work. time moving forward vigorously to Stepping into Skip’s giant footsteps Andy HOTO BY YVONNE P fulfill its mission. Without the foresight, is our new Executive Director Scott Lafrenz love, energy and hard work of such Feierabend. Scott comes from a giants as Marty Griffin, Stan Picher long history of environmental work, life on their magnificent 1,725-acre and David Bouverie—just to name a including with the National Wildlife property, which will become the few—ACR would not be where it is Federation and California Trout. He Modini Ingalls Ecological Preserve now. ACR is a premier environmental brings a new energy and enthusiasm under the protection of ACR. organization that protects large that is electrifying our staff and Audubon Canyon Ranch is swatches of land in Marin and Sonoma volunteers. In the months ahead, we committed to continuing that which counties for native plants and animals. look forward to introducing him to the it does best and to improving its Each year ACR brings hands-on entire ACR community. ability to advance its tripartite mission nature-based education to thousands Meanwhile, the 2010 public season by involving many diverse Bay Area of schoolchildren and members of the at Bolinas Lagoon Preserve is about communities. general public and conducts important to commence and, as I write, we look To ACR donors and volunteers, conservation science. forward to the imminent arrival of I offer our heartfelt thanks for your This year, to honor our past those magnificent Great Blue Herons commitment and support. I ask you to while looking to the future, ACR has and Great Egrets, which nest in the join our wonderful staff in continuing launched its Founders Campaign in redwood grove of the preserve’s Picher the legacy of our founders in advancing an effort to raise $750,000 over three Canyon. Additionally, docents of the cause of environmental education, years. All this will lead up to our 50th Bolinas Lagoon and Bouverie preserves conservation science and habitat Anniversary Campaign, which will continue to inspire joy and wonder protection on ACR’s preserves. commence in 2012. in the schoolchildren who experience These are very exciting times for firsthand the native flora and fauna that Audubon Canyon Ranch. After many inhabit our properties. years as an effective and beloved In northern Sonoma County, Executive Director, Skip Schwartz has ACR biologists are working in close Andy Lafrenz retired from his position. Thankfully, partnership with Jim and Shirley Ranch Guide and President of ACR we have not lost the services of Skip, Modini to map the plant and animal Board of Directors Audubon Canyon Ranch FOUNDER BOARD OF Anna-Marie Bratton Dan Murphy ACR ADVisors Christina Green L. Martin Griffin, M.D., DirECtors André Brewster Doug Murray Tom Baty Robert Hahn Emeritus Director Dave Chenoweth Ivan Obolensky Jim Horan OFFICERS Gordon Bennett Mary Ann Cobb Jane Sinclair Len Blumin Turk Kauffman EMERITUS Andy Lafrenz, President Kevin Consey April Starke Slakey Patti Blumin Joshua Levine DirECtors Judy Prokupek, Sam Dakin Stephen Smith Noelle Bon Alan Margolis, M.D. Deborah Ablin Vice President Leslie Flint Sue Stoddard Suzie Coleman Leslie R. Perry Richard B. Baird Valerie Merrin, Secretary Jesse Grantham Lowell Sykes Hugh Cotter Gerry Snedaker Nancy Barbour Bill Richardson, Bryant Hichwa Francis Toldi Michelle Dench Betsy Stafford Jack Harper Treasurer Diane Jacobson Patrick Woodworth Roberta Downey Jean Starkweather Flora Maclise DIRECTORS David Kavanaugh Peter Ehrlich Robert Yanagida George Peyton, Jr. Julie Allecta Barbara Kosnar Binny Fischer Nancy Young Helen Pratt Tom Bradner Susan Moritz Tony Gilbert Paul Ruby Bulletin 46, Spring 2010 Page 3 Honoring our Past œ Celebrating the Future THE YEar 2060 – WHat WIll BE THE FacE OF AUDUBON CANYON RANCH? by Scott Feierabend As Audubon Canyon Ranch So... what will be the face of approaches its 50th birthday, one Audubon Canyon Ranch in 50 years can’t help but marvel at how the when 2060 rolls around? While it organization has grown and matured, is impossible to predict with any and the force it has become in certainty, I expect ACR will be even E K preserving the rich biological treasures stronger, even more influential and of Marin and Sonoma counties. The even more effective in providing seeds first planted by founders like leadership in science, education and Marty Griffin, nourished by Skip restoration programs and will be best- Schwartz, and cared for by hundreds of-class in delivering our mission. Scott HOTO BY BRITT HEN P of volunteers have flourished into Two strategies will be required for Feierabend one of the most credible, effective, my prediction to be realized. First, the to always be the “doers,” we will never and inspirational environmental ACR community—defined broadly as reach the critical mass needed to bring organizations in the Bay Area. volunteers, donors, board and staff— about truly transformational change for That Audubon Canyon Ranch today must become “enablers” as well as the natural world. remains a critical voice for conservation “doers.” The environmental challenges Second, we must evolve into “one science, a model for habitat restoration, we face today—children disconnected ACR.” Much of what makes Audubon and a leader in environmental education from nature, climate change and sea Canyon Ranch such a special and is testament to its relevancy and to level rise, habitat destruction, and unique organization is the diversity of its leadership. When ACR’s 50th misguided policies that favor short-term properties we protect and manage. The anniversary arrives, we will come gain over long-term sustainability—will diversity of places where we work has together as a community to celebrate, only increase in complexity and scope at times led to confusion—within our to rejoice, and to reflect on the long list in the coming decades. There will never own family and with the public—as of achievements we have collectively be adequate staff, board or volunteers to who exactly is ACR. Some see us accomplished since 1962. And, to meaningfully and effectively meet through the lens of our cutting edge although it is important to take the time these challenges. conservation science programs at to look back and recount our successes, This is why we need to inspire, the Cypress Grove Research Center; it is equally important to look ahead to train, educate and unleash a cadre of others see us through our unparalleled the future and avoid complacency that next-generation conservationists to do educational programs at Bouverie and can settle into an organization as vibrant our work for us. Unless we embrace the Bolinas Lagoon preserves; while still and alive as ACR. concept of “enabling” others to carry our cause, and until we shed the need > Please turn to Executive Director, page 11 STAFF Sherry Adams, Jennifer Potts, Preserve Stewardship Leslie Sproul, FINANCE AND J. Scott Feierabend, Biologist, Modini Ranch Habitat Protection Bill Arthur, Receptionist/Office DEVELOPMENT Executive Director Emiko Condeso, and Restoration Project Land Steward, BLP Assistant, BLP Didi Wilson, John Petersen, Biologist/GIS Specialist Leader, BP David Greene, Nancy Trbovich, Director of Development Associate Director Matthew Danielczyk, Claire Hutkins Seda, Land Steward, CGRC Administrative & Communications Maurice A.