Posts about Wild Equity and how you can be part of our movement.

Part-Time Project Coordinator Position
2014 Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year

Position Summary.

Wild Equity Institute is seeking a Part-Time Project Coordinator for the 2014 Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year competition. The Project Coordinator will be responsible for reviewing participant evaluations and project partner feedback from previous iterations of the project; revising the event structure and prize schedule for the project; and scheduling events that will implement the project throughout 2014.

The Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year (a new project title is under discussion) is a race against time to observe each of the endangered and threatened species found within the Golden Gate National Parks, while taking discrete conservation recovery actions that will prevent these species from going extinct. It is a competitive event: the person who sees and helps the most species during the year will win the competition.

The project enables participants to explore the diverse habitats of the GGNP while helping each of the endangered and threatened species that call the Park home. In the process, we hope participants will discover the humility, compassion, and hope embodied in the legal protections for this land and our imperiled neighbors.

Major Duties and Responsibilities.

  • Review feedback from previous iterations of the project. Consult with project partners and supporters to clarify feedback as needed.
  • Propose structural changes to the event and prize structure of the project for 2014 for adoption by Wild Equity’s Board of Directors.
  • Coordinate project logistics including field outings and other events, prizes, and some fundraising.
  • Communicate with the public about the project through press releases and events, writing newsletters and social media content, and collaborating with organizing staff and volunteers.
  • Track participation and evaluate project events.

Desired Qualifications.

  • An undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies or related field.
  • Strong knowledge of Bay Area plants and wildlife.
  • Demonstrated project and/or event management experience.
  • Excellent writing skills.
  • Keen attention to detail.
  • Ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously while meeting deadlines.
  • Exceptional interpersonal skills.
  • Computer skills including Word, PowerPoint, Excel.
  • Flexibility working hours, with ability to work some evenings and weekends.

This job is expected to require 20 hours per week and will be based in Wild Equity’s office in San Francisco’s Mission District. Compensation is commensurate with experience.

To apply for this position, please submit a resume, a writing sample, a list of references, and a cover letter describing your interest in our work to info@wildequity.org. The position is available immediately.

Sunday, October 20, 9:00am – 11:00am: Normally, we visit Mori Point to look for California Red-legged Frogs and San Francisco Garter Snakes, but this time we will be looking for birds.

This area is home to an incredible diversity of birds. The San Francisco (or Salt Marsh) Common Yellowthroat , a California Species of Special Concern, breeds here. The rare wetland and coastal lagoon ecosystem attracts rarities and vagrants every year, like the Tropical Kingbird.

This bird outing will be led by Noreen Weeden, Golden Gate Audubon Conservation Project Manager, and Eddie Bartley,wildlife photographer. Set your alarm clocks because we are heading out early for this trip.

To RSVP, please see above or visit our Meetup page – San Francisco Wildlife Enthusiasts.


Photo © Catherine Salvin

Celebrate the 2013 International Young Eco-Hero Awards!

When: Friday, October 18, 2013, 6:00 – 8:30 p.m.

Hear from six inspiring young environmental activists, winners of our International Young Eco-Hero Awards, 8- to 16-years-old, who are campaigning, conducting research, and encouraging others.

Keynote Speaker: Brent Plater, Executive Director of the Wild Equity Institute, a non-profit organization that unites grassroots conservation and environmental justice movements.

Delicious Refreshments – Silent Auction – Awe-inspiring Video

Where: American Institute of Architects, 130 Sutter Street, Suite 600, San Francisco, CA. Close to public transportation, including BART. Across from Crocker Galleria Garage on Sutter Street.

RSVP with names of attendees to mail@actionfornature.org (or call 415.922.6155 or 415.513.2421).

People of all ages welcome! If you are unable to attend, please consider making a donation to the address on this invitation or online.

Sunday, October 13, 9:30 am – 12:30pm: You are invited to join Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute on a bike ride through some of San Francisco’s last wildlife habitats. We will search for and learn how to save the endangered species living within the Golden Gate National Parks. We will have the opportunity to see the Gowen Cypress, Raven’s Manzanita, Humpback Whale, San Francisco Lessingia, the Western Snowy Plover, and if we are very lucky, the Steller Sea Lion, the Marbled Murrelet, and the Southern Sea Otter!

We will start and end at Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94121. Bring water and snacks. Rain cancels.
RSVP required. Please see above for details or visit our Meetup page – San Francisco Wildlife Enthusiasts.


We hope you will join us on this great adventure!

Saturday, October 12, 10:00am – 6:00pm: Wild Equity is an exhibitor at the 2013 WCN Wildlife Conservation Expo. The day will include speakers and environmental exhibits from around the world.

View the full schedule at http://wildlifeconservationnetwork.org

The Wild Equity Institute works with dozens of partners, but one of our most beneficent is Patagonia’s San Francisco store. Over the past year the store gave us several grants for our work, and its customers elected us their Voice Your Choice Grand Prize winner in 2011.



Clockwise from top left: Wild Equity Institute volunteers Mark Russell and Erica Ely used Patagonia gear to find endangered species in need of protection; Roxy Ramirez used her Patagonia gear helping us organize support for our campaigns; Zindy won a Patagonia Jacket through the Endangered Species Big Year; and Natasha Dunn helped us convince the Board of Supervisors to restore Sharp Park.

Their support has also helped our volunteers in a variety of ways. Patagonia’s product donations have helped our volunteers stay warm and dry, indoors and out, as we’ve campaigned for a healthy and sustainable world for people and the plants and animals that accompany us on Earth. We can’t thank the Patagonia store enough for all their support, but we hope these photos of our wonderful volunteers in their amazing Patagonia gear are a good start!

If you are interested in supporting our work, you can contribute online in a variety of ways. You can become a member, give a gift membership, obtain matching grants from your employer, volunteer, donate office items or other products, and even go solar with Sungevity while supporting our work. Thanks for all you do!

Sunday, September 29, 11:00am – 4:00pm: Come get crafty at the Wild Equity Institute table at Sunday Streets in the Excelsior. We will be making frog masks!!!

The Sunday Streets Excelsior Route: Senceca Ave (Between San Jose & Mission) and Mission (Between Seneca & Avalon).

While we make frog masks, we will be highlighting and gathering support for Wild Equity’s campaign to restore Sharp Park and save the endangered San Francisco Garter Snake and the threatened California Red-legged Frog.

We need volunteers to help table. If you are interested, please email Amy at azehring@wildequity.org

Friday, September 27, 9:00am – 11:00am: You are invited to join Wild Equity and Darren Fong, Aquatic Ecologist for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, to learn about and see the Tidewater Goby in its natural habitat. Then spend an hour helping clean-up beautiful Rodeo Lagoon.

This is our first goby outing since 2010! Don’t miss it!

Please meet at Building 1061, Fort Cronkhite, Sausalito, CA 94965. There is a limit of 30 participants.
To RSVP, please see above or visit our Meetup page – San Francisco Wildlife Enthusiasts.

Thursday, September 19, 6:00pm – 10:00pm: Wild Equity is joining our friends at the California Academy of Sciences for their NightLife celebration. The theme for the evening is Into the Woods.

NightLife is a 21 and over event. Tickets are available through the California Academy of Sciences.

Sunday, September 15, 10:00am – 12:00pm: You are invited to join Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute for a leisurely walk along Ocean Beach to search for the threatened Western Snowy Plover. This small shorebird is highly threatened by human activities and habitat degradation. Join us to see this adorable species in its native habitat and learn ways that you can help before it is too late!

Meet at the patch of grass at the intersection of Taraval and the Great Highway.
The L Taraval Muni train stops two blocks from our meeting point. Check 511.org for details

For more information or for carpool arrangements, please contact us at info@wildequity.org

Humpback Whales received extensive media coverage following the sojourn of a mother and her calf, nicknamed Delta and Dawn, up the Sacramento River. Along this journey, the Humpbacks passed right under the Golden Gate Bridge and through the waters of the Golden Gate National Parks.

Humpbacks are one of the most numerically depleted large whales, with a current population estimated at only one-tenth of the number alive before commercial whaling. These majestic animals have been protected as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act since the Act’s passage in 1973.

The northern California sub-population of Humpbacks winters off the coast of Mexico; their prime summer feeding grounds are the area off the continental shelf around the Farallon Islands, not far from the Golden Gate. GGNP Endangered Species Big Year participants have had success searching for Humpback Whales at Fort Funston’s observation deck.

They possess distinctively long flippers, up to one third of their body length. During the winter breeding season, males produce very long—up to thirty minutes—complex and repetitive songs. These animals have a remarkable repertory of feeding strategies, including the use of columns or nets of expelled bubbles to concentrate fish, and cooperative fishing that is thought to include auditory signaling for synchronization.

Factors limiting the recovery of the Humpback population include entanglement in fishing nets, loss of habitat due to development, collisions with ships, and pollution, which can accumulate in the species’ long-lived bodies over time.

The best time to see Humpback Whales from the GGNP is during their migration season, from July to November. They are an acrobatic species: watch for them breeching off-shore.

Sunday, September 08, 11:00am – 4:00pm: Come get crafty at the Wild Equity Institute table at Sunday Streets in the Western Addition. We will be making frog masks!!!

The Sunday Streets Western Addition Route: Fillmore (Between Geary and Fulton), Fulton (Between Fillmore and Baker), Grove (Between Baker and Central), Central (Between Grove and Fell)

While we make frog masks, we will be highlighting and gathering support for Wild Equity’s campaign to restore Sharp Park and save the endangered San Francisco Garter Snake and the threatened California Red-legged Frog.

We need volunteers to help table. If you are interested, please email Amy at azehring@wildequity.org

Sunday, September 1, 9:00am – 1:00pm: Wild Equity is super excited to be part of the fun at the Inner Sunset Farmers’ Market. Stop by the Wild Equity table to color a butterfly or a frog after you pick up some delicious produce.

Please Note: The market is relocating temporarily to the basketball courts at the Laguna Honda School located at 1350 7th Avenue, San Francisco.

Sunday, August 25, 9:00am – 1:00pm: Wild Equity is super excited to be part of the fun at the Inner Sunset Farmers’ Market. Stop by the Wild Equity table to color a butterfly or a frog after you pick up some delicious produce. This week’s featured item at the market is watermelon.

Please Note: The market is relocating temporarily to the basketball courts at the Laguna Honda School located at 1350 7th Avenue, San Francisco.

