In a nail-biting, down-to-the-wire finish to four years of intense effort to reform and strengthen the Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act, the 104th Congress, shortly before adjourning this congressional session, signed off on the strongest reauthorization of this major natural resource law ever. The Magnuson Fisheries Act is the nation's most important federal law for managing and conserving our living marine resources. Had Congress failed to act, the entire process would have had to start over again next year.

Credit for this success goes in large measure to the unprecedented effort by the Marine Fish Conservation Network, a coalition of 100 environmental, scientific and fishing groups representing 6 million individuals, for orchestrating and coordinating the efforts of the many groups and individuals who worked tirelessly for four years to bring this campaign to fruition. Co-founders of the Network were Audubon, Center for Marine Conservation, Greenpeace, National Coalition for Marine Conservation, and World Wildlife Fund.

Central to the campaign's success was adoption of Network-crafted overfishing language, for without a change in the way fisheries were perceived and managed, depletion would continue. The new Magnuson Act language strikes at the heart of the overfishing problem. It prevents short-term economic gain and social factors from taking precedence over the long-term economic and ecological health of the fisheries by prohibiting catch levels that exceed maximum sustainable yield. This closed the loophole that had allowed overfishing to continue when fishers claimed they would be adversely affected economically by catch reductions recommended for biological or conservation reasons. The new provisions also mandate the rebuilding of depleted fish populations to levels that support maximum sustainable yield. Fishery management councils have 24 months to implement these changes.

The waste of millions of pounds of non-target fish taken as bycatch compounds the problem of overfishing. Yet, as Magnuson came in for reauthorization in 1992, it contained no language to limit such waste. This omission was remedied in the current reauthorization, where a new National Standard requires fishery management plans to take steps to "minimize" bycatch of non-target fish, and when bycatch is unavoidable, to reduce mortality. In addition, a loophole that allowed Gulf shrimpers to avoid the use of bycatch reduction devices, or BRDs, (Gulf shrimp trawls take on average ten pounds of fish and other marine life for each pound of shrimp caught) was closed. This fishery must now develop and evaluate BRDs, and the implementation of any bycatch reduction measures to shrimp trawls are to be applied throughout the range of the bycatch species in U.S. waters.

Another first for this Magnuson reauthorization is a provision to help protect essential fish habitat, or "those waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding or growth to maturity." The increasing loss of marine fish habitat--to pollution, development, population pressures, and other human activities--is the single, largest long-term threat to the future viability of marine fisheries. In recognition of this important fact, fishery management councils must now identify and describe essential fish habitat in fishery management plans, and minimize adverse impacts on those habitats caused by fishing. The Councils may also make recommendations to federal, and other management agencies, in the mitigation of habitat-damaging activities by those agencies. In addition, federal agencies must consult with the Secretary of Commerce on any proposed actions that could adversely affect fish habitats.

Although the new law takes big strides toward putting our fisheries on a more sustainable course, the biggest challenge lies ahead: we must implement the reforms we have worked so hard to incorporate into the Act. This will take the continued involvement of the conservation community. Fishery management councils and agencies must repeatedly hear that healthy oceans and fisheries are a top conservation priority. At stake is the vitality and viability of our diverse marine ecosystems, and the economic well-being of our coastal and fishing communities. While much remains to be done, we can and should celebrate what many consider to be the only major environmental legislation to come out of this Congress. A toast all around to a job well done!

Since ancient times people have celebrated the winter solstice as a time of new beginnings. The days are getting longer. There is hope that longer days will bring warmer weather. It is a time when we look back on the old year and take stock. We also look forward to the new year and resolve to do better.

In many ways 1996 was a very successful year for our club. Our "Veggieburger Barbecue and Star Party" was well attended and enjoyed by all. Several participants suggested making it an annual event. The young people involved in the Youth Environmental Service (Audubon YES!) program have helped to educate youngsters, to restore habitats in many areas, and clean up the environment. (See the September-October issue of Audubon Magazine, page 102, for an interesting report about this program.) The good work is spreading as many Southern California Audubon chapters are adopting the YES! program.

The person most responsible for the success of this effort is Jess Morton. At the National Convention he received the recognition he deserved by being awarded the prestigious Callison Award, given to the most effective environmental activist in all the Audubon chapters.

