 |
San Diego Audubon Speakers Series
San Diego Audubon offers speakers to groups of 20 adults or more at no expense. All equipment needed to facilitate that appearance will be provided by SDAS. These presentations are designed for civic and community service groups, garden clubs, and other volunteer organizations and seek to apprise the public about the work of SDAS, regional and world conservation issues, and on-going changes and challenges to local wildlife and habitats. These 30 to 60 minute presentations are ideal for weekly luncheon meetings or monthly evening meetings. They include images, sounds, engaging issues, and audience interaction and participation.
If your organization is interested in scheduling a speaker, please contact our office at (619) 682-7200.
|
Healthy Backyard Habitat: The Native Plant Garden
Cultivating a Natural World for Birds and Butterflies |
Description |
Tired of that sterile, motel landscape around your home? Bring life and song to your yard and garden by using native plants and a wildlife friendly design. This presentation demonstrates how you can make your California garden become a slice of our natural landscape that requires minimal maintenance, conserves water and attracts wildlife.
The key lies in having the right mix of native plants coupled with the three things all birds need: food, water and shelter. By using native plants that are adapted to our climate you will have fewer insect and disease problems than with ornamentals and rarely will soil supplements be needed. Best of all, birds and butterflies are naturally drawn to these plants. This PowerPoint program, along with several informational handouts, will get you started on planning your own native plant garden - one that benefits both people and wildlife. 60 minutes.
|
 |
Speaker
|
Mel Hinton
|
|
Nature's Ambassadors:
The Birds of Your Garden
A Who's Who of Avian Angels and Devils |
Description |
This fast-paced and highly interactive program illustrates the most common birds in your garden, and how to keep them there to add color, song, and animation to your flowered slice of heaven. Because each community has its own ecological setting and peculiar mix of birds--think Alpine as opposed to Coronado, the program is tailored for the specific birds of your location.
The audience is divided into competing groups who then try to guess the identity of more than two dozen birds, aided by images, avian calls, and a check-off sheet of bird names. See's Suckers are showered on the winning groups, which all will ultimately be. Some of the best bird photography in Southern California is the highlight of the show, along with natural history explanations of why each bird is special and why it was drawn to your home. Who is the most faithful bird that will never leave your garden? Who's the most fearless? Which relentless hunter uses your greenery to maximize stealth and chances for an easy meal? How do you attract the angels (phoebes and hummingbirds) and discourage the devils (starlings and crows)? It is an informative and entertaining glimpse at a world we often can't see because of the trees (and flowers and shrubs and ……). 60 minutes.
|
 |
Speaker |
Mike Matherly
|
|
Stepping Forward: San Diego Audubon in the 21st Century
Conservation, Wildlife, and the Call to Action |
Description |
This entertaining program highlights who we are and what we do as one of Southern California 's most successful conservation organizations. It explores the rationale behind the choice of birds as a call-to-arms animal for Audubon chapters, and why bird watching is America 's #1 recreational pastime. Local conservation challenges and issues are reviewed in the context of San Diego Audubon's goals, habitat restoration projects, and volunteer programs, including those for children and young adults. Special attention is given to our efforts to protect endangered species and educate school children on the need for environmental awareness and community activism. Currency is foremost.
Brilliant images and songs of local birds contrast with a sobering assessment of avian mortality and survival in the wake of recent San Diego County fires. On the fun side, our members' fund-raising field trips to the tropics carry the viewer away to exotic places and adventure with close-ups of crocs and snakes and spiders and monkeys and our intrepid travelers trying to deftly sidestep all of the same. An itemized summary of how perspective volunteers can help San Diego Audubon save wild things and places for our children focuses on both local and national conservation issues. Time is reserved at the conclusion for questions and discussion. It is, in short, an informative, emotional, and inspiring program that showcases the best of what activist citizens of our county can do. 60 minutes.
|
 |
Speaker |
Mike Matherly
|
|
Turning Up the Heat: Global Climate Change and San Diego
Effects, Remediation, and Changing Habitats
|
Description |
This illustrates the possible effects of global climate change for the San Diego region, and the likely implications for our county's natural environment and regional economy. Significant changes will be caused by the gradual increase in ocean levels, such as the inundation of low-lying coastal portions, accelerated loss of beach sand, and the undercutting of bluffs and bluff-top structures. Rising sea level will also drown portions of local estuaries, thereby adversely affecting species that utilize coastal salt marshes, such as the Clapper Rail.
