While the twin plights of the endangered Least Tern and Western Snowy Plover have been on local environmentalists’ list of concerns since the two species became locally extinct for a time in the 1960s, these harassed avian populations are receiving fresh support from The Western Alliance for Nature (WAN), a newly formed environmental conservancy organization.
On Memorial Day weekend, WAN sponsored the first outing of the Ormond Beach Wildlife Patrol, a group of concerned local citizens led by project coordinator and longtime environmental activist Alan Sanders. Armed with cell phones, sun block, and informational brochures, lay environmentalists from the Ormond Beach area stood watch over a sensitive tern and plover nesting site, diverting four wheelers and beachcombers to less fragile shores.
“The word is gradually spreading that there are serious enforcement efforts to protect these birds,” Sanders reported.
Sanders has been spearheading a grassroots movement to secure the site, which comprises a stretch of dunes approximately one mile long and 200 yards wide, since he came upon a Least Tern nest there in 1990. The species, along with the Western Snowy Plover, had been attempting to re-establish itself in the area for many years, but both had been suppressed due to random off-road revelry. Adult birds are equipped to elude four wheelers, but nests are at the mercy of motorists, and many have been unwittingly crushed over the years.
At the time, environmental agencies were not responsive to Sanders’ requests for action. “In desperation,” he recalled, “we made signs and put them up on our own for years.” Later, the California Department of Fish and Game provided guidance to Sanders and his compatriots in building a partial fence around the area. However, since Ormond Beach is zoned as a Resource Protection Area, making it impervious to urban development, but not as an official bird sanctuary or nature preserve, local activists and law enforcement agencies are solely responsible for monitoring the area.
During the holiday weekend, volunteers greeted passers-by and off-road enthusiasts with full-color brochures explaining their mission. Devised and produced by WAN, the leaflets are indicative of the increased exposure and support the conservancy is lending to grassroots environmental movements.
“Locally, we have been doing as much as we can, and making some headway,” Sanders said, “but you need to have a structure to make things happen. Now, under the Western Alliance for Nature, we’re able to stage a more organized effort.”
Larry and Sara Wan, a husband and wife team who have been on the forefront of the conservation movement in California for decades, formed WAN late last year in order to acquire and manage property that will be safeguarded in perpetuity, rather than pursuant to changing codes and political sentiments.
Both Larry, a founding father and the first mayor of Malibu, and Sara, who currently acts as a voting public member of the California Coastal Commission, have long been involved in the policy-making arena. “This is our way of making our conservation mission more direct, rather than political,” said Larry Wan.
The Wans became involved with the Ormond Beach wetlands issue in the mid-90s, and continue to initiate conservation projects throughout southern California under the auspices of WAN. “Environmentalists tend to think of southern California as a lost cause,” said Wan, “so they focus on the northern part of the state. That’s fine, but we know there are many active ecosystems in the south that need protecting.” His plan for the Ormond Beach area is to fill the physical gaps between the land that the California Coastal Conservancy is acquiring from Southern California Edison and other landholders in order to make it “a true ecological preserve, with wetlands and uplands connected, and all the resources a functioning ecology requires.”
Janet Bridgers, an Oxnard resident who has been involved in environmental issues for twenty years, spent nearly her entire holiday monitoring the dunes and educating the public. “I’ve generally been involved in media work in the past,” she said, “so it was a profound experience to be able to do something so simple and so hands-on, but so important.” And while public response to the patrol was overwhelmingly positive, Bridgers pointed out that conservation is an endless chain with many links still missing.
“It was so exciting to see the plovers skittering out of the dunes to feed at the water’s edge,” she said. “But then there was a sea lion that had washed up dead on the beach. I felt great about being able to do something for the birds, yet sad and horrible about not being able to do anything for the sea lions.”
“There is still a lot of work to be done,” said Sanders, who is currently scheduling patrol volunteers for every weekend through June and July, “but we’re evolving at a fast pace now. Larry and Sara [Wan] are well-known in the conservation sphere, and they have the ability to get the attention of people who can really make things happen.”
– Rob Campbell
