Writing Cal Fish & Game about Glen Canyon’s Breeding Season

May 18, 2012 1 Comment

Two of the three Great Horned Owl triplets, taken on April 28, 2012

As readers may know, we have been concerned about the aggressive bush and tree work at Glen Canyon, during the spring breeding season for birds and animals.

(Relevant material: Glen Canyon Park – Chainsaws in the Nesting Season  also,  NAP Lops off Tree Limbs)

The Natural Areas Program is operating under a Streambed Alteration Permit from California Department of Fish & Game. The permit clearly states that work should be avoided during the breeding season.

When our verbal protests to the NAP and to SFRPD got no result, we wrote to Cal Fish & Game. Here is the letter (to which we have had no response thus far):

April 11, 2012

Sandy Brunson
California Department of Fish and Game, District 3
PO Box 47
Yountville, CA 94599

RE:    Violation of Streambed Alteration Permit
Islais Creek, San Francisco, California

Dear Ms. Brunson:

The San Francisco Forest Alliance (SFFA) is a coalition of San Franciscans dedicated to the preservation of the municipal parks of San Francisco for the benefit of people and wildlife.  Please visit our website for information about our mission.  (http://sfforest.net)

In keeping with our mission, we are writing to inform you of the violation of a Streambed Alteration Permit issued by California Department of Fish and Game (see attached application).  This application commits the Natural Areas Program of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department to “perform the work between late summer and early fall (approximately July to November).”  The application makes the following commitment to avoid work during the breeding season:

“It is the policy of RPD’s Natural Areas Program that no new projects will begin during the breeding season (December to May).  Follow up work in previously cleared areas may be done during the breeding season, however, because areas will have been cleared previously. Wildlife will not likely be using these areas for breeding.  This protocol has been effective in reducing impacts to breeding wildlife.”

In fact, the Natural Areas Program began the destructive phase of this project in November and the work has continued as recently as April 2, 2012.  We have documented the progress of this destruction in the attached photos which are dated.   As you can see, chainsaws are being used to severely cut trees and destroy shrubs (many of which are native) and pesticides are being used to kill vegetation.  We have also enclosed photos of animals that were taken in Glen Canyon Park.

We have repeatedly protested the destruction of the vegetation used by the wildlife that lives in Glen Canyon Park since the project began.  We wrote to Lisa Wayne, the Natural Areas Program Manager, when the project began.  She refused to stop the project.  We also met twice with her immediate supervisor, Ana Alvarez, Superintendent of Parks and Open Spaces.  Our requests for subsequent meetings were denied.

We learned of the violation of the Streambed Alteration Permit on April 5, 2012, as a result of a public records request. On Friday, April 6, 2012, we brought that information to the attention of Phil Ginsberg, the General Manager of the Recreation and Park Department.  Lisa Wayne was present at that meeting.

Ms. Wayne’s explanation for conducting this work during breeding and nesting season was that the grant that is funding this project is about to expire.  The work is therefore being done, in violation of the Streambed Alteration Permit, in order to avoid the loss of expiring funds.  We do not find this an acceptable justification for conducting this destructive project during breeding season.

We respectfully request that the California Department of Fish and Game instruct the Natural Areas Program and the Recreation and Park Department to stop this project immediately.  We also request that the California Department of Fish and Game use whatever legal sanctions are at its disposal to take appropriate punitive action and to prevent such violations of legal commitments in the future.

Please inform me of the actions taken by California Department of Fish and Game in response to this violation of the Streambed Alteration Permit of the Natural Areas Program of the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department.

Sincerely,

Eric Miller
President
San Francisco Forest Alliance

Cc:    Mayor of San Francisco, Edwin Lee
California Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, District 12
San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener, District 8

Enclosures:    Streambed Alteration Permit Application
Photos of project
Photos of animals taken in Glen Canyon Park

And here are the attachments (Clicking on the pictures will give larger versions):

Glen Canyon “Restoration”

And here are a small selection of the numbers of species of wildlife that live and breed in Glen Canyon Park.

