20 years in, CIR enters a new era marked by managing the West Mesa, strengthening our internal operations, creating new docent programs, and so much more. This new era means your support is as critical as ever as we face the ever-growing challenges climate change produces. You can help us restore the natural beauty of our region now and for generations to come. Thank you for supporting Channel Islands Restoration and making our 20th year even more impactful.
We’ve been celebrating all month long, touring and walking the San Marcos Foothills to educate the public on their importance and sharing why we worked so hard to save this land from development.
The Foothills symbolize a new phase in our history. While we continue to restore native habitats, recruit volunteers, and educate communities, we are also responsible for managing the West Mesa.
Protecting these 101 acres ushers in a new dimension to our work and adds to our 20 years of restoration, education, research, and collaboration experience.
This new era is especially important on Earth Day!
For the month of April, Channel Islands Restoration is offering educational events including walks, talks and more to celebrate Earth Day (officially April 22) and show our support for environmental protection.
CIR grows native plants for habitat restoration! We grow all manner of native plants at the nursery, from purple needle grass (Stipa pulchra) to scrub oaks (Quercus berberidifolia)! After gathering seeds from the surrounding area, we are now raising native plants in our nursery. The native plants we grow will be planted in restoration sites like the San Marcos Foothills Preserve, Hammond's Meadow, Pt. Mugu, the Carpinteria Salt Marsh, and more. Habitat restoration can't happen without plants, so we need your help to grow these plants!
Join us to learn to identify our iconic state grass and the non-native grasses that are invading our local habit! This is a beautiful time of year to visit the Foothills and explore the local trails in the area with the community. Make sure to bring a walking pole to help distinguish different plants on the ground but don't worry, the ground is mostly flat and plant identification and training will be provided. No experience is necessary to volunteer, although plant knowledge is helpful!
In this exclusive webinar, Russ Bradley, Cal State University Channel Islands Director of the Santa Rosa Island Research Station will discuss this unique interdisciplinary program in Channel Islands National Park, and his team's efforts to create transformational educational and research experiences for students and the local community. The program at the SRIRS provides students, faculty, researchers, and community members with opportunities to participate in research and education via a partnership between the US National Park Service and CSU Channel Islands. Join us in learning from Russ about Santa Rosa Island, the program, and his role in facilitating these experiences.
CIR is encouraging you to go out and look for birds! This free, fun event involves discovering what bird species reside in our local area and educating ourselves about their distinct characteristics, from the microhabitats they populate to their foraging and nesting habits.
Our Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service was an incredible success! Thank you to all of our volunteers and staff who participated to make a positive lasting environmental impact. We were able to successfully remove a large amount of ice plant (an invasive plant species) in order to plant Marsh Sandwort, a native endangered plant that will work to help restore the habitat.
Channel Islands Restoration offers volunteer opportunities in Santa Barbara county and Ventura county.
To receive volunteer information and stay updated about local events in the area, please follow this link here and subscribe to our volunteer list. We’ll send you all the latest updates about how to volunteer and where our events are located via email. We look forward to seeing you in Santa Barbara!
A few years ago, while working on a CIR habitat restoration project on San Nicolas Island, I noticed that the songs of Western Meadowlarks that I was hearing were noticeably different than those of their counterparts on the mainland (Gevirtz personal observations 2018, 2019). This led me to wonder whether the different songs are distinct local dialects or indicators of distinct subspecies.
One gets the sense that Dave Edwards is a man on a conservation mission. Having volunteered with Channel Islands Restoration since 2007 and a long-time board member since 2008, Dave has contributed hundreds of hours and led dozens of trips to the islands in the name of habitat restoration, trail maintenance and invasive species control. His work ethic and charming character have contributed to his close involvement with our organization, and he has become a figure of trust in the community.
2021 was a remarkable year for Channel Islands Restoration, highlighted by the success of the Foothills Forever Campaign. The campaign raised $20 million to preserve 101 acres of the West Mesa of the San Marcos Foothills. Hikers, nature lovers, indigenous, and all our community members will get to take in the Foothill’s beauty for generations to come, and it is a privilege that we have been tasked with restoring and stewarding the land.
On September 23rd, 2021, Channel Islands Restoration made a triumphant return to Santa Rosa Island alongside one hundred guests! The trip, an educational expedition for supporters of our environmental nonprofit, was a major milestone that marked the renewal of in-person education and expanded opportunities for Channel Islands Restoration community members to participate once again in events with like-minded friends and supporters.
We have much to celebrate after an extraordinary 2021, a year in which our community banded together to save the West Mesa of the San Marcos Foothills from development.
The campaign’s success means that Channel Islands Restoration is now responsible for restoring the habitat of rare birds and native plants on the West Mesa. Additionally, the campaign ensures the land is available to the public forever. We take this work seriously, as we know the cultural and historical significance this land holds for our indigenous neighbors and those who recreate in the area.
CIR will again offer our popular educational tours to fabulous mainland locations. Led by Geologist Tanya Atwater, Botanist Steve Junak and birding experts, these trips have become very popular and often sell out early! Don’t miss your chance to join these educational to scenic locations like the White Mountains, Death Valley, the Channel Islands and the Central Coast.
It was the photo of the Santa Ynez River that came into my inbox last January that ultimately made me sign up for the CIR tamarisk eradication trip. The gorgeous photo shows a crew of backpackers walking along a deep pool in the river, with the blue of the sky reflected in the pool. “Volunteer Sign-up is Now Open!” I was hooked, and having recently completed my vaccination regimen, I was ready for just this kind of adventure.
The Ballona Wetlands, in the coastal area of Los Angeles, were once an extensive expanse of marshes, mud flats, salt pans and sand dunes that covered about 2,000 acres and stretched from Playa del Rey to Venice and inland to the Baldwin Hills. Ballona Creek originally meandered through willows and native habitat, but was cemented into a straight, concrete channel nearly 100 years ago.
The good news is that once again, CIR is working on eradicating tamarisk in the rugged and beautiful watersheds of the Santa Ynez River and Sisquoc River.
Those familiar with the two rivers know how difficult they both are to access. Once off the “more easily” traveled roads and trails, we enter a world that only a small number of people have ever visited. It is a wild and largely untouched world back there, and yet just a few miles away as the condor soars.
From March to July 2020, Channel Islands Restoration worked in the Angeles National Forest northeast of Lake Castaic removing non-native weeds to make room for the native chaparral plants of the area. Plants that we removed include yellowstar thistle, tocolate, and tumbleweed (Russian thistle), all of which are non-native, highly invasive, and highly flammable.
Autumn in the Heritage Valley of the Santa Clara River, the area upstream of Santa Paula and down stream of Piru, is beautiful this time of year.
The mornings are cool and damp. The afternoon temperatures often dip to near tolerable double-digit levels and the smell of freshly tilled dirt is prevalent on the subtle breeze.
Orderly rows of petite greens, herbs and celery, begin to emerge in the fields, lovers of the cool damp mornings that dry into bright sunny afternoons, the same growing conditions that have been ideal for citrus the last 150 years.
