SBAS is actively working on many projects related to our three main focus areas: education, conservation, and science. This column will be updated regularly with an overview of selected current projects and goals (project list is not all-inclusive). Likewise, the goals summarize what each SBAS committee is working towards with occasional opportunities for member involvement.
From the desk of Katherine Emery, Executive Director
Current Projects
Goals
Education
- Creating digital outreach and learning materials to share Eyes in the Sky (EITS) raptor ambassadors with local schools, Scout clubs, & retirement communities.
- Developing interactive online Meet Your Wild Neighbor (MYWN) curriculum to support local 1st – 3rd
- Building outreach with UCSB Goleta Coast Audubon.
- Share new SBAS Learning Resources and EITS video. https://santabarbaraaudubon.org/learning-resources/
- Deliver adapted MYWN wildlife education program to local classrooms in the 2020-21 school year.
- Safely reintroduce in-person outreach programs with live raptors at Santa Barbara’s Museum of Natural History, redesigned for socially-distanced audiences.
- Create “socially distant” adapted bird walks, bird sits, and monthly evening programs.
Conservation
- Meeting with agency decision-makers, providing public comments, and signing local conservation letters to promote bird, habitat, and biodiversity protections.
- Using science to inform decision making for bird protections and their habitat for Goleta creeks and watersheds and Wildfires Protection Plans.
- Encouraging use of Santa Barbara County Breeding Bird Study records as a tool to inform land management and resource planning.
- Build advocacy to protect local open spaces, wetlands, bird habitats, and ecosystems.
- Collaborate with Goleta Parks & Open Space Manager, SB County Flood Control staff, and others to preserve birdlife and habitat at regional open spaces (Lake Los Carneros (LLC) & Ellwood), creek corridors, and Coal Oil Point Reserve (COPR).
- Remind agencies that fuels reduction should occur during non-breeding times, specifically during the months ending with “r”: September, October, November, December.
Science
- Completing 9th year of Nest Box monitoring at LLC to understand Tree Swallows (TRES) and Western Bluebirds (WEBL) breeding more deeply.
- Invertebrate project perseveres in reduced capacity.
- Finishing Purple Martin nest cavity surveys at Nojoqui Falls Park.
- Summarize Nest Box breeding data at LLC & COPR.
- Complete data analyses about invertebrate research at North Campus Open Space & COPR.
- Explore research and conservation fund to protect Purple Martins.
