About three or four streets west of us is Canyon Boulevard. If you drive north up that road about two miles, you will reach Monrovia Canyon Park. On Saturday, Riley and I visited the park to check out the Biodiversity Fair. We only stayed for an hour, but it was a very informative hour.
The fair featured several San Gabriel Valley non-profits, along with environmental education and conservation-based groups, that provided hands-on local wildlife and native plant exhibits. Groups at the fair included the Wildlife Way Station, the Arboretum of Los Angeles County, the Pasadena Humane Society, and the SPCA.
The Southwest Herpetologists Society was present.
Riley was very interested in this corn snake. He said "hi" to it several times and waved at it whenever it raised its head in his direction. Later on, we both got to stroke the scales of a king snake. They were surprising soft, almost silky.
The Opossum Society was also present. The Opossum Society maintains that possums are good creatures, not bad. They tell us that opossums coexist peacefully with us in our yards, and many of us never know they are there. They ordinarily come out only at night (unless a mother is working overtime to find food for her babies) and clean our gardens by eating snails, cockroaches, and other pests (including black widow spiders). They say people should rely upon possums instead of using pesticides. Based on the spider eradication benefits alone, they're welcome to make their home in our yard whenever they choose!
(The opossum life cycle recently played out from start to end at the P3 house. Several months ago, we posted a picture of a mama possum with two babies on her back. This past week, the P3 solemnly (and with noses held tightly closed) noted the passing of a senior possum under our home.)
The California Turtle and Tortoise Club was at the fair.
Do you know the difference between a tortoise and a turtle? The answer lies in where they choose to live.
There are lots of big birds in the San Gabriel mountains. We saw a great horned owl and a golden eagle.
Okay, I recognize the bunny, but I'm not sure what this other creature is. A badger, perhaps?
Several years ago, a California black bear became a regular visitor to a Monrovia resident's pool and hot tub. In 1994, Samson was captured by the California Department of Fish and Game, who deemed him a nuisance and scheduled him to be euthanized. When the Monrovia community learned of Samson's death sentence, they organized to save him. Local newspapers, television and radio stations made Samson an instant international celebrity. The effort to save Samson was successful. Then-Governor Pete Wilson stayed Samson's execution.
Samson lived at the Orange County Zoo until his death in 2001. In order to preserve Samson's legacy and protect local wildlife and their habitat, a wood carver was commissioned to do a life-size display of Samson. The carving sits in front of the Canyon Park Nature/Interpretive Center.
These are bear cubs posed in the Nature Center in the act of learning to forage for food.
The nature center also features an adult black bear and a mountain lion.
5 comments:
Wow, you learned all of that in an hour! What an informative post! It's funny, as I was reading about the possums, I was thinking to myself, I wonder if that's what curled up and died in Kirsten's crawl space? And then you said that's what happened! :-)
That sounds amazing! And, just think, I almost posted to the group to see if anyone was doing anything interesting on Sat. morning. I was trying to keep the kids out of the construction zone. Very informative.
Renee,
We should go there together another time. There's an easy hike (about 1.5 miles) to a waterfall that the kids would probably enjoy.
Not only was the post informative but you took a lot of pictures in an hour! I'm fairly certain the other creature was not a badger, I'm not even sure it is native to North America. Can anyone help identify it?
That other furry creature is a ring tailed cat. They are found in the area but most people have never seen one in the wild. I never have.
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