President’s Annual Appeal for 2021

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The Western Gulls have already chipped in. (Photo: Grace Murayama 7-23-17)

A Reminder…

We are asking you to consider giving us your support this year. Remember, this is our only fund raising effort. We don’t pester you weekly, monthly, or throughout the year. Your help allows our all-volunteer group to accomplish our mission “to be a center for wildlife education, habitat protection, and conservation issues that involve birds.”

These efforts are of increasing importance in view of the past decreasing support for environmental issues coming from the Federal Administration.

You can DONATE four different ways:

• With the self-addressed envelope enclosed with the annual appeal letter (sent to those already on our membership rolls)
• Send a check to our mailing address: SMBAS, PO Box 35, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
• With PayPal using the PayPal Widget located on the right side bar of the blog
• With a Credit Card using the same PayPal Widget located on the right side bar of the blog.  You do not have to join PayPal to donate, just have your credit card “standing by.”

Please take a moment and make a donation today.

We continue our strong backing of all things birds, habitat, native plants, the environment and conservation through education, field trips, bird monitoring, speakers and grants to students and conservation groups.

Please take a minute to read the annual appeal letter below and see what we have been doing this year.

Thank you,

Jean Garrett
President

This year again has not been the kind that any of us anticipated.   In times like this, it can be difficult to look forward and see a clear pathway ahead.  So it is with some trepidation that we come to you and ask our fellow members for their annual support.  This is our only fund raising effort by our all-volunteer group. The pressures on our natural habitat continue unabated and are likely to require more effort than normal to find sustainable conservation solutions as we face unprecedented environmental conditions.  Your donation is needed to continue the strong SMBAS support of all things bird, habitat, native plants, natural environment, and conservation.

In addition, would you please fill out the enclosed survey even if you cannot make a donation.  Your information will help us plan programs and field trips better suited to your interests.  Currently, some of our activities – those which can be transferred to electronic discussion, or involve only small numbers of people – continue without interruption.  But we are looking for alternate approaches and your responses will help.  Even with the pandemic, SMBAS continues to focus on:

Education

• We continue our support of the Student Conservation Association which provides hands-on conservation service and training where possible in the Santa Monica Mountains and/or Butterbredt Spring area, the site of our annual Christmas Count.
• For the Audubon Education Program at Ballona Wetlands, we will (when the program resumes), fund bus scholarships to help elementary school students visit Ballona Wetlands for field trips that – for many – is their first glimpse of a natural area.

Public Outreach

• Our evening speaker programs are diverse and insightful. They are held the first Tuesday of October through May, except January. We are currently conducting Zoom meetings, so keep in touch for topics and access via the BLOG, http://www.facebook.com/SantaMonicaAudubon/ or Twitter at http://twitter.com/SMBAudubon.  Zoom has allowed us to have speakers from as far away as Australia.  We will continue Zoom only programs thru December, and hope to have hybrid programs when we meet in person.
• Our ever popular monthly Malibu Lagoon walks will resume them when it is safe to do so.  Our diverse and richly rewarding series of field trips on the second Saturday of the month also are on sabbatical.  We hope to restart Malibu Lagoon and other field trips in January 2022.  By signing up to receive email notifications via our BLOG, www.smbasblog.com, you will always be on top of upcoming trips and meetings when they are scheduled.

Bird Monitoring

• Western Snowy Plovers (a Threatened species). Our support for this monitoring effort (and for the Endangered Least Terns and for Brown Pelicans) into subsequent years is imperative in collaboration with State, Federal, and local agencies. We continue our monthly Snowy Plover counts at Malibu Lagoon, Santa Monica Beach, and Zuma Beach.  Check out our Snowy Plover page and slideshow on the blog. 
• To support the Snowy Plovers, we also help fund the cost of maintaining fencing at Santa Monica beach and a plover/tern volunteer coordinator for Los Angeles County. We also participate in regional coordination efforts and the Rangewide Snowy Plover Conference.

Habitat Conservation and Research

• We offer small, but essential, research grants to local college students. Grants last year were limited because Covid closed the schools. We are able to increase the number of grants for students from UCLA, Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount, and California State University Los Angeles. Since 2005, sixty-two grants have been awarded.
• We endowed a second scholarship at Santa Monica College, and made an additional contribution to the original scholarship endowment.
• We also support Friends of Big Morongo, Endangered Habitats League, American Bird Conservancy, and Birder’s Exchange.
• We have send a donation to support the Mountain Lion Freeway Crossing in Agoura.

This is your chapter and we hope you will join us in many of these activities, either in distance learning format, or in person when they again become available.  We welcome your input to this diverse program of events. If you wish to receive or continue to receive our bi-monthly, single sheet paper news update/calendar, please indicate on the enclosed remittance envelope.  (You need not donate to receive the print version.). Please remember all contributions are fully tax deductible and will be used exclusively in direct support of our programs. 

We hope you will consider the solid positive impact of our group and make a
contribution if you are in a position to do so.

Thank you in advance for your consideration and your generosity.  We very much hope you are healthy and in good spirits. Your critical support matters to the environment and to the birds.

Jean Garrett
President
post office box 35  pacific palisades  california  90272

Future Meetings:

Dec 7, 2021   TBA
Feb 1, 2022   Ashli Gorbet, Banding Projects Manager, Black Swamp Observatory, Ohio
Mar 1, 2022   TBA
Apr  5, 2022   TBA
May 3, 2022   TBA

Please check the blog www.smbasblog.com for changes and updates.

[posted by Chuck Almdale]