1350 7th Avenue, San Francisco, CA

Sunday, August 18, 11:00am – 4:00pm: Come get crafty at the Wild Equity Institute table at Sunday Streets in the Tenderloin. We will be making frog masks!!!

The Sunday Streets Tenderloin Route: Larkin St (Between O’Farrell and Grove), O’Farrell St (Between Larkin and Post), Post St (Between O’Farrell and Jones), Golden Gate Ave (Between Jones and Hyde), Hyde St (Between Golden Gate and Grove)

While we make frog masks, we will be highlighting and gathering support for Wild Equity’s campaign to restore Sharp Park and save the endangered San Francisco Garter Snake and the threatened California Red-legged Frog.

We need volunteers to help table. If you are interested, please email Amy at azehring@wildequity.org

Sunday, August 11, 10:00am-12:00pm: You are invited to join Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute at Fort Funston to learn about the endangered sea creatures of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. This is an opportunity to see some of the more elusive inhabitants of the ocean. We will be looking for: Humpback Whale, Steller Sea Lion, Southern Sea Otters, and Marbled Murrelet.

Bring spotting scopes and binoculars if you have them. Also bring water, a snack, and a warm layer.

Meet at the Fort Funston Observation Deck, San Francisco, CA.

Please see above to RSVP.

For more information or for carpool arrangements, please contact us at info@wildequity.org

Friday, August 09, 2013, 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm: Please join the Wild Equity staff as we raise our glasses to bid our fantastic summer interns farewell. They have been with us only a few months, but they have done great work and we are sad to see them go.

Meet us at Gestalt Haus located at 3159 16th St, San Francisco (between Valencia and Guerrero). Please RSVP using the form above. We hope you will join us!

Sunday, July 28, 11:00am – 4:00pm: Come get crafty at the Wild Equity Institute table at Sunday Streets in the Mission. We will be making frog masks!!!

The Sunday Streets Mission Route: Valencia Street (Between Duboce Avenue & 24th Street) and 24th Street (Between Valencia Street & Hampshire Street).

While we make frog masks, we will be highlighting and gathering support for Wild Equity’s campaign to restore Sharp Park and save the endangered San Francisco Garter Snake and the threatened California Red-legged Frog.

We need volunteers to help table. If you are interested, please email Amy at azehring@wildequity.org

Wednesday, July 24, 6:30pm – 8:30pm: Please join Wild Equity for a screening of the film The Legend of Pale Male. The International Wildlife Film Festival called the film a “triumph of wildlife and the human spirit.” Enjoy light refreshments and learn about Wild Equity’s work to prevent the destruction of migratory bird nests. Discussion with Laura Horton, Wild Equity Staff Attorney, and Noreen Weeden, Golden Gate Audubon Conservation Project Manager, will follow the film.

Please see above to RSVP.

For Immediate Release, July 24, 2013

Contacts:
Laura Horton, Wild Equity Institute, (415) 235-0492
Jonathan Evans, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 436-9682 x318
Roger Lin, Communities for a Better Environment, (510) 302 0430 x16

Lawsuit Launched to Protect Endangered Butterfly
and Communities in Contra Costa County

ANTIOCH, Calif.— A coalition of conservation and environmental justice groups submitted a legal notice today of their intent to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for approving PG&E’s Gateway Generating Station, which harms endangered species and local communities. The Gateway Generating Station is a large, natural-gas-fired power plant in Antioch, Calif., that pollutes nearby communities, worsens the global climate crisis, and threatens the survival of one of North America’s most imperiled species: the Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly.


Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly photo © Liam O’Brien, http://sfbutterfly.com.

Today’s notice from the Wild Equity Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and Communities for a Better Environment comes on the heels of a $2 million settlement with a neighboring power plant, the Oakley Generating Station, and marks the third time PG&E and the EPA have been notified of their illegal activities.

“Four other power plants in the Bay Area have adopted model agreements to protect endangered butterflies from nitrogen pollution and also protect local communities,” said Laura Horton, staff attorney at the Wild Equity Institute. “PG&E has already been put on notice twice of their violations. This is PG&E’s last chance to do the right thing or its three strikes and they’re out.”

Nitrogen emissions from the Gateway Generating Station pollute the neighboring Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge and transform the chemical composition of those historic sand dunes. Under these polluted conditions, the butterfly’s host plant is lost to invasive weeds, resulting in a population decline for the butterfly. Gateway’s emissions also harm local communities by contributing more ozone pollution and soot to an area already disproportionately overwhelmed by power plant pollution.

“These communities are harmed by a large number of power plants, each of which emits greenhouse gases and pollutants that are toxic both to the people who live, work and go to school near the plants, and the surrounding environment,” said Roger Lin, an attorney at Communities for a Better Environment.

There are only a few dozen Lange’s metalmark butterflies remaining in the world. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that nitrogen pollution from power plants near the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge is “virtually certain” to cause the species to go extinct, and earlier this year joined with conservation groups to demand the EPA and PG&E consult with experts and mitigate their environmental harms.

“It’s time for PG&E to be part of the solution to protect human health and endangered species in Antioch and Oakley,” said Jonathan Evans, toxics and endangered species campaign director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “PG&E must join the rest of the industry and own up to the damage it’s causing.”

Background on the Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly and Gateway’s Impacts.

The Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly is a brightly colored, fragile and highly endangered butterfly that has been protected by the federal Endangered Species Act since 1976. The species is endemic to the Antioch Dunes in Contra Costa County, a relict desert landscape left behind as California’s prehistoric deserts retreated from the Bay Area 140,000 years ago. Because of the Antioch Dunes’ isolation, many species found in the dunes are unique and very rare.

Sand dunes like the Antioch Dunes are nitrogen deficient, and increased amounts of airborne nitrogen changes the chemical composition of the dunes, creating soil conditions that are only suitable for the growth of invasive weeds. The Antioch Dunes’ soils are critically impacted by nitrogen deposition, and Gateway will deposit even more nitrogen into Antioch Dunes, pushing the Lange’s Metalmark toward extinction. To date, PG&E has not mitigated Gateway’s endangered species impacts, even though four other similarly situated power plants have contributed millions of dollars to mitigate their impacts on endangered butterflies.

The Sunday Streets Tenderloin/Civic Center route: Larkin St (Between O’Farrell and Grove), O’Farrell St (Between Larkin and Post), Post St (Between O’Farrell and Jones), Golden Gate Ave (Between Jones and Hyde), Hyde St (Between Golden Gate and Grove)
For a more detailed map of Sunday Streets, go to Sunday Streets

Sunday, September 29, 11:00am – 4:00pm: Come get crafty at the Wild Equity Institute table at Sunday Streets in the Excelsior. We will be making frog masks!!!

The Sunday Streets Excelsior Route: Senceca Ave (Between San Jose & Mission) and Mission St (Between Seneca & Avalon).

While we make frog masks, we will be highlighting and gathering support for Wild Equity’s campaign to restore Sharp Park and save the endangered San Francisco Garter Snake and the threatened California Red-legged Frog.

We need volunteers to help table. If you are interested, please email Amy at azehring@wildequity.org

Seneca Ave (Between San Jose Ave and Mission St) and Mission St (Between Seneca Ave and Avalon Ave)

Friday, September 27, 9:00am – 11:00am: You are invited to join Wild Equity and Darren Fong, Aquatic Ecologist for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, to learn about and see the Tidewater Goby in its natural habitat. Then spend an hour helping clean-up beautiful Rodeo Lagoon.

This is our first goby outing since 2010! Don’t miss it!

Please meet at Building 1061, Fort Cronkhite, Sausalito, CA 94965. There is a limit of 30 participants.
Please see above to RSVP.

Sunday, September 08, 11:00am – 4:00pm: Come get crafty at the Wild Equity Institute table at Sunday Streets in the Western Addition. We will be making frog masks!!!

The Sunday Streets Western Addition Route: TBD

While we make frog masks, we will be highlighting and gathering support for Wild Equity’s campaign to restore Sharp Park and save the endangered San Francisco Garter Snake and the threatened California Red-legged Frog.

We need volunteers to help table. If you are interested, please email Amy at azehring@wildequity.org

Funcheap is giving away $4,000 to one San Francisco Bay Area charity this fall!!! Please encourage Funcheap to award this generous donation to Wild Equity. Simply click on the green link to visit Funcheap’s Facebook page and share why you think Wild Equity should win. These funds will help Wild Equity continue with our mission of uniting environmental communities to work towards a sustainable community for people, plants, and animals.

If you don’t want to leave Wild Equity’s success to chance, please donate at https://www.wildequity.org/donate

Saturday, July 6, 9:00am – 12:00pm: You are invited to join the Wild Equity Institute and the Golden Gate Audubon Society at Pier 94 to clear the weeds and make room for the endangered California seablite. In the 1960’s, the California seablite population was so small that the plant could only be found in Morro Bay. Today, seablite has been successfully reintroduced at Pier 94 in San Francisco and parts of the East Bay. We need your help to keep these populations growing.

Meet at Pier 94, 480 Amador St, San Francisco. Please wear sturdy close-toed shoes, weather appropriate clothes, hat and/or sunscreen. Bring garden gloves, a water bottle, and a snack. The Golden Gate Audubon Society will provide instructions, gloves, and tools. RSVP requested. Please see details above.


Skip the gym and join us at Pier 94 for your Saturday workout!

Sunday, June 30, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm: Join Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute to search for two of the most imperiled vertebrate species on the San Francisco peninsula: the California red-legged frog and the San Francisco garter snake. This will be a leisurely walk to enjoy the restoration work being conducted at Mori Point and to learn about the bold steps being taken to save the frogs and the snakes from the brink of extinction. This event is rain or shine. Meet at the Mori Point Entrance Gate, at the intersection of Bradford Way and Mori Point Road, Pacifica, CA, 94044.


Please see above to RSVP.

Thursday, June 27, 10:30 am – 11:30 am: You are invited to join the Wild Equity Institute and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on a guided tour of the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge. This is an opportunity to visit a unique area normally closed to the public. The Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge is home to three highly endangered species: the Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly, the Contra Costa Wallflower, and the Antioch Dunes Evening Primrose.

Meet at the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge Entrance Gate, 501 Fulton Shipyard Road, Antioch, CA 94509. Wear sturdy shoes for this sandy 1.5 mile hike. Please see above to RSVP.

Wednesday, June 26, 6:00pm – 8:00pm: Please join us for a screening of San Francisco—Still Wild At Heart, the award winning documentary directed by Melissa Peabody. Still Wild at Heart is a virtual case study of the arrival of coyotes in our urban communities. This film has been described as “uplifting, lyrical, moving” and “an absolute treasure of a film.”