We also received another award for increasing our membership by 130% over last year's increase. Our environmental education programs, such as "Sharing Nature With Children" and "Audubon Adventures," are reaching more and more children in grades 4, 5, and 6.

In our very successful Christmas Bird Count, 175 species of birds were identified. My San Pedro group had a great time and counted 59 species.

Enough about 1996! I'm looking forward to 1997 and, being a cockeyed optimist, I believe it will be even better than 1996. In the past, we have been concerned mainly about the land ecosystems of the Peninsula and South Bay, but this year we have joined the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in planning a workshop to explore the ocean ecosystem. On May 17th PV/SB Audubon and the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium will cosponsor a workshop on the ocean environment and fisheries.

Let us continue to work as if the welfare of our civilization and our species is in our hands. And hope that by the new millennium we will be doing our share to build an ethic of conservation.

Thanks to the those who attended our January Leadership Conference in Folsom. We had 35 of 53 California chapters represented (including PV/SB Audubon). The goal of the meeting was to inform, equip and inspire us on to great things in '97. From my perspective, the mission was accomplished!

You may have heard by now the OUTSTANDING news that we are much  closer to the acquisition of Bair Island in San Francisco Bay. We featured the Bair Island story as the lead article in our December newsletter to all Audubon members in the state. The good news is that the Japanese owner, Kumagai Gumi, has agreed to sell the property to a local land trust who will in turn, sell it to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The sale will be completed in May or June. This is great news for wildlife in SF Bay. More than a  thousand acres of new wetlands will be created when the land is purchased and the restoration work gets underway.

We in Audubon, especially our Bay Area Chapters, can feel very, very good for our collective role in breaking the gridlock and getting Bair Island on its way to restoration. Audubon's media  consultant, Bill Rukeyser is a hero in this effort. It was his idea to take the Bair Island Story straight to Japan. His idea coupled with his energy have returned enormous dividends for nature. Hooray Bill!

The flooding in central and northern California has kicked up  political controversy and has given new life to the call for more dams and other public works projects. Two of our sanctuaries, the Wattis Sanctuary in Colusa County and the Bobelaine Sanctuary in Sutter County, were both entirely inundated. Some damage probably happened, but the birds will get through it fine.

However, I was asked by Senator Dianne Feinstein to attend a meeting she had called with other environmental leaders to talk about the flood. I thought it was to discuss long term solutions. No, it turned out to be a two hour session focused primarily on how the Endangered Species Act contributed measurably to the disaster.

It seems the claim is being made that consultations on the giant garter snake (federal) and the Swainson's hawk (state listed) had  stopped the levee operators from doing proper maintenance. She was flanked by about a half dozen county supervisors, brass from the Corps, and the Fish and Wildlife Service who were definitely in the rifle sights during the meeting. I've been in too many meeting where ESA has been the fall guy for every natural and social calamity to hit California, that I said ENUF!

For about 10 minutes of the meeting, the senator and I had an interesting discussion about the real causes of this kind of disaster--rivers too confined, floodplains developed, watersheds trashed, dams too full in servicing irrigation to hold the runoff... That sort of thing. Did she learn anything? Not outwardly at least. But we will keep trying. Political leaders need to be reminded of their responsibilities to develop effective long term solutions. On the issue of the floods of '97, Senator Feinstein isn't there yet.

The Palos Verdes/South Bay Audubon Society and Cabrillo Marine Aquarium will cosponsor a conference on Southern California Fisheries, May 17. This one-day program will give an overview of the history and current status of all our marine fisheries, together with current management practices and prospects for the future. The way in which fisheries fit into California's emerging marine resources management plan will be explored, and the day will conclude with a panel discussion and an overview summarizing the day's talks. Among the speakers will be Dr. Carl Safina, director of Audubon's Living Oceans Campaign, and author of a new book and recent Scientific American article on the state of world fisheries. Schedule permitting, California Assembly­member Debra Bowen, chair of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, will moderate the panel discussion.

See the next edition of Hummin' for full details, but mark your calendar now for this extra special event.

On Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 15 and 16, Martin Byhower, cosponsored by PV/South Bay Audubon, will lead a birding trip to Vandenburg Air Force Base and Santa Barbara County.