Filed under "Natural" Areas Program, Ruins Habitat Tagged with , , , , ,

NAP Lops Off Tree Limbs In The Middle Of Nesting Season

April 29, 2012 4 Comments

Two of the three Great Horned Baby Owlets, taken on April 28, 2012

Three weeks ago, at a meeting with Recreation and Parks Department Director Phil Ginsburg and Natural Areas Program Director Lisa Wayne, we asked why there had been a huge amount of clearing in Glen Canyon Park during the denning and nesting season — wasn’t this in violation of the grant which stipulated specifically that work must be confined to Summer and Fall when the animals were not nesting?  The nesting season runs from Winter through the Spring, yet clearing and toxic herbicides have been applied continuously from November through April in Glen Canyon Park. See Nesting Bewick’s Wren in a “Naturalized Area”. Phil Ginsburg didn’t know the answer, but he assumed Lisa Wayne would give a good answer. But she had no good explanation, only a bad one. Lisa admitted that she broke the rules in order not to lose funds from a grant that was about to expire.

One would have thought that with our reminder during that meeting on April 6th, this breach might not be made again. But no. Yesterday, April 27th, there were at least five trucks with tree-cutting equipment in that park. There was also a sign: “tree work”.  Visitors to the park at first were deceptively relieved when they heard that trees were simply going to be trimmed — they were not going to actually be cut down. But few had thought the issue through: This is nesting season. Everyone who knows anything about wildlife knows that you don’t interfere with habitat when animals are raising their young.

We don’t know how many birds were displaced, nor how many nests were destroyed. We do know that lopping off limbs occurred within less than 100 feet of our owl family — there was tremendous noise, and tremendous activity. The owl triplets nesting in the crook of a Eucalyptus tree have not fledged — they cannot fly yet. And the Red Tail Hawks, though further away, are still sitting on their eggs. Countless songbirds live in these trees. Nesting season is in full swing. This activity should be protested to your Supervisors, the Parks Commissioners and to the Recreation and Parks Department.

Filed under "Natural" Areas Program, Ruins Habitat, Wastes Money

San Francisco Examiner: Trail proposal at San Francisco’s Twin Peaks up for debate

February 17, 2012 3 Comments

Some time ago, we’d posted here about the wonderful twisted willow trees in the “Outback Trail” in Glen Canyon Park that are threatened with removal. Recently, we learned about the “Creek to Peaks” trail planned to connect Glen Canyon to Twin Peaks.

At present, it looks as though the planned trail would drive right through this unusual and beloved trail, completely destroying its quirky character.

The San Francisco Examiner interviewed an SF Forest Alliance member about it. Janet Kessler pointed out that the trail did not need to go through this very special area or destroy habitat on which the wildlife of the canyon depend.

Read the whole story here.

Filed under "Natural" Areas Program, Ruins Habitat, Wastes Money Tagged with , , , , ,

Run, Forest, Run!

February 14, 2012 Leave a comment

The NAP’s going to get you!

Filed under "Natural" Areas Program, Fells Trees, Ruins Habitat Tagged with , , , ,

West Portal Monthly: Clearcut Case of Overkill at Mt Davidson Park

February 13, 2012 Leave a comment

The West Portal Monthly today published an article by Jacquie Proctor explaining the problem of the NAP specifically at Mt Davidson and generally throughout the city.  The plan seeks to destroy at least 1600 trees on Mt Davidson alone. Read on:

Filed under "Natural" Areas Program, Applies Pesticides, Blocks Access, Fells Trees, Ruins Habitat, Wastes Money Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Preserving Our Urban Forests & Wildlife Habitat

January 24, 2012 Leave a comment

This post has been reprinted with permission from Coyote Yipps.

Some links, etc have been added.

——————————————————————————————–

Young Great Horned Owls being raised in non-native Eucalyptus tree

Brown creeper forages on eucalyptus

San Francisco Forest Alliance: Preserving Our Urban Forests & Wildlife Habitat

By Janet Kessler

I hope everyone is as concerned about our wildlife habitat as I am. Please check out, and join, the new San Francisco Forest Alliance at SFForest.Net. Their goal is to preserve the forests, trees and thickets, all of which serve as wildlife animal habitat. Slated for removal in the new Natural Areas Program, NAP, plan are 18,000 trees, most of them mature and majestic specimens. They provide ecological benefits and species habitat which are still little understood by NAP.