Unfolding first in San Francisco, the film follows the story of the coyote across the national canvas—to New York City’s Central Park; to Chicago, where more than 2,000 coyotes live today; and to rural California, where sheep ranchers find promise in innovative non-lethal predator control methods to protect their livestock.

A discussion with Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute will follow the film.

About the filmmaker: Melissa Peabody’s credits include Turner Broadcasting (Dolphins In Danger) and an Animal Planet 13-part series (Wyland’s Ocean World), as well as many other documentaries for international TV broadcast. She is the executive producer and owner of Living World Films LLC.

Please RSVP above to ensure we pop plenty of popcorn.

This Week’s Big Year Trips

We’ve got two exciting trips this weekend to help you see and save the GGNP’s endangered species. Hope to see you outside!

  • Mission Blue Butterfly Habitat Restoration. Saturday, January 16, 2010, 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.: Enjoy stunning vistas and work-off those holiday calories while removing invasive French Broom from Mission Blue Butterfly habitat in the Marin Headlands. Join Price Sheppy of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy at Alta Avenue, set atop a ridgeline above Sausalito and Marin City. Dress in warm layers, wear sturdy shoes and bring lots of friends! We provide snacks, tools and gloves. Meeting spot is Alta Avenue entrance gate. Group limit is 30 people. RSVP: babethsemail@yahoo.com. A carpool is available from Fort Mason, Building 34 – the third duplex on your left (leaving at 9:15 a.m.). Carpool RSVP required, call Price Sheppy 415-729-8076. Limited supply of T-shirts will be given to paricipants (while supplies last).


Help Restore Habitat for this Beautiful Little Butterfly this Weekend.

Photo © Margo Bors

  • Coho Salmon & Steelhead Trout Walk at Muir Woods. Saturday, January 16, 2010, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.: Join naturalist and historian David Schmidt on a moderate 3-mile journey and learn about the lives of Coho Salmon and Steelhead Trout as the fish return from the Ocean to spawn in the waters of Redwood Creek. Dress for cold, wet weather and wear boots as trails may be muddy. RSVP required: email info@CaliforniaNatureTours.com. Meet at Muir Woods National Monument south parking lot near the Dipsea Trail Kiosk. Park entrance fees apply, but the hike is free.


Find out what you can do to help Coho Salmon
through the Endangered Species Big Year
.

The 2010 Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year competition is heating up! The leader board is populated, but even nascent competitors could take the lead with a little effort. To help you out, we are instituting a Coach’s Corner to help you win the Big Year! We’ll have Big Year experts answer your questions and give tips on winning the competition. And you can always send your questions to us and we’ll help you on your way.

Sunday, June 30, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm: Join Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute to search for two of the most imperiled vertebrate species on the San Francisco peninsula: the California red-legged frog and the San Francisco garter snake. This will be a leisurely walk to enjoy the restoration work being conducted at Mori Point and to learn about the bold steps being taken to save the frogs and the snakes from the brink of extinction. This event is rain or shine.

Meet at the Mori Point Entrance Gate, at the intersection of Bradford Way and Mori Point Road, Pacifica, CA, 94044.


Please see above to RSVP.

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.

Mooallem’s work extends far beyond the Langes Metalmark Butterfly. One self-taught San Franciscan butterfly enthusiast, Liam O’Brien, provides the guiding words of the book: “I just want to be part of the generation that tries” (118). Wild Equity strives to be part of that generation by using the court system to its fullest to benefit people and endangered species. We are honored to be included in Mooallem’s new work about the species we cherish most. Find out more about the book here.

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.


Brent sharing his views about science and ecology.

Brent analogized to the Lord of the Rings series to demonstrate this difference. He argued that the fable teaches us two ways to change the world. The first is with the “magic ring” of scientific expertise. This specialized knowledge has been the main strategy of change used by the modern environmental movement. The second way to change the world is raise an army of orcs: Brent declared that it’s time to catalyze the public by using language that demonstrates our heartfelt values, not only language that describes science. He hearkened back to the mass movements of the 1970s. Brent ended by asking, “What is it you believe? Was it some moral foundation that lead you to this work?” He claimed we need to figure out ways to give expression to these reasons in a time of scientific dependence.

Rose Aguilar then took the microphone to discuss the media’s relationship to science. Independent outlets are overwhelmed by corporate conglomerates, and entertainment and crime dominate over environmental issues. She noted many of the major news outlets are dismantling their environmental desks and reassigning environmental reporters. She noted that we now have to work harder and go the extra mile to find information about our world. Rose questioned why we place the burden of responsibility on individuals rather than corporations and called for broad social change.

The audience brought important questions and issues to the panel, and the evening incited conversation throughout the crowd. Azibuike, Brent, and Rose brought diverse viewpoints and opinions to this extensive topic.

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 and simplistic jargon, and much more!

Saturday, May 18, 9:00am – 1:30pm: The Wild Equity Institute is joining our friends from the California Native Plant Society to search for San Francisco’s rare plant populations. Search groups will be meeting at Fort Funston, Bayview Park, and Heron’s Head Park.

Groups will meet at the three separate parks to look for and document rare plants, then convene for an optional lunch at Pasquale’s Pizzeria in the Inner Sunset to share photos, our new rare plant knowledge, and of course, pizza.

To RSVP or for more information, please contact dslakey@cnps.org by May 16th.

Friday, May 17, 11:00am – 2:00pm: The Wild Equity Institute is going to be at the California Academy of Sciences to celebrate Endangered Species Day. Stop by the Wild Equity table to make a frog mask and learn more about how the Endangered Species Act helps protect the amazing biological diversity of the San Francisco Bay Area.

5 Ways to Celebrate Endangered Species Day

1. Take Action: Tell Mayor Lee to support the restoration of Sharp Park. Mayor Lee has the power to help save two endangered species, the California red-legged frog and the San Francisco garter snake.

2. Tweet & Update Your Facebook Status: Show your support for local endangered species by adding a photo of your favorite Bay Area endangered species to your timeline (or tweet your support). Include @WildEquity in your status update (or tweet) to let us know which species is your favorite.

3. Attend an Endangered Species Event: In honor of Endangered Species Day, we have three endangered species events on the Wild Equity Institute calendar for the week of May 12. In fact, Wild Equity has endangered species events scheduled through December! Come join us on one of our adventures to see and save endangered species!

4. Give 1% to the Planet: The Wild Equity Institute is an approved 1% for the Planet partner. Companies who participate in this program can give 1% of sales or more to the Wild Equity Institute. 1% for the Planet exists to build and support an alliance of businesses financially committed to creating a healthy planet.

5. Become a Member: The challenges facing endangered species have never been more pressing. With your support, the Wild Equity Institute can build a stronger environmental movement to protect the people and the plants and animals that accompany us on Earth.

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. During the hike, we will search for Marbled Murrelet, Western Snowy Plover, San Francisco Lessingia, Humpback Whale, and Southern Sea Otter.

Meet at the Baker Beach North Parking Lot. Bring snacks and water. Please see above to RSVP.


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.

Sunday, May 5, 9:30 am – 11:00 am: What matters more: our human communities or the natural world? This question, or a variant of it, drives environmental debates, and also drives a wedge between progressive movements. Brent Plater, founder and director of the Wild Equity Institute, will describe what his organization is doing to get past this dilemma and build a healthy and sustainable community for people, plants, and animals. You will learn about the numerous endangered species found in the Bay Area and find out how you can help them recover. You will also learn how you can help build a stronger environmental and social justice movement.

Where:
Martin Luther King Room
First Unitarian Universalist Church
1187 Franklin Street (at Geary)
San Francisco, CA 94109

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION TO FIRST UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH

All of the following Muni bus lines have stops within a short walking distance of the church:
2 Clement, 3 Jackson, 4 Sutter, 19 Polk, 38 Geary, 47 Van Ness, 49 Van Ness. Please visit 511.org to plan your route.

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.

But what creates fissures within the broader conservation/environmental movement isn’t found in the movements’ focuses—which Dave suggests are wildlife on the one hand, people on the other—but in their reason and rationale for existing: their ethical foundation.

The Wild Equity Institute illustrates this point concretely. We believe that stopping extinction is a moral imperative-–not because it is good for people, but because it is wrong to cause species to go extinct when extinction rates are exceptional. And today extinction rates are exceptional—orders of magnitude larger than the background rate of extinction. However, for others preventing extinction may be a utilitarian exercise: they may believe it is wrong to let species go extinct because this or that species may have some human use.

A utilitarian conservationist is likely to conflict with an ethical conservationist in many cases. For example, if a particular species has no demonstrable value to people or the ecosystem services upon which we depend, a utilitarian point of view might suggest we should allow the species to go extinct, even as the ethical conservationist argues the opposite point. Yet because the object of concern—other forms of life—is one and the same for both the ethical and utilitarian person, it seems logical, at first blush, to consider both to be part of the same movement. Indeed, the Endangered Species Act’s legislative history reflects both moral and utilitarian reasons for conserving wildlife and plants.

The same division exists within the environmentalists/conservationists that focus on human well-being. Some people advocate for improved quality of life because they believe it is wrong to cause harm to other people by polluting for profit. The environmental justice movement is the most obvious example of this ethical concern, but nearly any other segment of the environmental movement can be described as trying to protect those without political power (consumers, kids, etc.) from those with it (agribusiness, petrochemical companies, etc.). But there are also people who are involved in human health movements simply because they want to breathe clean air, or drink safe water, or ensure that they have a safe place to recreate. This is a very different—largely utilitarian—rationale for the same environmental concern.

What ultimately creates a fissure in the environmental/conservation movements is not the object of our concerns, but the reason for our concerns in the first place. If you are a conservationist by moral imperative, you will probably have more in common with those who are environmentalists by moral imperative than you would with a utilitarian conservationist. Similarly, the utilitarian conservationist and the utilitarian environmentalist are likely to have a lot in common with each other, and little in common with ethical environmentalists/conservationists.