By special permission, the Air Force and the La Purisima Audubon Chapter will be our hosts at Vandenburg Air Force Base which, along with the Santa Ynez River that bisects it, hosts pristine waterfowl ponds, willow-riparian habitat, and a spectacular estuarine/shoreline congregation of shorebirds and seabirds. On the way up we'll visit Lake Cachuma and a variety of other Santa Barbara County hot spots, with large numbers of species guaranteed, including lots of "good birds" and the possibility of some true rarities over the two full birding days! Comfortable motel lodging in Lompoc. Trip is limited and early registration is crucial!

TARGET BIRDS: Some excellent possibilities for rare shorebirds and waterfowl and some northern passerines. Rare species that have turned up in areas we'll visit include Common Black-headed gull, Little Curlew, Ruff, Barrow's Goldeneye, Garganey, Dusky Warbler, and many more. It is reasonable to expect Bald Eagle, Thayer's and other uncommon gulls, Tundra Swan, White-winged scoters, Common Goldeneye, two or three Merganser species, many other possible rare ducks, Pacific Golden and Snowy Plovers (perhaps the largest known wintering flocks of the latter!), Lewis' Woodpecker, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Yellow-billed Magpie, and many more.

Cost: $35 (includes donation to PV/South Bay Audubon) plus Motel fee. For registration and further information contact Martin Byhower at 374-7473 or by e-mail at MJBBIRDS@AOL.COM

Editor's note: The following article replaces Mitch Heindel's usual column on bird sightings with an expression of his outrage over the recent clearing of a wide swath of the mature willow forest at the north end of Harbor Lake, which was done without any environmental assessment, despite a recent letter from the US Fish and Wildlife Service stressing the great potential value of this specific habitat

In the L.A. Basin, from Santa Monica to Orange County, there is a type of forest rarer than California's Redwoods, Sequoias, or Bristlecone Pines: coastal riparian willow forest. It gave sustenance to both the Gabrielino Indians and the Hispanic settlers who followed. We know it to be among the most biologically productive habitats on the planet. The largest single remnant of coastal willow riparian forest in the LA Basin is found at Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park. It is also the largest remnant of the original "Palos Verdes." What a historically and culturally valuable plot of land!

It is the only climax willow forest (full closed canopy) left on the coast in the city. I had thought the most imminent physical threat to this one-of-a-kind forest was the introduced passion vine, a botanical predator whose weight is felling willows faster than they are being replaced. But now, perhaps my worries are unfounded. A project is underway to cut a 130'-wide (!!!) swath through this largest remaining piece of coastal willow woodland, fragmenting it into two smaller pieces.

We know what fragmenting does to a habitat. Neither piece is ever as good as the whole was. This clearance will be like a spike driven through the heart of the forest.

When this "flood control channel" is completed from PCH to the historical Machado Lake at Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park, the forest will no longer flood, breaking its natural cycle for the first time in recent times. The resulting easy access will also allow further uncontrolled penetration by people (and cowbirds), which will cause additional irreparable damage to the forest.

Yet this clearing is being done with no environmental assessment. How can the consequent "non-flooding" of the forest, by turning it into a "flood control channel," be considered of no consequence to the wetland/woodland? How can the fragmentation be ignored by those in charge of protecting our wetlands/natural habitat?

Unfortunately, this seems a continuation of the practice our City has in ignoring this valuable resource. It should be a place where local children are brought into the forest via a boardwalk to learn who Machado, Dominguez and Sepulveda were; to stand in the cool shade just as they did, to know it as it was when they did; to see how they hunted here and made great plans for the great city they were founding. Children (and adults) should know this is the largest piece of coastal willow forest in L.A. County and that it has been left "as it was" for them to appreciate as an ecological island in our sea of concrete.

They could learn its ecology; about the ancient cycle of flooding waters feeding Machado Lake; that the forest and adjacent lake were the key factors in attracting civilization and settlement. Of special interest to us in Audubon is that Harbor Park has a bird diversity unparalleled in L. A. County (or most other places for that matter). Over 300 species of birds have been recorded in modern times in the one square mile Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park encompasses. I can find no one who knows of a square mile with such species diversity that isn't a National Park, State Park, National Monument, National Wildlife Refuge, etc., with the protection that status affords. Even then, there are only about 10 such sites. This place is special!