Here is the background:

Trees, forests, and dense thickets of underbrush — thickets which are impenetrable to dogs and humans — serve as wildlife habitat: they offer physical protection and food to wild animals. Almost all trees in San Francisco are non-native — there were only four native species of trees in the area when the Europeans arrived. Non-native berries such as Himalayan blackberry, cotoneaster, pyracantha, holly and others serve as food sources for birds and furry creatures. These are being ripped out in our parks for the shortsighted intention of  ”restoring” the San Francisco area to what it might have been like in 1776 — mostly sand-dune grasses and understory species with little if any habitat value.

But the environment has totally changed since that time.

The biggest change which altered the landscape forever has been the growth of a dense human population. This impacted the environment tremendously.  But when humans came, they also planted trees and shrubbery to help them deal with the harsh environment — mostly to hold in the loose sands which blew around everywhere, and as wind barriers. The plantings did more than this, they added greenery and beauty to the area. And they created a wildlife habitat which is now home to almost all of our wildlife. Because of these and other changes, even the original soil structure along with the microorganisms that were part of the sand dune ecosystem have been altered forever.

The new plantings grew and evolved. Ours, now, is a totally balanced ecosystem that has evolved over the last 250 years, and it is a healthy ecosystem. An indicator of the health of an ecosystem is it’s top predator. There are coyotes in San Francisco — our ecosystem is very healthy.  Now, along with our dense human population, we have paved roads, lots of automobiles, plenty of pollution  – we need our trees to combat the environmental effects of our dense population and the way we live.  San Francisco has the second smallest tree canopy of any dense urban center in the United States. Our urban forests are essential in terms of carbon sequestration and water sequestration — they help the environment and combat the effects of global warming. Every single tree counts. Yet more of our healthy, hard working naturalized trees are being ripped out and replaced with grasses and shrubs that are not sustainable in the present environment, all in the name of a clearly misguided environmentalism and false science.

Sustainability is something we all aspire to. However, in the time since the Native Plant program began in San Francisco, we have discovered that, in fact, native plants are not very self-sustainable. These native plants require a vast number of volunteer work hours to maintain them. In addition, our Recreation and Park Department is, literally, splashing poisonous pesticides on our parks’ non-native species regularly in order to accomplish their nativist goals. We have tried fighting this policy, but the use of poisons in the Park Department’s so-called “natural areas program”/NAP has actually increased 265% in one year alone, from 2009 to 2010. They are using these pesticides in parks where children play, where there is wildlife, where we walk our pets, and where there is a creek — the manufacturer of these chemicals warn strongly against this. The “natural areas program” is clearly not “natural” at all.

Critics of NAP question not only the program’s expenditures in budget-tight times but also the native plant advocates’ rhetoric, ”  ’Restoration ecology’ is a euphemism for a kind of gardening informed by an almost cultish veneration of the ‘native’ and abhorrence of the naturalized, which is commonly characterized as ‘invasive,’ ” Arthur Shapiro, a distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, wrote city planning officials last October. (Sacramento Bee, 1/16/12). People are finally waking up to what is occurring in their parks — and they are desperately alarmed.

An image  is worth a thousand words. [Please visit the article on the Coyote Yipps blog for more amazing images of native wildlife that depend on non-native habitats.]

Filed under "Natural" Areas Program, Ruins Habitat

Action Alert: Destroying the Character from Glen Canyon Park

January 14, 2012 8 Comments

One of the things everyone loves the most about our Glen Canyon is that it’s a wilderness park with rough and tumble Huck Finn paths in the back area. It’s about to be ruined. We need your help to try to stop this. (Scroll down for what you can do.)

This is the wonderful path that is going to be changed into just another trail.

Here, you can return to a wildness for a while, escaping from all that is civilized, modern and managed. The path winds through dense growth and has lots of “down” trees that you need to step over, or tunnel under – these bent and twisted trees are particularly beloved by those of us who walk it daily.