We believe our own mission helps demonstrate how this is so. The Wild Equity Institute believes that the shared moral foundation in our movements is equity: the creation of a more just and fair world. Our equity-based concerns are easily seen in the environmental justice movement’s focus on the inequitable distribution of environmental hazards—and increasingly, its focus on the inequitable access provided to environmental goods like open space and parks. But the grassroots conservation movement also works to remedy an inequitable relationship: between our human communities and the non-human world. As we consume a greater share of the world’s finite resources, less remains for the plants and animals around us, driving thousands of species to the brink of extinction. While the moral consideration we owe to each other may be different in kind and scope to what we owe to other forms of life, in both cases the gap between what our moral foundation suggests we should do and how we actually act leaves us with a culturally isolated and biologically impoverished world.

The Wild Equity Institute’s purpose is to unite these movements into a powerful force that creates a healthy and sustainable global community for all. We accomplish this by working on projects that highlight and redress the inequitable relationships across our human communities while improving our relationship to the lands in which we live. In that sense, those who focus on equity-–inter-species equity on the one hand, and intra-species equity on the other-–are really part of single movement, regardless of whether their day-to-day work is focused on NOx emissions or invasive plants (and even those are interlinked, science now tells us).

In that sense, Dave Forman, who is one of country’s greatest ethical conservationists, has more in common with the late Luke Cole (the founder of the Center on Race, Poverty, & the Environment) than he does with Peter Kareiva (the Chief Scientist at the Nature Conservancy) who is currently attempting to obliterate conservation as we know it based on utilitarian arguments. Dave Forman and Peter Kareiva cannot be reconciled into one movement: even though both ostensibly are attempting to conserve wildlife. But Dave and Luke, on the other hand, could be reconciled into one movement—even though Forman focuses on wildlife and Cole on human-life—because at base they have the same moral foundation.

The dichotomy between wildlife-people and people-people is unhelpful both because it prevents us from engaging allies and building power, and because it adds confusion to an area of our work that desperately needs clarity. It needs clarity because if we don’t know how and why we stand together, our efforts to address the systemic, cross-cutting threats facing people and the planet will likely be disjointed, slow, and rupture alliances. By drawing on our moral imperative, rather than the object upon which our movement is focused, the Wild Equity Institute believes we can avoid this outcome. Because our ethical foundation is where our commonality can be demonstrated most clearly, and from there we can build a more powerful movement for people and the plants and animals that accompany us on Earth.

Saturday, May 18, 9:00am – 1:30pm: The Wild Equity Institute is joining our friends from the California Native Plant Society to search for San Francisco’s rare plant populations. Search groups will be meeting at Fort Funston, Bayview Park, and Heron’s Head Park.

Groups will meet at the three separate parks to look for and document rare plants, then convene for an optional lunch at Pasquale’s Pizzeria in the Inner Sunset to share photos, our new rare plant knowledge, and, of course, some pizza.

To RSVP or for more information, please contact dslakey@cnps.org by May 16th

California members and supporters,

I’m writing to let you know about a unique clean energy investment opportunity we recently learned about. Mosaic is an online platform that enables individuals to invest in solar projects being developed across the country. Warren Buffett has invested $4 billion in solar energy and now, with a minimum investment of $25, you too can do well by doing good. Click here to begin investing in a clean energy future.


The Mosaic funding model aggregates our individual investments into complete solar projects.

Here’s how it works: You invest in high quality solar projects through Mosaic’s website. The solar project developers earn revenue by selling the electricity they produce. This revenue enables Mosaic to pay you back with interest.*

Mosaic is fundamentally changing the way clean energy is financed, no big banks or big bank accounts required. The more you invest, the more solar power gets generated and the greater your potential return. It’s a win-win for you and the planet. Bank on the sun with Mosaic and earn competitive returns.

We here at the Wild Equity Institute share Mosaic’s mission of democratizing clean energy and encourage you to check out Mosaic today.

Sincerely,

Brent Plater
Executive Director

P.S.—Watch this short video about Mosaic produced by our friends at Green for All.

  • Please visit joinmosaic.com to learn more about the project and to access the offering memorandum, which discusses the project, the terms of the investment and the risks associated with this investment.

Wild Equity is joining our friends from Tatzoo and Sunday Streets to Spring into Summer at the California Academy of Sciences’ NightLife celebration. Stop by the Wild Equity table in African Hall. Then go see the live tattoo exhibit hosted by Tatzoo.

NightLife is a 21 and over event. Tickets are available through the California Academy of Sciences.

Monday, April 22, 12:00pm: Join the Wild Equity Institute and over 60 environmental and climate justice organizations on Earth Day to tell the White House, Congress, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop protecting polluters. It is time to start protecting our climate, our health, and our communities!

Meet in front of the U.S. EPA Region IX Office at 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco.

12 noon: Environmental Protection Agency
1:45pm: March to State Department: NO KEYSTONE XL!
2:15pm: State Department, One Market Plaza

For more information, please call ‪(415) 494-7524‬ or email info@wildequity.org

Sunday, April 14, 11:00am – 4:00pm: Come get crafty at the Wild Equity Institute table at Sunday Streets in the Mission. We will be making frog masks!!!

The Sunday Streets Mission Route: Valencia Street (Between Duboce Avenue & 24th Street) and 24th Street (Between Valencia Street & Hampshire Street).

While we make frog masks, we will be highlighting and gathering support for Wild Equity’s campaign to restore Sharp Park and save the endangered San Francisco garter snake and the threatened California red-legged frog.

We need volunteers to help table. If you are interested, please email Amy at azehring@wildequity.org

Saturday, April 13, 10:00 am – 11:00 am: You are invited to join the Wild Equity Institute and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on a guided tour of the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge. This is an opportunity to visit a unique area normally closed to the public. The Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge is home to three highly endangered species: the Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly, the Contra Costa Wallflower, and the Antioch Dunes Evening Primrose.

Meet at the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge Entrance Gate, 501 Fulton Shipyard Road, Antioch, CA 94509. Wear sturdy shoes for this sandy 1.5 mile hike. Please see above to RSVP.

For more information or for carpool arrangements, please contact us at info@wildequity.org

The Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly (Apodemia mormo ssp. langei ) is a brightly colored, fragile, and highly endangered butterfly that has been protected by the Federal Endangered Species Act since 1976. The species is endemic to the Antioch Dunes in Contra Costa County, and the only known extant population today is found at the Antioch Dunes.


Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly. Photo © Liam O’Brien.

Between 50 to 100 years ago, the population size of the Lange’s metalmark butterfly at the Antioch Dunes is estimated to have been approximately 25,000 individuals. However, by 2006, the number had plummeted to a total of 45 adults. For the past five years, the number of adults observed in the wild has continued to remain at critically low levels. Surveys from 2009 to 2011 revealed an average population for the species of 35 individuals in the wild.

The sole food plant for the larval (caterpillar) stage of the butterfly is the naked-stemmed buckwheat (Eriogonum nudum ssp. auriculatum), which grows best in areas with good drainage. The health of the Lange’s Metalmark is entirely dependent on the population of naked-stemmed buckwheat, and there is a direct positive correlation between the population size of this plant and the population of the butterfly.

However, today the buckwheat is only found in a limited portion of the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge, and this remaining area is threatened with extirpation due to the prolific overgrowth of non-native, invasive plant species, none of which provide food for the butterfly’s caterpillar stage. Although the naked-stemmed buckwheat is not threatened with global extinction, the loss of this essential host plant at the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge will surely lead to the extinction of the Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly because of the species’ limited range.

We’re excited to announce that Laura Horton, a long-time volunteer and law clerk, has joined Wild Equity as a Staff Attorney. She will be working with Executive Director Brent Plater and our amazing volunteers to help us unite grassroots conservation and justice movements to create a more equitable and sustainable world for all.


Laura Horton, Wild Equity Institute Staff Attorney.

Laura has been passionate about environmental issues for as long as she can remember. Over the years she has worked for various environmental organizations, including a legal internship at Wild Equity, and has been active in social justice issues. During law school Laura was a student leader in the National Lawyers Guild and the ACLU, and was the Managing Editor of the Environmental Law Journal. She has published articles on a number of issues including energy, immigration and disaster law, and eco-consumerism, and also currently serves as a volunteer writer/editor for both the National Lawyers Guild Review and the American Society of Legal Scholars.

Prior to joining Wild Equity, Laura received a fellowship to work with the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she helped empower rural mining communities in asserting their environmental and economic rights. Laura holds a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a J.D. from Golden Gate Law. She says she is beyond thrilled to return to Wild Equity as a staff attorney, and we’re honored to have her on board as well. Welcome Laura!

Thursday, April 4, 7:00pm – 9:00pm: Brent Plater, Executive Director of the Wild Equity Institute, will discuss the largely-unknown landscape of the Antioch Dunes. The Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge was created to protect extremely rare insects, and remains the only wildlife refuge specifically created for invertebrate conservation. An unforeseen problem threatens this dune community: nitrogen deposition, driven by the proliferation of fossil-fuel fired power plants around the dunes. If the rate of nitrogen deposition is not arrested or mitigated, we may witness the extinction of the Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly in the very near future. The Wild Equity Institute is experimenting with new ways to build a stronger conservation and environmental movement to protect the Antioch Dunes and hopefully will make conservation movements stronger and more resilient in the process.

Meet at the Camellia Room, The Gardens at Heather Farm, 1540 Marchbanks Drive, Walnut Creek, CA 94598

This lecture is part of the Mt. Diablo Audubon Society monthly educational meeting. Visitors are always welcomed!

Sunday, March 24, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm: Join Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute to search for two of the most imperiled vertebrate species on the San Francisco peninsula: the California red-legged frog and the San Francisco garter snake. This will be a leisurely walk to enjoy the restoration work being conducted at Mori Point and to learn about the bold steps being taken to save the frogs and the snakes from the brink of extinction. This event is rain or shine. Meet at the Mori Point Entrance Gate, at the intersection of Bradford Way and Mori Point Road, Pacifica, CA, 94044.

Please see above to RSVP.

Sunday, March 24, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm: Join Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute to search for two of the most imperiled vertebrate species on the San Francisco peninsula: the California red-legged frog and the San Francisco garter snake.

This will be a leisurely walk to enjoy the restoration work being conducted at Mori Point and to learn about the bold steps being taken to save the frogs and the snakes from the brink of extinction.

Meet at the Mori Point Entrance Gate, at the intersection of Bradford Way and Mori Point Road, Pacifica, CA, 94044.

Please RSVP here. NOTE: you must have a free wildequity.org account to RSVP for events. Sign-up here if you need an account.

Erica Ely, a student at San Francisco State University, was crowned the 2012 Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year champion for seeing and saving the most endangered species during the course of the competition. She is the youngest person to ever win the overall competition.