But, alas, the protection the City of Los Angeles affords is zero for native wildlife habitat. Angelinos berate other cities, yet in Brooklyn, there is Jamaica Bay NWR, and San Antonio even saved their old sewer facility, Mitchell Lake, which is now a world class migrant bird (and birder) stopover place. Too much to ask for here!

No single patch of native trees on the coast (remember the Pacific Flyway?) is used by more migratory songbirds (most species in serious decline) as a feeding and resting stopover, in LA County. No patch also supports a larger diversity of wintering songbirds.

So what do we do? We cut it up and permanently destroy its continuity. What a good idea! But we better hurry before someone finds out there IS something old, original, historical and of cultural value there-that there is something native left and tries to save it!

Much paleontological research in recent years has been based on analyses of ice cores. Deep drilling in a number of Earth's northern ice areas has brought up core ice containing materials of ancient times. Many conclusions about paleo weather have been drawn from studies of these cores. The resulting increased knowledge of old weather patterns has led to well-supported ideas concerning the concurrent flora and their evolution and extinction.

We live in the Holocene epoch which began a specified 10,000 years ago. The preceding epoch was the Pleistocene which had begun some 1.8 million years ago. During the Pleistocene, many northern areas were inhabited by wooly mammoths and other large herbivorous mammals.  Animals of these various species fed by grazing in treeless "grassland" low-height-flora environments which, in different areas, were similar to either tundras or steppes. The dry cold climate supported a complex variety of vegetation in those grasslands. Nowadays, the vegetation mix in those same areas is not as varied, consisting of relatively less diverse tundra and adjacent boreal (i.e., northern) forest. During roughly the last 100,000 years of the Pleistocene, the climate apparently fluctuated rapidly and frequently, thus creating modified conditions which stimulated the evolution of new floral species, contributing to the botanic diversity. For example, some ice ages, separated by interglacials, occurred in those years. In our Holocene epoch, the climate has, of course, changed from time to time, but not nearly as often or as drastically as during those prior eras.

Before about 14,000 years ago, all of northern Eurasia was inhabited by the wooly mammoth. As the climate warmed and the boreal forest spread, that widespread habitat for the wooly mammoth shrank to just Arctic Siberia. Even though the latter region was also experiencing changes, the mammoths were able to survive for several thousand years. The "last straw" that finally did them in was the glacier melting which created lakes filled with the thaw water. Those lakes covered such huge surface acreage that they eliminated essentially all of the grazing locations. So, by about 10,500 years ago, mammoths were extinct everywhere except for one island. Wrangel Island in the high Arctic, sustained a small population of dwarf mammoths for a time, on remaining tundra/steppe types of habitat.

After a period of transition, a more stable climate took over, marking the boundary between the Pleistocene and the Holocene. During our epoch, biodiversity has continually decreased with the increasing extinctions which have resulted not primarily from natural causes but even more from human-induced causes which include destruction of habitats, hunting, environmental pollution, and more. We humans must realize that much of what we are doing will make life very risky for our descendants and for the non-human fauna and the flora of our planet. Yes, we must maintain proper ecologically ethical attitudes throughout the world so as to provide suitable protection for present and future generations.

Although the anti-environmental agenda of many in the 104th Congress was mostly stymied thanks to public opinion and an active environmental opposition, America's national forests were hit hard by the clear-cut logging rider. This nefarious rider finally expired on December 31st, so that new salvage sales must now comply with environmental laws. All sales offered before the law expired continue without public oversight, and will continue to be logged during 1997, 1998, and maybe longer. To quote the Natural Resources Defense Council Damage Report, "Our great grandchildren will not live to see the recovery of the forests destroyed under that provision."

Now we have news from Oregon that five people were killed by landslides coming down from slopes that had been clear-cut. On November 18th, near Rock Creek, a landslide crashed down a hillside, obliterating the Moon family residence and killing four people. Logging above the Moon home had started in 1987. The slopes were so steep that the loggers had to use rappel ropes to get in to cut the trees down. They completely cut 168 acres, not leaving a single tree along the edge of Rock Creek. Nine years later, the land slid causing a tragedy. A US Forest Service study had concluded that the risk of landslides from a clear-cut continues for 20 years after the hill has been cut.