Because most models of climate change suggest a drier Southwest, concerns for a reliable water supply will become paramount. San Diego is at the end of the water delivery pipeline from our principal sources in the Colorado River basin and northern California . Competition for dwindling supplies between urban and rural users and alternative sources of water re-use, conservation, and desalinization will be discussed.
Finally, increasing warmth and aridity will affect the plant life and wildlife in all regional ecosystems, and wildfire potential will increase. In addition to loss of salt marshes, we may also lose our mountain conifer forests, already stressed by drought, bark beetles, and fire. Importantly for those creatures that feed in those plant communities, bird migration patterns and wintering locations will be affected, perhaps adversely, endangering the food supply for breeding birds.60 minutes.
|
 |
Speaker |
Dr. Phillip Pryde
|
|
Drawing the Line: Conservation and Wildlife in San Diego
Saving Critical Habitats in America's Most Endangered County |
Description |
A sobering look at the effects of urban development on one of the world's most diverse ecosystems and how it still might be saved. Because of the immense range of life zones, everything from beaches to chaparral to mountains to desert, San Diego County has greater diversity and quantity of plant and animal species than any other in the United States . Unfortunately, our population has tripled in 40 years. Now we have the dubious distinction of having more endangered species than any other county in the country. How did it come to this? How many wild places and things are left? What are the planning, conservation, and restoration opportunities that remain? How might community service groups and the citizens of tomorrow, our children, become more involved in changing the fortunes of our local natural world? 60 minutes
|
 |
Speaker |
Jim Peugh
|
|
Alternative Energy and the Environment: Choices and Crunch-time
Advantages and Drawbacks to Renewable Sources |
Description |
A summary of the mechanics, advantages, and problems of alternative energy sources is presented and illustrated in layperson terms. Solar energy is emphasized, for both heating and electrical applications, such as passive heating, photovoltaic, and heat-cycle systems.
One of the fastest growing forms of renewable energy, wind farms, will be reviewed, including its effects on bird and bat mortality. The positives and negatives of geothermal energy development in northern California and in Imperial County are analyzed. While hydroelectricity is controversial because of its adverse effects on rivers and fisheries, there are other types of hydro development that are less damaging to the environment. Finally, the oceans hold several potential methodologies for producing electrical energy, such as tidal power, wave energy, and thermal gradients; each is briefly described, and the reasons why wave energy might be the most promising are discussed. Current interest and development of non-conventional possibilities such as biofuels, oil shale, and nuclear fusion will receive attention. 30 minute.
|
 |
Speaker |
Dr. Phillip Pryde
|
|
Rainforests on the Brink: Saving the Selva
Last and Best Chance to Avert Tropical Armageddon
|
Description |
One of the seminal events in the lives of our children will be the destruction of the last remnants of the world's rainforests, along with the effects of that disaster as they reach far beyond the tropics and into their very homes. Does it have to happen?
Half of all these forests have been cleared since World War II; half of the remainder will disappear in another 12 years. Covering 14% of the world's land area in 1940, the selva (Spanish for “tropical forest”) occupies a mere 6% today, yet still contains 50% of all plant, animal, and insect species on earth. Its diversity of life is mind-boggling (Panama, for example, has more tree species than all of North America) and its influence reaches from the Arctic, to your local pharmacy, to the paper your printer will copy this on.
Join us for an assessment of the fortunes of the world's most vital region, including the role of rainforest meteorology and ecology in global climate and international economics. An accounting of the causes and consequences of deforestation and a review of the best strategies to save what's left, promises to enliven the proceedings. Images and sounds of landscapes and animals, from boas, bell birds, and bullet ants, to ocellated turkeys, piranha, and howler monkeys, will remind us of what we stand to lose without concerted and immediate action. 60 minutes.
|
 |
Speaker |
Mike Matherly
|
|
 |