Erica Ely poses with prizes from the Sports Basement
and Patagonia’s San Francisco store.

Erica won the competition by seeing the largest number of the Golden Gate National Park’s endangered species, and then taking the most actions that help those species recover. As the 2012 champion she earned a $100 gift certificate to the Sports Basement and a backpack and clothing from Patagonia’s San Francisco store.

Congratulation Erica, and thank you for helping us save our imperiled neighbors!

Keep an eye out for your chance to win prizes for seeing and saving endangered species in 2014, when we run our next public Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year.

Brent Plater, Wild Equity Executive Director, will be interviewed on KOWS 107.3 FM’s Tommy’s Holiday Camp about Wild Equity’s work concerning the communities within and surrounding the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge. The Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge was created to protect extremely rare insects, and remains the only wildlife refuge specifically created for invertebrate conservation. But today it is threatened by an unforeseen problem: nitrogen deposition, driven by an explosion of fossil-fuel fired power plants, ringing the dunes. If the rate of nitrogen deposition isn’t arrested or mitigated, we may witness the extinction of the Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly, who’s numbers are now in the dozens. Brent Plater, Executive Director of the Wild Equity Institute, will tell us about this largely unknown landscape, how to observe wildlife there, and how his organization is experimenting with new ways to build a stronger conservation and environmental movement to protect the Dunes and hopefully make conservation movements stronger and more resilient in the process.

Tune in at KOWS 107.3 FM (Occidental, CA) or stream live by clicking here


Brent Plater, Wild Equity Executive Director

Saturday, October 20, 2012, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. — Join Wild Equity on a Big Year Bike Ride led by Brent Plater! The bike route will take you on a journey to view several threatened and endangered species within the Golden Gate National Parks: the Marbled Murrelet, Humpback Whale, Raven’s Manzanita, Stellar Sea Lion, the Gowen Cypress and the San Francisco Lessingia. This is a great chance to get your counts in for the Endangered Species Big Year for a chance to win the grand prize! RSVP required using the form above. We will meet and end at the Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California Street, between 21st & 22nd Avenues.

KOWS Radio Station Listen Live at www.kows.fm or 107.3 FM

Wild Equity Institute is receiving its first branded products soon, and the buzz is building. For example, a focus group participant at San Francisco State University had this to say about our new “I Bird San Francisco” T-shirt:

“This shirt has value far more important than its price. How much is it worth to promote environmental protection in your community? How much is it worth to use organic clothes? The shirt is worth our entire future as a civilization.”


I Bird SF 100% organic cotton T-shirt. Comes in natural color, sizes S, M, L, & XL.

That’s right folks: our I Bird SF shirt is worth our entire future as a civilization!

Lucky for you we’re giving them away—to members who contribute $60 or more to our end of year membership drive! Either join Wild Equity or renew your membership at the $60 level or more and you’ll get an I Bird SF T-shirt on the house!

Already have plenty of shirts? No problem! You can substitute a Wild Equity branded reusable water bottle made in the USA from 100% recycled aluminum!


The Wild Equity bottle is made of 100% recycled aluminum in the USA.
24oz with twist-off cap. Select green or white.

Want the bottle and the shirt? We’ve got a solution for you too: if you contribute at the $100 level or more, we’ll send you one T-shirt and one water bottle at no extra charge!

Ladies and gentlemen, there hasn’t been a Wild Equity membership deal this good since….well ever! Not only do you get some cool sustainable products, you also get to contribute to our work saving San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program so it can continue stewarding our local plants and wildlife; transforming Sharp Park Golf Course into a new national park everyone can enjoy; and saving the Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly and empowering local communities to end pollution from power plants that destroy the species’ habitat.

So join now and let the world see that you’re part of our movement. Of course, you can always decline the stuff and let all of your contribution go directly to our work: just let us know what you prefer in the notes section of your order! Be sure to specify color for the bottle, and size for the shirt! And thank you for believing in our work!

Sincerely,

Brent Plater
Executive Director

ps—If you already gave this year and earned a shirt and/or a bottle, we’ve got you covered! We’ll contact you when they are ready to ship and take your order. Or contact us anytime and let us know what you want! We expect first shipments to go out in late January.

Friday, December 21, 2012, 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm — Join the Wild Equity enviros for happy hour as we close-out the 2012 year and brainstorm on ways to get active in the environmental movement for the new year. We will also be saying good-bye to Brent as he journeys to the land down-under. Don’t worry, he will be back next year, and ready to tackle more environmental challenges. Bring your ideas about how Wild Equity can advance its mission for the upcoming year, and the ways we can make it happen.

Meet us at Vesuvio’s Cafe, 2255 Columbus Ave.
(between Broadway St & Jack Kerouac Aly), San Francisco, CA 94133

Cheers!

I’m starting this note with two short stories that inspired our work this year. After reading them, I believe you’ll be inspired to become a Wild Equity Institute member, so we can continue our extraordinary work.

Recently I returned from a weekend workshop where I discussed the future of the conservation movement with giants in our field—people like Dr. Michael Soulé, the founder of the field of conservation biology; Dr. Holmes Ralston III, a luminary in the field of environmental ethics; and Terry Tempest Williams, one of our great contemporary environmental writers.

It was an honor to simply be in a room with these incredible people. But as the meeting progressed, I was humbled to see that they found inspiration in the Wild Equity Institute’s work, and are incorporating our theory of change into a new era of environmental protection and conservation.

Around the same time I received this note from a student who participated in Wild Equity’s Endangered Species Big Semester, our environmental education project that helps disadvantaged students see and save our local endangered species:

“I got a lot from your program, like great memories and the chance to meet amazing people. I’m so thankful Wild Equity made it possible to help me learn, not only was it educational, but also it was fun and exciting. I absolutely loved all the field trips and would enjoy doing it again.”

We are proud that in just three short years we’ve improved lives and inspired leaders to build a stronger environmental movement for all.

But we can’t do it alone: and that’s why we’re asking you to become a Wild Equity Institute member today.

The Wild Equity Institute believes we can achieve extraordinary environmental victories while building a larger, more resilient environmental movement. We do this by uniting grassroots conservation and environmental justice groups in campaigns that build a more equitable world for people and the plants and animals that accompany us on Earth.

At a minimum, this means our work must focus on preventing other species from going extinct, and ensuring that no community is burdened with a disproportionate share of environmentally harmful activities.

In 2012, we implemented this theory of change in several ways:

But we aren’t done yet. In 2013, we will work to save San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program so it can continue stewarding our local plants and wildlife; transform Sharp Park Golf Course into a new national park everyone can enjoy; and save the Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly and empower local communities to end pollution from power plants that destroy the species’ habitat.

In each of these efforts, we build capacity for our movement by engaging new allies and building the power we need to tackle our most pressing environmental problems.

That’s why when you contribute to our work you get a twofer: we achieve measurable environmental gains on the ground, but more importantly, we ensure that our movement grows so that the scale of our efforts can match the size of the threats we face.

But movements are not defined by the effectiveness of organizations. They are defined by the inspiration, the passion, the commitment of the people these organizations serve. This is why we need you to demonstrate your commitment by becoming a Wild Equity member today.

Imagine the world we will build together: a more equitable world for people and the plants and animals that accompany us on Earth. Thank you for supporting this vision and for joining us today!

Sincerely,

Brent Plater
Executive Director

P.S.— Consider becoming a monthly donor. For as little as $5 a month, you’ll help us spend less time raising funds and more time wining campaigns for people and the plants and animals that accompany us on Earth! You can do this online at the Wild Equity Institute’s website. Thank you!

Sunday, December 2, 2012, 11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. — Join Brent Plater on another epic Big Year hike at Muir Woods to see the threatened Coho Salmon, Central California Coast Evolutionary Significant Unit, and the Steelhead, Central California Coast Distinct Population Segment. Witness the semelparous spawning behavior of the Coho Salmon and take an action to help save these imperiled species. RSVP required. Meet at Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, CA, 94941. For more information or for carpool arrangements contact us at info@wildequity.org. Keep in mind, everyone pays their own $7 entrance into the park.

Hope to see you there!

In December we are giving away a sling bag from Patagonia to the first person who a) completes the conservation action item for the Gowen Cypress, or b) records a sighting and/or action item for the Coho Salmon.


The Gowen Cypress

Action Item for the Gowen Cypress: Consider how to best save nature in an era of climate change
Write a few sentences answering the question: When is it appropriate to move imperiled wildlife and plants, and when we do it, how do we do it properly?

Action Item for the Coho Salmon: Work with SPAWN to rescue wild Coho from their desiccated natal streams.
Or join us for our Muir Woods Big Year Salmon-Stroll and record your sighting here.

Sunday, December 2, 2012, 11:00 am – 1:30 pm – Join us for the last epic GGNP Big Year hike of the year! Brent Plater will lead the hike out to Muir Woods to see and save the threatened Coho Salmon, Central California Coast ESU, and the Steelhead, Central California Coast DPS. Witness the semelparous spawning behavior of the Coho Salmon and take an action to help save these imperiled species. Everyone pays their own $7 entrance into the park. Please RSVP now!


Searching for spawning Coho Salmon.

Thursday, November 15, 2012, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. — Join Wild Equity for Third Thursday Film Night with SF Environment. We will be showing the moving documentary, Pale Male, the story of a notorious red-tailed hawk who made his home above a 5th Avenue apartment building in New York City. A sensational movement transpired when the building’s co-op board ordered Pale Male’s nest to be removed.

The Pale Male Petition:
On July 24, 2012, the Wild Equity Institute filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“Service”) urging it to change its migratory bird nest policy. The policy encourages destruction of migratory bird nests, which is prohibited by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MTBA). The Service’s policy has led to the destruction of countless bird nests since it was enacted, including one of a famous New York red-tailed hawk.

Please Join us at SF Environment, 11 Grove St., San Francisco, CA. There will be snacks and drinks. RSVP here. Hope to see you there!


Pale Male

During the month of November, participants in Wild Equity’s GGNP Endangered Species Big Year can win a $25 gift certificate to the Sports Basement: if they are the first person who records a sighting for, and/or takes action to help, the Western Snowy Plover.

We’ve lead a trip or two to see this cute little puff of feathers within the GGNRA, but now it’s time for participants to conduct the Conservation Action Item for this bird: reduce harassment of the Snowy Plover by leashing your dog in plover areas and/or asking others to do the same.