On the same November day, a landslide came down on Highway 38, pushing a car into the river and killing one woman. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODDT) said that the slide came from land that they had tried to buy to protect the highway. Instead it was clear-cut and killed one person and seriously injured two others. The ODDT agreed that, "Logging increases the risks of slides."

Added to the problems of loss of wildlife habitat, erosion of land, and silting up of rivers are the very tragic human costs of clear-cut logging. One person to write to urging an end to clear-cutting in the western US is:

             Dan Glickman

             Secretary of Agriculture

             14th Street and Independence

             Washington, DC 20250

We must also do everything in our power to prevent the 105th Congress from passing any more logging-without-laws legislation.

The first environmental vote of this Congress will be whether or not to release embargoed International Population and Family Planning funds. If the vote fails, it will mean that critical family planning programs will not be funded. President Clinton is releasing a finding certifying that the delayed release of funds "is having a negative impact on the proper functioning" of programs to fund international population and family planning.

Please write your Washington legislators asking them to vote for renewing US commitment to international family planning programs. It is very important to write to both Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congresswoman Jane Harman, since both chambers will be voting on this before February 28th.

During the spring and summer of 1996, Pete Bloom and Robb Hamilton color banded about 450 juvenile Black-crowned Night Herons as part of a dispersal study in Orange County. Each bird has an aluminum US Fish and Wildlife service band on the right leg and a plastic color band on the left. Each plastic band has a large horizontal 2 digit number, or a letter and number engraved on it. All birds are presently in immature plumage. If you should observe a color banded heron, provide the date, location, and your name, address and phone number. Please send observations to Pete Bloom, 13611 Hewes Avenue, Santa Ana, CA 92705. We will report the numbers to the banding laboratory for you and provide you with an immediate response as to where and when the bird was banded. Thank you for your help!

The Audubon YES! student volunteers are now working on a wide range of projects in cooperation with a half-dozen local environmental groups, in addition to the work they do with our own Audubon chapter's Sharing Nature With Children program. Students now are performing habitat restoration work for the Palos Verdes blue butterfly and for the salt marsh in San Pedro, at Madrona Marsh in Torrance, in the PV Land Conservancy's Chandler Trust reserve, and at the Ballona Wetlands. They are also working with native plant gardens, as docents, on beach clean-ups and helping to teach younger children about the environment.

Most of our local high schools have active YES! programs working in ecology and/or service clubs. Currently, perhaps our most active student programs are at Chadwick, Mira Costa, Narbonne and San Pedro High Schools, though others are not far behind.

This year, several other Audubon chapters have created YES! programs of their own. Whittier has an especially strong group in one high school, which may produce as many as ten Audubon YES! Award winners this year. Good groups are also associated with YES! programs for Los Angeles and Santa Barbara Audubons.

The YES! program is expanding in other directions as well. This year we have established relationships with both the Girl Scouts and 4H. This promises to be a good source of student (and other) volunteers, as many more parents will become involved with YES! through these groups than they will through the high schools.

The outlook for YES! is very bright. We hope you will take this opportunity to become involved yourself--either helping our YES! students by volunteering a few hours a month, or by taking part in some of the restoration projects that mean so much to our future. To find out more about this program, call Jess Morton at 832-5601.

Few areas of comparable size in California provide the great diversity of habitats for plants and animals to live in that we have here on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. From the marine environments in our near shore waters to the dry slopes of the upper hillsides, we can count a dozen or more distinct biological regions, each with its own flora and fauna.

The Pacific Ocean contributes a mix of habitats extending from the mud, sand and rock of the bottom, through the kelp forests of the near shore zone, to the surface. Some of these marine environments are pretty bizarre, too. At several points around the Peninsula, sulphurous warm water vents create a habitat in which organisms that do not require oxygen can thrive.

Deep water species are regularly found here, too, as the Palos Verdes Peninsula juts far out into Pacific, interrupting the smooth northwest-southeast flow of the coastline. Shearwaters, normally birds of the open ocean can be sighted from promontories like Point Fermin and Point Vicente in every month of the year. Even sperm whales and other large creatures which exploit the abyssal depths, have been logged in by the crews at Point Vicente which keep track of migrating Gray Whales. Indeed, in recent years Blue Whales have come to be expected in our offshore waters.