There is a “log” over the creek, and there is a rope swing if you go back far enough. Hardly touched at all, this has been our haven for so long – it has been my haven for 35 years.

Recently NAP has been thinning the thickets, cutting into the willows, removing the the ground cover. And now, they want to raze the fabulous trees which give the park its character. Trees have been ribboned in pink — though walkers have pulled most of these off as a way to protest, but the trees still retain the condemning splash of green paint which marks them for removal.

We need to protest loudly, and to everyone who even might listen.

Appendix J of the NAP DEIR page 3 says, “The SFRPD’s Tree Removal Procedures require that all trees designated for removal be posted at 30 days before removal. The public is invited to comment about the proposed removal, and the SFRPD may or may not modify its plan based on public input.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

We should call/email:

  • Ana Alvarez, the NAP Supervisor,
  • Supervisor Scott Wiener (Glen Canyon is in District 8),
  • Mayor Ed Lee.

These trees in Glen Canyon should reference this procedure, request a copy of it, and the name and address of who the public is invited to comment to about this tree removal. We expect they are not following their own procedure and we need to point that out. The designated trees don’t have any information on them about who to contact or no 30-day notices. And they probably will cut them down before 30 days are up.

Let your friends and neighbors know that they, too, can help by calling and writing letters — our power will come from the number of people who do something about this.

WHAT TO SAY

We want to retain our park — the wilderness we cherish — as it is. Please do not cut down any trees, including those that are “down”, forming tunnels over the paths and little bridges to step over. The entire community is extremely upset at all the clearing that has gone on, and now at the prospect of losing our trees. The trees give this particular park it’s character — a wild feeling where one can truly feel and play Huck Finn.

We all stated during the community meetings last Spring that we wanted the park kept wild — we have not been listened to. We are also concerned that no 30-day notices have been posted on the trees, telling us where we may meet to comment — isn’t this required? Please do not cut our trees. Please tell us what we can do to stop this destruction.

STAY INVOLVED

Send an email to SFForestNews@gmail.com  letting us know if you would like to help, and signing up for our newsletter.

For those that haven’t seen it, here is the Draft Assessment of the Urban Forestry Operations that is pretty insightful: http://www.sfrecpark.org/documents/FileTree/PROSAC/Materials/2010%20Materials/070610/RPD%20tree%20operation%20assessment%20DRAFT%206.19.2010.pdf

Filed under "Natural" Areas Program, Fells Trees, Ruins Habitat Tagged with , ,

How Unnatural can San Francisco’s “Natural” Areas get?

January 12, 2012 1 Comment

This post is republished with some modifications and permission from Save Sutro Forest.

—————————————————————————

Why San Francisco’s Natural Areas are – Unnatural

by Save Sutro Forest

WHEN I first heard about San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program (SF NAP) some years ago, I was charmed. Over 1000 acres of city-owned land would be left to Nature, more wild and free than the orderly, gardened lawns and playgrounds (which I also appreciated, in a different way). Kudos to the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department (SFRPD) — which owns the SF NAP — was my reaction.

These would be spaces, I thought, where plants and animals and people could interact naturally. Birds and animals could safely breed in tangled thickets; so could bees and butterflies and other insects. They’d provide enough cover for birds and animals to hide from dogs, cats, hawks, coyotes, raccoons — and people. These spaces would be free of the toxic chemicals used in managing parks. Dogs could be allowed to romp through areas wild enough to tolerate disturbance. The only intervention, I assumed, would be to maintain some degree of safety on trails that animals and people would blaze through these areas.

If like me, you thought that Natural Areas were going to be, well, natural… then like me, you were mistaken.

NATURAL VS “NATIVE”

San Francisco’s “Natural Areas” program is really about is Native Plants, most of which no longer grow in these places naturally. These plants grew (or may have grown) in these 46.9 square miles some 300 years ago. Some are still there. Others, even though common elsewhere, aren’t found in the city any more. Instead, other plants grow there, adding to the biodiversity of the area. According to Peter Kareiva of the Nature Conservancy, there are 25% more species in California than there were before “non-native” plants got here.