Off leash dogs are the biggest recreational threat to the Western Snowy Plover at the Golden Gate National Parks. Not because dogs are mean, but because unleashed dogs are much more effective at chasing and disturbing this tiny shorebird than anyone or thing you can find on San Francisco’s beaches. Help this endangered species by leashing your dog in sensitive Snowy Plover habitats and asking other people to do the same.

To claim your prize be sure to sign-up for the GGNP Endangered Species Big Year and record your action items and sightings at our website. If you don’t record it, it didn’t happen, and it doesn’t count!

Folks, we have some great prizes to give away during the remaining months of the GGNP Endangered Species Big Year!

In November we are giving one lucky winner a $25 gift certificate to Sports Basement.

Here are the details:

The first person to record a sighting for the Western Snowy Plover and fulfill the conservation action item will be awarded a gift certificate to Sports Basement.

The Conservation Action Item: Reduce harassment for the Snowy Plover by leashing your dog in plover areas and asking others to do the same.

Unleashed dogs are the biggest threat to the Western Snowy Plover; unleashed dogs tend to chase and disturb this tiny shorebird when they are roosting at the GGNRA’s beaches. Help us protect this endangered species by leashing your dog in sensitive Snowy Plover habitats and asking other people to do that same.

Want to see the Western Snowy Plover in its natural habitat?

Join us on Sunday, November 11, from 11:00 am – 1:00 pm, at Ocean Beach for the Western Snowy Plover Walk-About, led by Plover docent David Schmidt, to search for and help the threatened Western Snowy Plover. Meet at Beach Chalet Restaurant Parking lot. RSVP now.

In December we are giving away a sling bag from Patagonia to the first person who a) completes the conservation action item for the Gowen Cypress, or b) records a sighting and/or action item for the Coho Salmon.


The Gowen Cypress

You will have an opportunity to see the Coho Salmon in December!

Join us on Sunday, December 2, from 11:00 am – 1:30 pm, for the Muir Woods Big Year Salmon Stroll. Meet at Muir Woods National Monument. For more information, and to RSVP, please visit the Big Year calendar.


Searching for spawing salmon.

Join the GGNP Endangered Species Big Year now and start taking action!

You don’t want to miss this coming Third Thursday Film Night with SF Environment! We will be showing the moving documentary, Pale Male, the story of a notorious red-tailed hawk who made his home above a 5th Avenue apartment building in New York City. A sensational movement transpired when the building’s co-op board ordered Pale Male’s nest to be removed.

The Pale Male Petition:
On July 24, 2012, the Wild Equity Institute filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“Service”) urging it to change its migratory bird nest policy. The policy encourages destruction of migratory bird nests, which is prohibited by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MTBA). The Service’s policy has led to the destruction of countless bird nests since it was enacted, including one of a famous New York red-tailed hawk.

Please Join us at SF Environment, 11 Grove St., San Francisco, CA. There will be snacks and drinks. RSVP now!


Pale Male

Thank you to all who came out this weekend to search for, and help, one of the smallest and rarest shorebirds in San Francisco, the Western Snowy Plover. On Sunday, a group of birders and plover-lovers journeyed out to sunny Ocean Beach for a hike, led by David Schmidt, to find this tiny bird in its natural and protected habitat.


David Schmidt discussing the history of the area.

It was a beautiful day and a perfect time to find the Western Snowy Plover basking in the sun, but they must have been content hiding among the sand dunes, because we did not spot any plovers this day. However, we were lucky enough to see several Sanderlings, another small wader which, from afar, can easily be mistaken for the Snowy Plover.


Searching for the plover and other wildlife.

We had a great time identifying other birds, socializing with friends, and learning about the history of San Francisco’s natural areas. Thanks again to everyone who joined us on this beautiful day!

Keep in mind, we are offering a gift certificate to Sports Basement for the first person who spots and/or takes action to help the Western Snowy Plover. Just be sure to sign-up for the GGNP Endangered Species Big Year to record your sightings and actions.

The Conservation Action Item: Reduce Harassment for the Snowy Plover by leashing your dog in plover areas and asking others to do the same.

It is determined that unleashed dogs are the biggest threat to the Western Snowy Plover; unleashed dogs tend to chase and disturb this tiny shorebird when they are roosting at the GGNRA’s beaches. Help us protect this endangered species by leashing your dog in sensitive Snowy Plover habitats and asking other people to do that same.

Check out the Endangered Species Big Year calendar now to RSVP for future Wild Equity events!

In November we are giving one lucky winner a $25 gift certificate to Sports Basement!

Here are the details:

The first person to record a sighting for the Western Snowy Plover and/or fulfill the conservation action item will be awarded a gift certificate to Sports Basement.

The Conservation Action Item: Reduce Harassment for the Snowy Plover by leashing your dog in plover areas and asking others to do the same.

It is determined that unleashed dogs are the biggest threat to the Western Snowy Plover; unleashed dogs tend to chase and disturb this tiny shorebird when they are roosting at the GGNRA’s beaches. Help us protect this endangered species by leashing your dog in sensitive Snowy Plover habitats and asking other people to do that same.

Sunday, November 11, 2012, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. — Join us on a leisurely walk around Ocean Beach, led by Plover docent David Schmidt, to search for and help the threatened Western Snowy Plover. This small shorebird is highly threatened by human activities and habitat degradation. Join us to see this adorable species in its native habitat and learn ways that you can help before it is too late! Part of the Endangered Species Big Year, a race against time to see and save each of the GGNP’s endangered species. Meet at Beach Chalet Restaurant Parking lot. RSVP on this page.

This weekend we will be heading out for a leisurely walk, led by David Schmidt, to see the endangered Western Snowy Plover at Ocean Beach. This small shorebird is highly threatened by off-leash dog disturbance and habitat degradation: but you can help it recover. Join us to see this adorable species in its largest remaining refuge in San Francisco, and learn how you can help before it is too late! Meet at Beach Chalet Restaurant parking lot. Please RSVP here.

On Friday, students from Downtown High School joined Wild Equity for a trip to Rodeo Lagoon to see and take action to save the endangered Tidewater Goby. This small aquatic species is listed under the endangered species act because of a significant declined in its population, mainly due to habitat destruction and invasive species. The fish is found in only a small portion of its native habitat; it is unfortunately no longer found in San Francisco.

The students learned about the Tidewater Goby’s fragile state and took action to help protect the species. Darren Fong, Aquatic Ecologist
 for The Golden Gate National Recreation Area, gave a talk about the history of Rodeo Lagoon and showed the students the Tidewater Goby with a special underwater camera.


Darren Fong showing students a seine that will collect fish samples.


Researchers collecting samples with a seine in Rodeo Lagoon.

The students even had a chance to be field biologists for the day! Karen Crow, Assistant Professor at San Francisco State University, who studies the Three-spined stickleback for its evolutionary and genetic traits, taught the students useful sampling techniques. The Three-spine stickleback were collected from the lagoon with seines and transported into buckets where the students measured them to determine which ones would be valuable for further research.


Students measuring the Three-spined stickleback.

The students were also presented with the opportunity to engage in critical habitat restoration. They worked with James Cartan, from the National Park Service, removing invasive ice plant along the lagoon shoreline.


Students removing invasive ice plants.

We all had a wonderful time with the students on this trip. It was a great opportunity to learn about the ecology of Rodeo Lagoon, habitat restoration, and receive hands-on experience, which helped create a positive difference for the sensitive species at Rodeo Lagoon.


The Tidewater Goby


Field biologists, and Darren Fong, with the underwater camera.

You can also help create sustainable communities and protect native species by volunteering with us, becoming a member, or donating on-line today!

The Wild Equity Institute is glad to announce that Anna Sylvester has joined our Board of Directors, serving as our newest Board Secretary.


Anna Sylvester, Board Secretary.

Anna traces her love of nature to her Swiss heritage. She is focused on “legacy living”, working to preserve species, habitats, and precious coastal areas (like Sharp Park) for generations to come.

Anna and her husband, Erich Sylvester, live in the Presidio and operate Sylvester Valuation Group, a business appraisal firm specializing in fair market value appraisals for estate and gift tax purposes.

Anna previously served as secretary for another non-profit, and that experience will be put to great use on the Wild Equity Institute’s Board of Directors.

Welcome Anna! We look forward to working with you as we build a healthy and sustainable global community for all!

Saturday, October 20, 2012, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. — Join Wild Equity Institute on a bike ride led by Brent Plater through San Francisco to see and save several endangered species within the Golden Gate National Parks. The route will offer the opportunity to see the Gowen Cypress, Marbled Murrelet, Raven’s Manzanita, Humpback Whale, San Francisco Lessingia, the Western Snowy Plover, and the Steller Sea Lion. This is a great opportunity to get your counts in for a chance to win the Endangered Species Big Year grand prize! We will start and end at Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94121. RSVP required! Suggested donation: $5, but no one turned away for lack of funds.

We hope to see you on this adventure!

Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders, an initiative aimed at mentoring and training up-and-coming leaders in conservation, is now looking for exceptional conservationists with over 3 years previous commitment to the environment, and at least 15 more years ahead of them in the field, is now accepting applications for its 2013 class.

Successful applicants will be offered a one-week training course in the spring of 2013 that provides networking and career mentoring opportunities, leadership and wildlife conservation campaign skills, and experience planning, implementing and evaluating a real wildlife conservation campaign benefiting an imperiled species. Follow-up meeting will occur later in 2013 and 2014.

All costs are covered for US-based participants. Applicants based outside the US must show an ability to cover the costs of flights to all three trainings, and must be fluent in English.

Applicants must download and submit the application by close-of-business November 16th, 2013. (Applicants based outside the United States will only be considered with an identified sponsor for travel costs). For more information, please go to www.WildlifeLeaders.org.

This Saturday, October 20, 2012, from 9:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., Join the Wild Equity Institute on a bike ride through some of San Francisco’s last wildlife habitats to search for and help save several endangered species found within the Golden Gate National Parks. The route will offer the opportunity to see the Gowen Cypress, Raven’s Manzanita, Humpback Whale, San Francisco Lessingia, the Western Snowy Plover, and if we are very lucky, the Steller Sea Lion, the Marbled Murrelet, and the Southern Sea Otter! This is a great opportunity to score some points and win prizes during the Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year!

We will start and end at Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94121. RSVP required: please use this website to RSVP. Suggested donation: $5, but no one turned away for lack of funds. We hope to see you on this adventure!

Hello GGNP Big Year participants!