The rocky shores, tide pools and beaches each contribute their own unique associations of plants and animals adapted to life between the world of water and land. Here the relative amounts of exposure to air and water, surf and calm are crucial, and even small variations can determine which suite of plants and animals will be present. The beaches themselves are less varied, but still offer a range of habitats depending on whether they are stony, sandy or covered by soil.

If the multiplicity of habitats decreases somewhat as we move inland, there is no lessening in the importance of their makeup. It is now that the uniqueness of the Palos Verdes Peninsula becomes much more evident--or at least better documented. The sandy bluffs of the northwestern corner of the Hill from Bluff Cove north to Rat Beach are home to one of Los Angeles' rarest creatures, the El Segundo Blue Butterfly, now listed as a Federally endangered species. This butterfly is symbolic of a sand dunes ecosystem which once covered much of the coastal zone from Santa Monica south to Torrance and the Peninsula. Several separate habitats, each with its own complement of life forms, were distributed throughout this zone. These included the windswept fore dunes, the more protected, inland back dunes and the vernal marshes which once dotted the South Bay.

Today, virtually nothing of the original dunes ecosystem remains. Madrona Marsh is the last of the wet-in-spring, dry-in-fall vernal marshes. Fortunately, the City of Torrance knows its value, and with the help of the Friends of Madrona Marsh, under the capable guidance of naturalist Walt Wright, is now rescuing it from the trash heap it had become.

Of the dunes themselves, only about 300 acres in El Segundo remain open. Even these had undergone development shortly after World War II, when a housing tract was built on them. However, the houses were condemned as unsafe and the property was acquired by the Los Angeles Airport. Much restoration of the original habitat has been done by volunteer groups. Unfortunately, this is temporarily (I hope) in abeyance as the LA Department of Airports has halted the work.

Back on the Peninsula, once we get above the steep ocean-facing bluffs, we find habitats that are not so directly influenced by the sea. Here wind and sun are the controlling factors for, in this low-moisture setting of ours, the rate of drying determines what plants can and cannot survive. Thus anything that reduces sun exposure or wind velocity produces a vegetation type of its own.

Wind speed is, of course, reduced by physical blocking, thus the canyons on the Peninsula support a rich growth of dense scrub, as do the less exposed open slopes. This habitat, known as Coastal Sage Scrub, is one of our most valuable natural assets. It is host to a broad array of plants and animals. Two endangered species, the Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly and the California Gnatcatcher, a small insectivorous bird, are to be found nowhere else.

Wind speed is also dependent on height above ground, and even a vertical difference of a foot can have a profound effect on its drying potential. On the Peninsula, grasslands persist when the slope of the ground is roughly parallel to wind direction. Usually, but not always, this happens on our gentler south-facing slopes. In the next few months, these grasslands will treat us to a riot of yellows, whites, blues, reds and greens. This colorful bloom will remind us of the richness and vitality so often masked by a dull brown appearance.

Water is crucial to life, so it is no surprise that the canyons in which more or less permanent water is to be found support a well-defined flora and fauna of their own. Here willows and elderberry tower above nettles, water cress and mosses. Water skaters and damselflies move across the surface of fast moving rills in a dance that defines a world oblivious to the arid surroundings.

The summary of habitats I have presented here does not exhaust the wealth with which we are blessed. Nor does it describe some of the habitats that have completely disappeared as Los Angeles has spread out over our landscape. I trust though, that it does leave you with an idea of how much there is to learn and discover about our own back yard here on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Osteoporosis is an ailment which affects humans, particularly those with greatly reduced levels of either estrogen (women) or testosterone (men). The reduced uptake and retention of calcium (Ca) in bones creates the danger of fractures. Our friends, the trees, are also highly dependent on Ca. In fact, Ca is the fifth most abundant element in healthy trees, and is vital for wood formation and for cell wall maintenance. Therefore, Ca reduction seriously weakens the trees, which creates serious fracture risks, as it does in humans. Measurements of Ca available to tree roots in the forest soils of our northeastern states since the mid-1930's show that the Ca concentration has dropped significantly during the past 60 years. Recent analyses of northeastern red spruce forests have identified a cause for the drop in Ca. Acid deposition, due largely to anthropogenic (human activity) causes, increases the mobilization of a reactive form of aluminum in the soil; and the resulting chemical reactions reduce the storage of Ca in the forest floor. Thus, less Ca is available for uptake by tree roots, and the trees grow much less effectively and die more rapidly.

