2024 Activities of Friends of Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve
By Beth Mather, President
40th Anniversary Commemoration
2024 was the 40th year since the founding of the Friends of Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. In June we marked the occasion with a party at the ranch house for old and new members and friends. Following food and socializing, Dr. Oliver Ryder, the Kleberg Endowed Director of Conservation Genetics at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, gave an excellent talk about efforts to recover and sustain species such as Przewalski’s horses, northern white rhinos and California condors. It was an enjoyable evening.
Picnic at 40th Anniversary Commemoration
Outreach to the Community
This year the Friends hosted a booth at 4 events. As we usually do, we participated in the Rancho Penasquitos and Mira Mesa Street Fairs and the annual Arch in the Park hosted by the Archaeological Society. This year we also participated in the San Diego Bird Alliance 75th anniversary. We had a busy October since 3 of these events occurred in that month. Our thanks to all of the volunteers who gave up their October weekends to man the booth.
We continue to offer interpretive hikes throughout the year focusing on birds, plant life, and restoration activities. This year we were pleased to have one of our founding members, Don Albright, return to give a geology hike and a geology lecture. We are looking for some new hike leaders so please email the Friends if you are interested.
The Friends maintain a website and use other social outreach to inform the public of our activities as well as promoting an interest in the nature found in our Open Spaces. Most of you are probably familiar with the website. In addition to great photos, we post our work parties, our hikes, as well as the work parties sponsored by the rangers. Because you are reading this, you know that we also publish a newsletter, which comes out 4 times a year.
Geology Lecture 2024
Don Albright and Jeanie Anderson
Restoration and Preservation
The Friends main activities in terms of time and resources are our restoration and preservation projects.
Santa Luz Grasslands Restoration
In 2024 we continued working on 3 major projects. Our longest running project, the restoration of the Santa Luz Grasslands in Black Mountain and Santa Luz Open Space continues to expand by converting more land covered with artichokes, mustard plants and non-native annual grasses into diverse, native coastal sage shrub and grasslands. This year we held 24 volunteer work parties. These events, held every other Sunday, draw from many different people in the community. This year we had three high school groups who were especially dedicated and came out on a regular basis. A special thanks to the Asian American Parent Alliance’s Student Leadership Club whose activities were organized by Anna Luo and Jenna Huang and to the Youth Build Club and the Youth Care Club out of Del Norte High School organized by Austin Zhang. In 2024 over 725 hours were contributed to this project by our volunteers. Thanks to all of you who planted, carried jugs of water, and weeded. A special thanks goes to the long-time volunteers who have working on this project for years.
Santa Luz Volunteer Work Party
Dec 1, 2024
Darkwood Canyon
The Friends continued working on the two restoration projects that we started in 2023 in the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. In Darkwood Canyon, the small canyon that connects with the main Penasquitos canyon near Park Village Elementary, we have treated hundreds of artichokes, fennel plants, and fan palm as well as large numbers of other invasive plants. We made a big effort this year to deal with the pampas grass and have been able to treat over 800. This project was a major undertaking, and we were pleased that Protect Our Preserve, Inc. (POPS) agreed to partner with us.
Harrier Hill
The second project that the Friends started in 2023 at the west end of the canyon has also continued in 2024. In addition to weed control, some planting of native grasses and forbs was done to help speed up the recovery of this area. As mentioned in last year’s update, this area had previously been a nesting site for harrier hawks before it became overrun with invasive fennel and mustard. The exciting news about this project is that harrier hawks have been observed flying over the area.
Gold Spotted Oak Borers (GSOB)
Several volunteers surveyed the Coast live oaks again this year. We were encouraged by the results as many of the trees looked healthy. We are continuing to treat many of the older oaks. The Penasquitos and Black Mountain rangers and other volunteers monitored entrances to the canyon during the work and Friends volunteers worked with the contractor spray crew. The Friends covered all of the cost this year. We plan to continue to monitor the oaks and adjust the treatment as warranted.
Endangered Plants
The Friends continue to be involved in trying to improve the survival of the endangered plants that are found in our Preserves and Open Space. We continue monitoring and doing weed work around plants such as Brodiaea filifolia, the narrow leaf brodiaea, and Monardella viminea or willowy monardella as well as a few other plants.
Brodiaea filifolia
Picture taken during a survey by Mike Kelly
Gratitude
The Friends plan to continue these activities and projects in the new year. We are also planning an additional project targeting more of the pampas grass around all of the Preserves in the coming years. We hope you will continue to support these activities. We couldn’t have done this work without all our supporters.