Today, October 1st, is the first day to start working towards the monthly GGNP Big Year prize. This month we are giving away a Better Sweater fleece scarf and beanie from Patagonia, perfect for staying warm when you’re out saving endangered species! Just be the first person to spot and record a sighting for any one of the 11 endangered plants found in the GGNP and be the lucky prize winner.

Be sure to sign-up for the GGNP Endangered Species Big Year and record your sightings and actions. Good Luck!

Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park was one of John Muir’s most treasured landscapes. But in one of San Francisco’s greatest environmental transgressions, a century ago the City built a dam across the Valley, and has been using a huge swath of the National Park as a water storage reservoir ever since.

Today San Francisco’s water supply system needs billions of dollars in upgrades, and that’s why it is the perfect time to start planning to improve San Francisco’s water conservation measures and investigate the possibility of restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley. That’s what Proposition F will encourage San Francisco to do, and that’s why the Wild Equity Institute strongly urges San Francisco voters to VOTE YES on Proposition F on November 6, 2012.

Proposition F is a forward-looking measure which calls on San Francisco to be more reliant on renewable, local water supplies, to recycle more of our water, and to encourage the use of reclaimed “greywater” by homes, businesses and local government. By decentralizing water delivery, we will reduce our dependence on faraway water sources that are jeopardized by climate change, and we can empower all San Francisco residents to take control and responsibility for this essential resource.

Opponents of this simple planning proposition have resorted to scare tactics to defeat it. This debate on KQED’s Forum between Mike Marshall of Restore Hetch Hetchy and San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener highlights many of these scare tactics. The Wild Equity Institute urges you to listen to Mike Marshall debunk these scare tactics so you can hear how sensible Proposition F really is. A few key points:

  • Proposition F will have no impact on Camp Mather. Opponents of Proposition F have claimed that concrete from the decommissioned dam will be dumped on Camp Mather, a beloved recreation area owned and operated by San Francisco. But Proposition F doesn’t even require the dam to be removed, and certainly doesn’t require concrete to be taken from its existing location and dumped on Camp Mather. The only thing Proposition F requires is to study the possibility of restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley, so that we can make informed decisions about the future of our water supply before billions of dollars are poured into the status quo.
  • Proposition F will not disproportionately impact the poor. The Wild Equity Institute spends each day redressing inequities across our human communities, and would never support a proposition that would exacerbate this concern. But some opponents have argued that Prop. F will raise water prices on the poor. There is no evidence indicating this would be the case, but if higher water rates are a possibility, that proves why Proposition F’s planning requirements deserve your vote. Only through Proposition F will San Francisco devote the thoughtful planning and oversight needed to understand this concern. If making environmental reparations is determined to be a lower priority than keeping water costs below market rates, Proposition F allows San Francisco to ultimately decide against restoring the Valley. Alternatively, it allows us to mitigate any increased costs that the City’s poor might otherwise unfairly bear, while still obtaining the environmental benefits restoring the Valley can provide. These benefits could be significant: existing studies indicate that there could be a multi-billion dollar net benefit to restoring the Valley from job creation, increased tourism, and environmental benefits.
  • Proposition F will not make San Francisco’s electricity less ‘green’. Some have suggested that the dam and reservoir that destroyed Hetch Hetchy Valley should remain because it delivers ‘green power’ to San Francisco. But this is deceptive in two ways. First, the resevoir does not generate any electricity. The water in the reservoir, when released, does travel downstream through power generators that are fed by several different reservoirs. But that will not change if the Valley is restored—water will still run downstream through these facilities. Second, it borders on absurd to call any power generation that occurs through the desecration and destruction of the world’s most famous and iconic National Park ‘green’ energy.

For all these reasons, Wild Equity Institute urges all San Francisco voters to vote Yes on Proposition F on November 6, 2012!

This event has been postponed. Please stay tuned for the new date and time.

Join us Thursday, October 11, 6 pm – 8 pm at Sports Basement on Bryant St. We will be showing the moving documentary, Pale Male, the story of a notorious red-tailed hawk who made his home above a 5th Avenue apartment building in New York City. A sensational movement transpired when the building’s co-op board ordered Pale Male’s nest to be removed.

The Pale Male Petition:

On July 24, 2012, the Wild Equity Institute filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“Service”) urging it to change its migratory bird nest policy. The policy encourages destruction of migratory bird nests, which is prohibited by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MTBA). The Service’s policy has led to the destruction of countless bird nests since it was enacted, including one of a famous New York red-tailed hawk.

Join us at Sports Basement, 1590 Bryant St. to see this inspiring film, enjoy good company, snacks and drinks!


Pale Male © Lincoln Karim

Saturday, October 13, 2012, 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. — Join Wild Equity at the WNC Wildlife Conservation Expo. We will be tabling alongside many wonderful, environmental organizations dedicated to wildlife conservation. There will also be a speaker series with twenty of the world’s most committed wildlife conservationists. “Hear first-hand their stories of pioneering conservation science and working with communities in the remotest places on Earth.” We hope to see you there!

If you would like to volunteer with Wild Equity on this day, you get free entry into the expo plus you will get to see the speaker of your choice. We need help setting up and breaking down, tabling, talking to people and making connections. Let us know if you are interested by emailing us at info@wildequity.org.

Event has been postponed for now. A future date is coming soon!

Thursday, October 11, 2012, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. — Wild Equity is hosting a movie night at Sports Basement on Bryant St. We will be showing the moving documentary, Pale Male, the story of a notorious red-tailed hawk who made his home above a 5th Avenue apartment building in New York City. A sensational movement transpired when the building’s co-op board ordered Pale Male’s nest to be removed.

The Pale Male Petition:
On July 24, 2012, the Wild Equity Institute filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“Service”) urging it to change its migratory bird nest policy. The policy encourages destruction of migratory bird nests, which is prohibited by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MTBA). The Service’s policy has led to the destruction of countless bird nests since it was enacted, including one of a famous New York red-tailed hawk.

Join us at Sports Basement on Bryant to see this inspiring film, enjoy good company, snacks and drinks!

Join the Wild Equity Institute’s Executive Director Brent Plater for a panel discussion about innovative environmental education projects at the 2012 North American Association for Environmental Education Conference. The discussion begins at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, October 11 in Junior Ballroom 4 at the Marriott City Center, 1001 Broadway, Oakland CA 94607.


Brent Plater, Wild Equity Institute’s Executive Director

In 2011 Brent Plater and the Wild Equity Institute received a TogetherGreen Fellowship to expand the Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year into Bay Area classrooms. TogetherGreen is a five-year partnership between Audubon and Toyota that builds conservation leadership and promote environmental action projects. This panel will discuss remarkable case studies from several TogetherGreen fellows and grantees who have successfully involve diverse audiences in conservation action. In addition to Mr. Plater, National Audubon Society’s Luisa Arnedo & Melissa Hopkins, The Ocean Project’s Wei Ying Wong, and On My Mountain’s John Robinson will discuss their work.

Visit the Wild Equity Institute table at the WNC Wildlife Conservation Expo this Saturday, October 13, from 10 am – 5 pm. We will be tabling alongside many wonderful, environmental organizations dedicated to wildlife conservation. There will be several opportunities to meet wonderful organizations from all over the world, and hear stories about conservation efforts from the world’s most dedicated environmentalists.

Tickets to the expo are $60 general admission and $30 for students with ID. For more information, or to find out how you can get a ticket, visit wildnet.org.

We hope to see you there!

Join the Wild Equity Institute’s Executive Director Brent Plater for a panel discussion about innovative environmental education projects at the 2012 North American Association for Environmental Education Conference. The discussion begins at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, October 11 in Junior Ballroom 4 at the Marriott City Center, 1001 Broadway, Oakland CA 94607.


Brent Plater, Wild Equity Institute’s Executive Director

In 2011 Brent Plater and the Wild Equity Institute received a TogetherGreen Fellowship to expand the Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year into Bay Area classrooms. TogetherGreen is a five-year partnership between Audubon and Toyota that builds conservation leadership and promote environmental action projects. This panel will discuss remarkable case studies from several TogetherGreen fellows and grantees who have successfully involve diverse audiences in conservation action. In addition to Mr. Plater, National Audubon Society’s Luisa Arnedo & Melissa Hopkins, The Ocean Project’s Wei Ying Wong, and On My Mountain’s John Robinson will discuss their work.

Friday, October 5th, 2012, 7:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. — Celebration for the Franciscan Manzanita! Join the Wild Equity Institute at the Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics, 518 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA, 94110 to celebrate October 5: the day the Franciscan Manzanita finally becomes protected under the federal Endangered Species Act! We’ll be drinking a new signature elixir called the “Franciscana” and dancing the “Manzanita”—a new dance move that will surely sweep the nation once the YouTube videos of the night hit the interwebs! There will be food and music, and another too rare event: an opportunity to celebrate with dozens of great people like you, people working to build a healthy and sustainable global community for all! $5 donation requested at the door, but no one turned away for lack of funds.

The Franciscan Manzanita, which for over 40 years was thought to be extinct in the wild, was rediscovered in the Presidio by Dr. Daniel Gluesenkamp in 2009. But because it was presumed extinct, the Endangered Species Act didn’t protect this rare plant—the law applies to endangered and threatened species, not extinct ones.

So the Wild Equity Institute successfully pushed to extend Endangered Species Act protection to the Franciscan Manzanita, ensuring that the world’s most powerful conservation tools would be available as we restore this species and the habitats upon which it depends. Read more about our work here.

On October 5th, Endangered Species Act protection for the Franciscan Manzanita will officially become effective. Accompanying the listing is a proposal to designate several sensitive areas as critical habitat for the plant—when this proposal becomes final, it will be the first time any San Francisco land has been protected as critical habitat for any endangered species. If that’s not cause for celebration, we don’t know what is: so Join us October 5th from 7-11 p.m. at the Eric Quezada Centerfor Culture and Politics, 518 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA, 94110. The Center is accessible by several modes of public transit: the 16th Street BART station is just a block away.

On Sunday, September 23rd around 1pm, Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year stalwart Matt Zlatunich observed several Humpback Whales from the Cliff House, well within the legislative boundary of the Golden Gate National Parks! From Matt:

The leviathons were easily observable spouting and frolicking about. There was seemingly an abundance of food in the area as the seabirds, shearwaters, terns, jaegers, and cormorants, were putting on a good show.

So don’t delay—sign up for your GGNP Endangered Species Big Year, get outside, spot some whales, and then record your observations at wildequity.org to earn prizes for protecting our local endangered species!


