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Los Angeles is one of Global Warming's First Stops
Channel Islands National Park as seen from the Santa Monica Mountains | Photo by Justin Donnelly via Flickr
Channel Islands National Park as seen from the Santa Monica Mountains | Photo by Justin Donnelly via Flickr
If you didn't know, Los Angeles is placed within quite a rare landscape, biologically speaking that is. There are only six Mediterranean Biomes in the world making up 2% of the world's land area and Southern California's coast and surrounding mountains are part of that. This is one of the reasons why congress in 1978 decided bring in the Santa Monica Mountains and the five northern Channel Islands into the Department of the Interior under the National Park Service. They were named the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Channel Islands National Park.
On Saturday, Resource Conservation District biologist Rosie Dagit, who spends every January in Antarctica and the rest of the year in the Santa Monicas, will hold a talk at the National Park Service's visitor center in Thousand Oaks. Although the presentation is called "Penquins in our Watershed," those cute waddling creatures do not live here (yet!)--she will discuss the similarities between the two areas.
"Antarctica and the Santa Monica Mountains are key locations on the planet that are kind of like the first stop in what's happening in climate change," Dagit explained on the phone from her home office. "We're actually seeing it here, we're seeing these changes."
Dagit will be bringing pond turtles because these cute little guys share a lot in commons with penguins--both live for about 30 years, both have specific habitat requirements for reproducing young successfully, both specific food requirements that are impacted by change in climate.
The Saturday, June 20th talk is free and is at 2 p.m. in Thousand Oaks.
Related
- Report from the Joshua Tree Congressional Field Hearing: National Parks are the 'Canary in the Coal Mine' for Climate Change
- New Visitor Center Opens at Channel Islands National Park on Scorpion Ranch
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