In a new book on animals in America, Wild Ones, Jon Mooallem dedicates nearly 100 pages to the Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly. He describes the storied history and destruction of their habitat in the Antioch Dunes, no longer actual sand dunes due to extensive sand removal and industry. He also describes some of the famous lepidopterists, or butterfly scientists, who have loved the land and the Lange’s over the decades since it was first discovered by William Harry Lange in 1933.

Cover of Mooallem’s new book featuring Wild Equity.

On one of his jaunts to Antioch, Mooallem found himself counting butterflies alongside our own Brent Plater. The author describes Wild Equity’s case against the proposed new power plants near the wildlife refuge, which are poised to harm the butterfly through habitat destruction due to increased nitrogen deposited on the land. He muses over a conversation he had with Brent out at the dunes, and paraphrasing Brent’s words, he states, “the balance is so out of whack that every battle is now a battle of principle that can’t be forfeited.” Mooallem portrays the goal of a settlement, which could provide a comprehensive habitat restoration for the Langes Metalmark, as “yet another freak turning point” in the “chaos” the little butterfly has had to endure but to re-establish habitat rather than continue the destruction (191).

Tatzoo fellow Matt Switzer’s Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly tattoo.

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In front of a packed audience last month, Wild Equity Institute Executive Director Brent Plater discussed communicating science to the public with Azibuike Akaba, an Environmental Policy Analyst at Public Health Institute, and Rose Aguilar, a journalist and radio host of Your Call on San Francisco’s KALW.

Listen to the audio archive of the entire presentation.

Azibuike discussed the framing and language of scientists and engineers. He defined resilience as a community that takes care of each other, and suggested focussing on the experience in nature. He claimed it’s not true that scientists define our experience of nature, although we often allow them to. He reminded the group that science is funded by someone who is class-interest based, and suggested scrutinizing scientific claims to ensure that science isn’t wielded simply to perpetuate existing biases.

After Azibuike spoke, Brent invoked the meme of the Anthropocene, a term that suggests humans are now as impactful on the earth as a glacial period or asteroid strike—catastrophic events that have been used to define biologic and geologic time. He critiqued Peter Kareiva, the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy, who suggests our massive impacts on Earth means the environmental movement is a failure, and should be transformed into a industry-friendly movement. Brent criticized Kareiva not for his suggestion that the environmental movement needs work, but because Kareiva suggests we should cede our demands to the movement’s opponents. Instead, Brent argued we should tell the public about our beliefs, which are widely shared, and not just what we know.

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San Francisco’s endangered species-killing Sharp Park Golf Course cost San Francisco taxpayers $177,000 more than it earned during the 2011-12 fiscal year, according to a new analysis by the Wild Equity Institute.

The analysis also demonstrates that the Recreation and Park Department will save money if it closes the course even if RPD is incapable of reducing its overhead costs. If only 20% of current Sharp Park golfers, 70% of which are San Francisco residents, reinvest their golf rounds into one of the City’s five other municipal courses, any legacy overhead costs would be completely offset by the increase in revenue at San Francisco’s other courses.

Golf industry developers—seeking a government bailout for Sharp Park Golf Course—and the Pacifica Chamber of Commerce—seeking “a new hotel and restaurant right on the ocean, right next door to Sharp Park Golf Course”—have denied that Sharp Park Golf Course loses money, hoping to convince public officials to pour more taxpayer dollars into their development proposals.

But their analyses counts taxpayer monies from San Francisco’s General Fund as part of the golf course’s revenue stream. This money is, of course, not income from the golf course’s operation: it is a taxpayer bailout. Wild Equity’s calculations remove this taxpayer bailout from the revenue stream for Sharp Park Golf Course to get a more accurate picture of how the course’s finances impact San Francisco’s limited recreation funding.

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At Wild Equity, we love our dogs. We dote on them and give them the best doggie-life possible.

But we also take our role as dog guardians to heart. And that includes making sure our dogs are safe and ensuring they don’t disturb the people, wildlife, and plants around us.

So stand with us and contact the Board of Supervisors and tell them to support safe dog parks and leash law enforcement today.

