40-Year Celebration at the Ranch House
On June 22nd, join the Friends of Penasquitos Canyon celebrating 40 years of environmental protection, restoration and education. We have a few fun activities planned, and some really great speakers.
Beginning at 4 PM, we’ll be at the Ranch House: bring your picnic dinner and we will provide tables and chairs, soft drinks/iced tea/water and dessert. You can enter a raffle for the chance to win a guide to local bird species you can observe in the Canyon, or in your own backyard. Or grab one of the native seed packets we are giving away to promote native plant use.
At 5 PM, we'll host representatives from the Mayor's office, from the District 6 Office, and from the County Supervisor's office, who will acknowledge the Friends' contribution over the years.
Our President Beth Mather will present our ongoing activities - guided hikes, restoration projects, rare plant surveys - as well as future plans for expanding the current projects.
After that Mike Kelly, the long time Conservation Chair of the Friends, will take the time to recognize some of the first members who fought to preserve the Canyon in its natural beauty. That’s right, 40 years ago the plan was to develop the whole area: it took some very determined individuals, with organization skills and a vision for the future, to oppose the destruction of the Canyon, and preserve the area as we know it today. Some of them are still with us and we can all thank them for their hard work. We’ll have some displays that will highlight the history of battles won and lost in the past 40 years, here is a short list.
Also, we are incredibly excited to have Dr. Oliver Ryder as guest speaker on “Biobanking for Conservation”. Drawing on his career experience with endangered species conservation, Dr. Ryder will reflect on lessons learned from efforts to recover and sustain species such as Prewalski's horses, northern white rhinos and California condors using the resources of San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance's Frozen Zoo. Not your everyday lecture!!!!
We’d love to have you all, if you are planning to drop by please RSVP so we have a rough idea of how many chairs we’ll need to accommodate everyone.
