Volunteer to save Mother Nature

Our town is blessed by having so many people who volunteer their time and talent for environmental causes. The need for even more volunteers is monumental and never-ending.

Possibly one of the most interesting volunteer jobs is being a monitor of endangered California least terns and threatened Western snowy plovers.

Dave Pryor, an ecologist with State Parks and Recreation, has organized a cadre of volunteers who monitor the least tern colony at the mouth of the Santa Ana River at Huntington Beach State Park. Volunteers get a free park pass and enjoy a few hours every week sitting by the fenced tern colony. They educate the public about why people should walk only below the high tide line in this area. The reason is that snowy plovers nest outside the fence as well as inside.

The volunteers also keep an eye out for predators. Great blue herons can snatch up helpless chicks by the dozen. Hawks, falcons and crows are other birds that prey on the chicks. Even California ground squirrels can be a problem. We don’t think about squirrels being predators, but these voracious little guys will eat just about anything they can get their paws on ? that includes eggs and chicks of plovers and terns. While predators must live too, the volunteers discourage them from making their living by eating endangered species.

Since the monitors have been safeguarding the tern colony, nesting success has improved. In the past, there have been incidents of crows eating all of nestlings and even of people letting dogs run loose inside the fence to trample eggs and kill chicks. Such wanton destruction doesn’t happen when there are volunteer guards present to intervene.

So far this summer, the least terns have built 479 nests at Huntington Beach State Park and hatched 250 chicks. More nests will be built, and more chicks will hatch over the next few weeks. If you’re interested in becoming a tern monitor at Huntington Beach State Park, e-mail Cheryl Egger at dc.egger@verizon.net.

Some least terns nest at Bolsa Chica, but the tern islands there have become host to a very large and successful colony of elegant terns. The thousands of noisy and more aggressive elegant terns are crowding out the tiny least terns there.

That’s only the beginning of places to volunteer. The Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center can always use people to help provide care for wounded and injured wildlife. Volunteers feed animals ranging from baby raccoons to injured great blue herons. They clean birds coated by crude oil spills and perform a host of other tasks that are needed to nurse injured wildlife back to health.

The Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center runs periodic classes to train volunteers for the many tasks they will perform. Duties can include drawing blood, tube-feeding birds that were injured by red tide poisoning, and keeping records on the treatment and care of their charges. You can contact the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center at (714) 374-5587.

Shipley Nature Center is another place where volunteers are always needed, and not just on restoration days on the first Saturday of the month. For the past year, a crew from the Orange County Conservation Corps has staffed the center, keeping it open to the public Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. In addition to greeting the public and providing information about recycling and composting, the crew maintained the trails, which are heavily used by thousands of school children who tour the center with the Inside the Outdoors education program. The Corps crew also maintained the composting facility at the nature center, helped out in the native plant nursery and assisted with weed abatement. Their absence is going to be sorely felt by the Friends, who are actively seeking volunteers and docents. If you’d like to help out at Shipley Nature Center, call (714) 842-4772.

Four other good places to volunteer are with the Huntington Wetlands Conservancy, Amigos de Bolsa Chica, Bolsa Chica Conservancy and Bolsa Chica Land Trust. The first group cleans and maintains the Huntington Wetlands, which includes Talbert Marsh, while the latter three groups perform volunteer work at Bolsa Chica ranging from leading tours for the public to removing non-native vegetation and trash to planting native plants.

Mother Nature provides so much for us. We can find peace, solitude and renewal in the outdoors. By volunteering to help habitat and the wildlife it supports, we can feel good about ourselves. We can also feel good knowing that we’ve helped an ecosystem that is struggling against odds to survive. Our local wild places are impacted by the visitation and pollution generated by the 13 million people who live in the greater Los Angeles area.

Mother Nature can no longer get by on her own. She needs our help. See if you can find some time in your busy life to give back to the land that nourishes you in so many ways. And if you don’t have any time to spare right now, give these worthy groups some money. It takes both time and treasure to keep our local environmental groups afloat.