Bring friends on your sea watch—the more eyeballs scanning the waves the better.

The GGNP’s legislative boundary is much larger than the boundary familiar to most park visitors, because the GGNP has established a wide variety of partnerships with adjacent landowners in order to promote good stewardship. The map below should help you visualize where you may explore the park and count any sightings you may see on that exploration towards your GGNP Endangered Species Big Year.

You may also download a Google Earth .kml file here. You will need to download the free Google Earth application to use this file.

Sunday, September 23, from 9 a.m. -12 p.m. Grab your running shoes and join Wild Equity on a morning jog through the beautiful San Francisco Presidio to see and save threatened and endangered species.

The route will take us on an adventure to see the Gowen Cypress, the Western Snowy Plover, the Presidio Manzanita, the Marbled Murrelet, and the the Stellar Sea Lion; and hear incredible stories about the many endangered species in the GGNP.

We will meet bright and early at the Sports Basement Presidio, 610 Old Mason St., San Francisco, CA 94129. Sports Basement will also provide snacks and drinks at the end of the run.

This is also a perfect time to get your shopping on! On this day, customers will receive a 10% discount on purchases made at Sports Basement Presidio and 10% will be donated to support Wild Equity!

Tell you friends and RSVP now!

Grab your running shoes and join Wild Equity on a morning jog through San Francisco’s beautiful Presidio Trust to see and save threatened and endangered species.

The route will take us on an adventure to see the Gowen Cypress, the Western Snowy Plover, past the California Seablite’s restoration site, and near the Raven’s Manzanita last surviving plant. Along the way you’ll hear incredible stories about the many endangered species in the Golden Gate National Parks!

We will meet at Sports Basement in the Presidio, 610 Old Mason St., San Francisco, CA 94129. Sports Basement will also provide snacks and drinks at the end of the run! Please RSVP at this website.

This is also a perfect time to get your shopping on! On this day, customers will receive a 10% discount on purchases made at Sports Basement Presidio and 10% will be donated to support Wild Equity!

This past weekend Wild Equity went frog wild! Thank you to everyone who came out to the film night and to those who hiked with us at Mori Point. We had a great time meeting new people, searching for endangered species, and hiking the beautiful outdoors.

On Friday Wild Equity joined Sports Basement for Film Night. We watched people compete for a chance at the Hop of Fame in JUMP, a frogumentary by Justin Bookey, a film about an unusual Mark Twain-inspired tradition. In the film competitors gather to prepare for the competition of a lifetime, to see who has the farthest jumping frog in all of Calaveras County. The film was effective at depicting the passion and determination of each participant in a comical and lively way. We definitely enjoyed the laughs!

We hope to see you all at our next movie night, October 11, 2012 at Sports Basement on Bryant St from 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. We will be showing Pale Male, a documentary about the story of a beloved red-tailed hawk that inspired a sensational movement in New York City.

Read about how we are helping Pale Male.

On Sunday we trekked out to Mori Point to search for the San Francisco Garter Snake, the California Red-Legged Frog, and to hear stories about the restoration vision at Sharp Park Golf Course. Many new and familiar faces joined us this morning for one epic hike. As promised, we saw the threatened California Red-legged Frog, and we were lucky enough to see a Coast Gartersnake, dolphins and a Red-shouldered Hawk.


Sharon Handel wins the raffle!

Congratulations to Sharon Handel who won the raffle for a $15 gift certificate to Sports Basement!

Thank you to all who came out to support the work of Wild Equity. Sign-up for a Wild Equity account and join us on future GGNP Big Year trips to see and save endangered species, earn prizes and help us build a sustainable global community for all.

There are many ways you can contribute to the Wild Equity Institute’s campaigns and help us build a stronger environmental movement for all. Become a member, donate or volunteer today!

Congratulations to Dale Danley for being the first person to fulfill September’s GGNP Big Year conservation action item.

On September 1st, he joined the National Park Service and Wild Equity to restore habitat for the endangered San Francisco Lessingia. He helped clear away dead debris and invasive Eucalyptus trees at Lobos Creek Valley. Thanks Dale, the Lessingia is lucky to have you!

Dale is now the lucky winner of the REI Flash daypack essential for all his supplies while he’s out saving more endangered species!

You can be the next lucky prizewinner. In October, the first person to spot and record a sighting for any one of the 11 endangered plants found in the GGNP will be the winner of a Patagonia Better Sweater fleece scarf and beanie, perfect for staying warm on hikes and bike rides with Wild Equity.

Make sure you join the fun by signing up for the GGNP Endangered Species Big Year now.

You can also help by becoming a member or donating on-line today!

Sunday, September 16, 2012, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. — Join Brent Plater of the Wild Equity Institute as he leads a hike with guaranteed endangered species sightings! We will hike Mori Point in search of the two most imperiled species on the San Francisco Peninsula: The San Francisco garter snake and the California red-legged frog. Listen to stories about ongoing restoration and endangered species at Mori Point; and learn ways in which you can help save these species from extinction. Meet at the Mori Point Entrance Gate, at the intersection of Bradford Way and Mori Point Road, Pacifica, CA, 94044. RSVP required. For more information or for carpool arrangements please contact us at info@wildequity.org.

Friday, September 14, 2012, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. — Join Wild Equity to see JUMP: A Frogumentary by Justin Bookey. Every year in Calaveras County thousands of people compete in a frog jumping competition, an unusual Twain-inspired tradition since 1928. The film follows three teams working non-stop to compete for a chance at the Hop of Fame. The frogumentary will be shown at Sports Basement on Bryant St., 5th floor. Snacks and wine will be served!

Seating is limited so please RSVP on this page!

Then join us that following Sunday, September 16, 2012, 10:00 a.m.- 12:00 p.m. at Mori Point to search for the “Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” known as the California Red-Legged Frog and the most beautiful serpent in all of North America, the San Francisco Garter Snake.


The California Red-legged frog at Mori Point.

This weekend Wild Equity is celebrating two endangered creatures close to our heart: the California Red-legged Frog & the San Francisco Gartersnake. Friday we’ve got a film to screen and Sunday we’ve got a hike to lead: and both will be more fun with you there!

So join us in the festivities this weekend: don’t forget to RSVP for each event!

  • JUMP: A Frogumentary—Friday, September 14, 2012, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.: Join Wild Equity to see JUMP: A Frogumentary by Justin Bookey. Every year in Calaveras County thousands of people compete in a frog jumping competition, an unusual tradition that historically starred the California Red-legged Frog and was made famous by Mark Twain’s short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calevaras County. The film follows three teams working non-stop to compete for a chance at the Hop of Fame. The frogumentary will be shown at the Sports Basement on Bryant St., 5th floor. Snacks and drinks will be served! Seating is limited so please RSVP here.


The California Red-legged Frog at Mori Point.


The San Francisco Gartersnake.

Wild Equity is collaborating with Downtown High School’s WALC (Wilderness Arts and Literacy Collaborative) program once again for another “Endangered Semester” where the students compete in their very own mini-Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year.

WALC links outdoor learning and environmental education with math, art, technology and science, giving students the opportunity to learn about environmental issues, endangered species and motivates with ways they can help.

This semester, the students in WALC will have an opportunity to take multiple trips to see and save endangered species, like the Tidewater Goby and the Black Abalone, win points and prizes for their team, learn tactics for environmental activism and make sustainable and ethical life choices.


Downtown High School’s WALC students

Trip 1, Mori Point:

The first trip of the semester was to Mori Point to see and save the endangered California Red-Legged Frog and the San Francisco Garter Snake. The students had a chance to hike Mori Point and see abundant wildlife including a pod of dolphins, Brown Pelicans, and the California Red-legged Frog! The students drew wonderful pictures of the CRLFs in their field journal and reflected on ways to help.

Congratulations to the first two students who spotted and recorded the California Red-Legged Frog sighting! They will receive a $15 gift certificate to Sports Basement.


Students viewing the California Red-Legged Frogs and journaling.


Searching for the San Francisco Garter Snake.

After hearing all about the restoration vision for Sharp Park and the issues that surround the golf course, the students were inspired to write a letter to Mayor Ed Lee asking him to help save the endangered species by allowing the golf course to be restored into a National Park for all to enjoy.

We had a great time with the students and look forward to more trips soon!


Student writing letters to Mayor Ed Lee.

Thank you to everyone who joined us on Saturday as we set out to help the National Park Service monitor and restore critical habitat for the San Francisco Lessingia. This rare plant was once abundant along the vast San Francisco dunes, but due to years of damaging threats, habitat loss and invasive species, it is now critically endangered.


The rare SF Lessingia at Lobos Creek Valley.

We helped out at Lobos Creek Valley pulling invasive Ice plant (Carpobrotus edulis), clearing dead debris from the sand dunes and monitoring the species’ progress. With the help of dedicated volunteers we counted over 1,000 Lessingia plants indicating that the species is doing well at this site!

After several years of extensive restoration efforts from the NPS, volunteers and interns, the Lessingia numbers continue to rise. This is hopeful news, but because of its exclusive habitat and vulnerability to natural disasters, the Lessingia still needs much more support. Join the GGNP Endangered Species Big Year today and find out how you can help save the SF Lessingia.

You can also help us advance our mission by donating on-line or becoming a Wild Equity member today!


Volunteers monitoring the Lessingia at the Lobos Creek Valley dunes.

Saturday, September 1, 2012, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m — Join Jonathan “Coty” Sifuentes-Winter of the National Park Service to help restore habitat for the endangered San Francisco Lessingia. Due to habitat loss and invasive species, the SF Lessingia is in critical condition. Wild Equity and the GGNP will help to restore and protect one of only two populations left in the world. We will be working in one of the newest sites for Lessingia recovery, a 1.5 acre subsite of Lobos Creek Valley called Field Office Dunes.

We will be meeting at Building 1818 located just behind the Landmark Apartment Building. Carpool is available! Just email us to let us know if you are interested. You can also call Jonathan at 415-385-4226 for more details.

This is a GGNP Endangered Species Big Year Conservation Action Item!

Please RSVP now!

Today, September 1st, is the first day to start working towards the Big Year monthly prize. The contest goes until the last day of the month and there are two chances to win!

In September, the first person to either (a) help the San Francisco Lessingia by protecting and restoring one of its last two habitats, or (b) tell five people about the rare San Mateo Wooly Sunflower and its plight will be the lucky prizewinner for September!

Just be sure to sign-up for the Big Year and record your sightings and action items. Good Luck!