Unfortunately, the City of San Francisco doesn’t take this obligation seriously, and its failure is causing numerous preventable problems. For example, in 2012, the City ranked fifth among U.S. Cities in total letter carrier attacks with 38: per square mile of land, the City ranked first.

Postal workers aren’t the only ones at risk. In April, an off-leash dog killed two Canadian goslings at Crissy Field. Last year, a dog was ferociously mauled to death in Nob Hill Park, and a police horse was attacked at Crissy Field, injuring both the horse and rider.

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Join a challenging conversation some have dubbed “environmental communications in the Anthropocene” to discuss the problems with presenting complex ecological information publicly. Rose Aguilar from KALW’s Your Call radio, Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute, and environmental scientist and climate change activist Azibuike Akaba discuss and debate issues of scientific literacy, critical thinking, basic education, attention spans, buzzwords, guest selection, framing and definition of scientific issues, overcoming simplistic jargon, and much more!

Hosted by Shaping San Francisco, the show starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics, 518 Valencia St. (near 16th St.) in San Francisco.

Sunday, May 12, 10:00am to 2:00pm: You are invited to join Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute on a 5-mile hike along the edge of the North American continent. We will explore San Francisco’s beautiful habitats and learn about the endangered species that call the area home.

Meet at the Baker Beach North Parking Lot. Don’t forget to pack water, snacks, and sunscreen. Please RSVP on our event page.

Remember, you must have a free wildequity.org account and be logged-in to our site to RSVP.

On April 18, San Francisco resident Mikiye Nakanishi—a bird lover and dog owner—was watching a goose family waddle into San Francisco Bay from Crissy Field lagoon. But before the goslings could make it over the waves, an off-leash dog attacked the goose family.

“Then another dog came running and grabbed one,” Nakanishi recounted. “A second dog grabbed another one. A third dog came and pushed them all out. The geese had no place to go. People were surrounding them. The dog owners were saying, ‘Oh, they’re not going to hurt them.’"

A gosling killed by off-leash dogs at Crissy Field, April, 18, 2013.

Two goslings were killed before the parent geese could lead their flock to safety. And while the stunned bird-lover was trying to understand what happened, the irresponsible dog owners fled the scene of the crime.

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In July of 2012, the Wild Equity Institute filed a formal administrative petition with the Obama Administration requesting that it repeal a Bush Administration interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act ("MBTA"), and provide full protection to migratory bird nests under law.

Pale Male in Central Park, New York, NY, awaiting protection for his nest. Photo courtesy of Lincoln Karim.

To date the Administration has not responded to our petition. But recent news stories suggest we can’t wait much longer for the Administration to take action.

For example, In Petaluma CalTrans recently erected exclusion netting on a construction site to prevent Cliff Swallows from nesting under a highway the agency wishes to expand. But the Cliff Swallows continue to attempt nesting there, and more than 60 swallows have been reported killed as they attempt to nest and get caught in the nets.

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California members and supporters,

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In late October of 2012, Wild Equity Institute Executive Director Brent Plater was invited to a weekend workshop to discuss the future of the conservation movement with luminaries in several environmental fields. The following essay is one of several products we’ve produced based on that workshop.

Back row, L-R: Michael Kellett, Brooke Williams, Michael Matz, George Wuerthner, Holmes Rolston, III, Phil Cafaro, Noah Greenwald, Dominick DellaSala. Front row, L-R: John Terborgh, David Johns, Michael Soule, Terry Tempest Williams, Ronni Egan, Brent Plater, Kieran Suckling, Brock Evans. Not pictured: Don Weeden, Helen Robertson, Charmayne Palomba, Eileen Crist, Andy Kerr, Tom Butler, Dan Doak, Jordan Fisher Smith, Gary Tabor.

In a recent issue of Around the Campfire, Dave Foreman—a co-founder of Earth First! & the Wildlands Project and author of Confessions of an Eco-Warrior—wrote a provocative essay titled The Myth of the Environmental Movement. In it he suggests that the conservation movement and the environmental movement are two distinct—and very different—movements.

The Wild Equity Institute believes Dave’s article is on to something—it’s true that our use of the words ‘conservation’ and ‘environment’ has become sloppy, and they can often mean conflicting things to different people.

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