What we’re actually getting, then, is Native Plant Gardens, 32 of them. Trying to push these spaces back in time means they must be managed and maintained, because San Francisco now is a different place and a different ecology from the windblown hills and sand-dunes of its pre-colonial past.

What does this management and maintenance imply?

POURING ON PESTICIDES

Since there’s a lot of area, and a lot of plants, this means a lot of pesticides. According to the records, Natural Areas had 69 applications of pesticides in 2010, most of them Tier I and Tier II pesticides like Garlon and Roundup. (San Francisco groups permissible pesticides into three tiers, with Tier I being the most dangerous and Tier III the least. The SF NAP hasn’t used Tier III pesticides, they’re all Tier I or II.)

Some — including Native Plant doyen Jake Sigg — have argued that one or two applications in a decade are all that’s needed, and are thus justified. That hasn’t been our experience. Two nearby Native Areas — Twin Peaks and Glen Canyon — have been sprayed many times annually for many years. According to their communications with some concerned neighbors, the SF NAP does not expect to stop.

MUSEUM-IFICATION

Some years ago, Save Sutro Forest ran an article on museum-ification. This is the fate of many of these “natural” areas: they come with more, not fewer, restrictions than gardens and parks. Many of the paths animals and people made naturally, called “social trails” are blocked. (They current plan closes or relocates over 9 miles of trails.) There are formal trails, and people must stay on them. They are discouraged from actually interacting with these environments, except as gardening or trail-building volunteers.

Some 86% of the city’s dog-play off-leash areas are in areas controlled by the SF NAP. They plan to close up to 80% of these. (This comes on the heels of a plan to ban all dogs from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.)

TREES BEING CUT AND HABITAT DESTROYED

Trees are being chopped down. San Francisco had some wonderful eucalyptus forests, many of them over a century old with a complex habitat and dense understory. Most of these are already gone.

The eucalyptus trees — defined as “invasive trees” despite the evidence that they are not invading anything — are non grata. So too the Monterey pine and the Monterey cypress; those are native to distant Monterey, all the way down the peninsula. Many trees have already been felled, and many thousands more are doomed. (That’s only counting those over 15 feet tall; the SFNAP counts smaller trees as “saplings” or “seedlings” and cuts them at will.)

The plan, for “urban forests” is to cut down trees until they’re down to a “basal area” of 200-600 feet per acre. This gives an estimated 60-200 trees per acre. (By comparison, Sutro Forest averages 740 trees per acre.)

In addition, the plan calls for removing blackberry thickets, one of the richest and safest habitats for birds and animals. It calls for removing fennel, another tall and dense habitat plant which, just incidentally, is the nursery plant for the native Anise Swallowtail butterfly. It calls for removing vines from the trees, all of which provide some of the complex habitat small birds need.

In fact, it seems to call for removing anything that grows lush and dense and useful to birds and animals. The result wouldn’t be a forest (urban or otherwise); it would be a garden with some trees in it.

WHAT WE SUPPORT…

We’d like to clarify what SaveSutro supports:

We are for preservation of existing habitats and ecosystems. We think places like the coastal scrub area on the slope above Laguna Honda Reservoir, (which has not been invaded by the contiguous eucalyptus forest!) deserve protection. This area is, incidentally, owned by the SF Water Department, not the SF Recreation and Parks Department. It’s visible from the road, but is not publicly accessible.

We’re fine with planting scrappy semi-industrialized areas like Heron’s Head Park into Native Plant gardens; that area had a recent win when Clapper Rails nested there and successfully produced chicks.

…AND WHAT WE DON’T

  • We object to converting parks devoted to other uses into such Native Gardens by imposing numerous restrictions.
  • We object to habitat destruction; birds, insects and animals all use these “non-native’ habitats.
  • We object to felling thousands of trees.
  • Most of all, we object to the use of toxic pesticides in areas that should, naturally, be free of chemicals.

Filed under Applies Pesticides, Blocks Access, Fells Trees, Ruins Habitat Tagged with ,