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Nature in the City News
Natural Areas Plan Comments
The Planning Department has finally published the Initial Study for the Significant Natural Resource Areas Management Plan (SNRAMP). The finding of the Initial Study is that an Environmental Impact Report is required. For more information see our last newsletter. Nature in the City, in collaboration with many other local environmental organizations, has been tracking the SNRAMP for years. Check out our Natural Areas webpage for the most recent history.
In compliance with CEQA, the City held two public scoping meetings last week, one of which we attended - please read our updated comments below.
Written comments on the Initial Study will be accepted until May 26, 2009. Send to Bill Wycko, SF Planning Department, Natural Areas Management Plan, 1650 Mission Street, Suite 400, SF, CA 94103.
Click here for our updated comments.
Save (& Restore) Our City's Natural Beauty!
It's that time of year again - nominations are due for the San Francisco Beautiful Beautification Awards. Special consideration will be given to projects that reflect this year's theme, Saving Our City: Beauty Has a Place.
SF Beautiful is "looking for beautification projects that happen due to creative thinking and collective efforts... These projects often start with a few people who have a vision and then a community force builds around them."
Previous award winners include the Mt. Sutro Native Plant Garden & Trail Network, the 16th Avenue Tiled Steps (which are right along the Green Hairstreak Corridor), and Plant SF (for sidewalk gardens, which are a key part of the Green Hairstreak Corridor).
News From Yerba Buena Island
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Although we haven't been able to host a work party on Yerba Buena Island for some time now, our Clipper Cove stewardship has not been in vain, and natives like this Creeping Wild Rye are repopulating the beach environment!
In other exciting island news, Ruth Gravanis, Vice President of the Commission on the Environment, was interviewed last Sunday about the current redevelopment proposal.
May 10, 2009 - "The most prominent island in San Francisco Bay – Yerba Buena – is poised to undergo some of its biggest changes in its long and varied history.
The City and County of San Francisco has been negotiating to buy the island perhaps best known today for the Bay Bridge tunnel running through it. If the city completes its 16-year talks with the U.S. Navy for the land, it says it wants to build 200 to 250 condominiums and apartments on Yerba Buena."
Read the full article and watch the video here.
McLaren Park Meeting Notes
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McLaren Park Earthday Stewardship 2007 |
On May 9th, District 11 Supervisor, John Avalos, convened a community stakeholder meeting about the present and future of McLaren Park. Area resident, teacher and Nature in the City Steering Committee member, Deirdre Elmansoumi, represented us at the meeting, where there was a lot of collective energy for restoring social and ecological health and vitality to the City's 2nd largest park.
Our current plan is to hold the 3rd Annual McLaren Park Earth Day in 2010, for which we want to begin preparing now, forming the necessary partnerships, including with Supervisors' offices to make it the best one yet!
Lisa Wayne of the San Francisco Natural Areas Program again raised the concept of a McLaren Park Master Plan, which is long overdue and is needed to frame management, stewardship and usage of McLaren Park for the future. The City's 2nd largest park is becoming increasingly beloved by multiple community sectors and thus, in fact, the park is beginning to experience some severe impacts from different types of human recreation and usage.
For Earth Day 2008, Nature in the City created a simple flyer about McLaren Park Stewardship opportunities to highlight the positive human ecological interactions occurring there. Meanwhile, the negative effects of uncontrolled commercial off-leash dog walking and mountain bike trail building are very serious concerns that we as a community need to confront.
Stay tuned!
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Caroline Christman |
A Butterfly Not Seen in SF Since the 1950's Photographed at Land's End!
From Nature in the City steering committee member and local lepidopterist, Liam O'Brien:
"On April 18th, a birder/ naturalist, Jason Yakikich, photographed a beautiful little lycaenid butterfly that kept darting out from it's perch in a riparian walkway well known to birders below the Legion of Honor. A jolt rushed through me when I saw his photograph. The Western Pine Elfin (Callophrys euryphon) was only known to have been in our county from an isolated population within the Presidio back in the 1950's. It was assumed it came in on its host plant -- pine trees -- when the Army put those non-native trees in the park way back when. Like alot of small, isolated populations of lycaenids, they died out and disappeared.
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Western Pine Elfin Jason Yakich |
Dr. Jerry Powell has documented the growing range of the Pine Elfin within the Bay Area -- since lots of folks have pine trees in their yards now -- and I am aware of a population in Kirby Cove below the GG Bridge in the Marin Headlands. It's just conjecture on my part, but this one Jason photographed could have been blasted over during that week of high winds that proceeded this exciting sighting. Let's hope it's a gal and she'll lay some eggs in our county. Nice job, Jason. See folks...still LOTS to discover in our urban jungle."
Sharp Park Hearing Now Online
The May 5 Board of Supervisors hearing is now available on SFGOV TV. Click on the May 5 hearing and then click on the agenda item, #18, Sharp Park. Refer to our previous newsletter for more information and links about the legislation and Sharp Park.
The Sharp Park restoration legislation, amended, passed the full Board of Supervisors unanimously, 11-0. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area now has a unique window of opportunity to actualize community support by proactively pursuing fruitful collaboration with the City of San Francisco and eventual acquisition of Sharp Park for the National Park Service.
Where Would You Spend $5 million?
With the passage of the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond in 2008, a $5-million Community Opportunity Fund was established to fund small-scale, community nominated park improvement projects across the city of San Francisco.
The Recreation and Parks Department and the Community Opportunity Fund Task Force are now beginning to design this program, and they would like your feedback on this initial stage of the process. Please take a moment to fill out the survey they've created, and be sure to take advantage of open-ended questions to give specific information about your park.
Award Winning, Local Journalist Fired
Jane Kay, the award-winning environmental journalist at the San Francisco Chronicle was laid off last week. This is terrible news, and a set back to all environmental efforts around the Bay Area.
| Wednesday May 20 |
| Alcatraz Gardens Presidio Park Stewards @ North Baker Beach California Native Plant Society @ Twin Peaks North Redwood Creek Presidio Nursery |
| Thursday May 21 |
| Crissy Field Landscape Lands End Stewards |
| Friday May 22 |
| Alcatraz Gardens Presidio Plant Patrol @ Crissy Field |
| Saturday May 23 |
| Quail at Harding Park Alvord Lake Beautification Area A Landscape & Maintenance Presidio Park Stewards @ Tennessee Hollow Fort Funston Corona Heights Grassland Lands End Stewards Presidio Nursery Redwood Creek Colma Creek |
| Sunday May 24 |
| Haight-Ashbury Native Plant Nursery |
For more information, contact info, and directions to natural areas go to the Community Calendar on the Nature in the City website.
Seabirds Dying Along California Coast
WildCare
Recently, reports have been coming in about about hundreds of seabirds found dead on California beaches. Birds have been found in San Francisco at Baker Beach, Lands End, Ocean Beach, and Alcatraz Island.
According to the SF Chronicle, "The black, iridescent Brandt's cormorants began dying in mid-April, puzzling scientists who have seen the species thrive in recent years on the Farallon, Alcatraz and Año Nuevo islands."
A drop in food stocks is one theory that could explain the starved condition of some of the dead birds.
Brandt's Cormorants and grebes seem to be the species most affected although other species have also been found. The largest numbers of dead birds reported so far include 67 Brandt's Cormorants and 13 grebes at Ocean Beach in San Francisco.
WildCare is keeping their website current with the most up-to-date information as it becomes available. Visit their Action Alerts page for updates.