Aluminum is a light metal, but studies have demonstrated that heavy metals from anthropogenic causes are also significant factors in forest decline. Phytochelatins are biological components which bind to metals within tree cells, and which are indicators of metal-caused stresses to trees' internal structures. Testing of the declining red spruce and of the stable balsam fir in the northeastern U.S. has shown that trees of the former type contain much higher concentrations of phytochelatins, and therefore of heavy metal ions, than do trees of the latter type. Also, in forested regions where tree damage is the highest, the phytochelatin concentrations have been found to be the highest. Damage from human-caused heavy metal generation into the environment is not limited to the northeast nor to forests. Increased concentrations of mercury in the environment have been found in wide portions of the north central states, as well as elsewhere in our country, and elsewhere in the world. From northwestern Minnesota to eastern Michigan, for example, burning of fossil fuels and of municipal wastes has raised the mercury level in lakes and soils, resulting in pollution damage to fish and to trees and increased health risks to people.

Among ecologists, the word "eutrophication" has become more common because eutrophication itself has become more common. It is an undesirable process which occurs in rivers, lakes, near-shore ocean areas, and certain other fresh and salt water regions. An example of its occurrence and effect exists along the continental shelf within the area up to approximately 65 miles from the aqueous outflow of the Mississippi River delta. Changes in land use along the river's extensive route, plus increased anthropogenic emissions near the river's long edges, have raised the amounts of silicates, nitrates, phosphates, and other chemical compounds being carried by the river through the delta to the marine environment. Analyses of algae in dated sea floor sediment core samples from the specified area show that biologically bound silica amounts have doubled during the 20th century. Also learned through tests is that from 1900 to 1980 the nitrogen loading in the river's water had doubled. These and other significant river-borne chemical loadings change the food types and amounts available to the water-resident creatures and also alter the lower depth oxygen distribution around the continental shelf. One of the results is the increase in algae, and another is the decrease in biodiversity. So, people are not just affecting the lands on which we all live, but are affecting the waters and the waters' residents.

Sharing Nature With Children:  A few people willing to spend a few hours one day a month working with high school students and children are wanted to help with our educational program at Wilderness Park in Redondo Beach. This monthly program introduces youngsters to a variety of aspects of the natural world around them in a setting which includes meadow, woodland, streamside and marsh habitats. Docents help lead the children in various games, walks and crafts designed to show off the park and the plants and animals in it.

If you like working with children, this is an excellent way to become involved with chapter activities. We want to expand this program to Torrance, San Pedro and other cities. High school and other students who volunteer receive Audubon YES! Award credits.

Join this exciting program by calling Lillian Light at 545-1384.

Audubon YES!:  Chapter Representatives are needed to guide school groups in our Audubon YES! (youth environmental service) program. Representatives work a few hours each month with school ecology clubs, service groups or individual students from a single school to coordinate service projects, such as habitat cleanups or Earth Day displays. Since the role of Chapter Representative is to make sure that our Audubon chapter provides the school group or student with adequate support for their programs, you need not be an environmental expert . The chapter's YES! staff handles that end of things. We especially need volunteers for Rolling Hills Prep and Torrance High School groups-these are wonderful young people, bright and full of enthusiasm. You will have a great time!

Call Jess Morton at 832-5601 and say YES!, I want to help.

Audubon YES!: School ecology club teacher-sponsors and student-presidents are asked to enroll their school eco-club in Audubon YES! Participating students will earn recognition for the community environmental service projects they do. Students who make a substantial contribution to their school and community will receive the Audubon YES! Award, which can be used on school and scholarship applications. Call Jess Morton at 832-5601 for information on the Audubon YES! program.

This page is part of the Palos Verdes/South Bay Audubon Society website.