Los Angeles & Southern California - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [37]
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AN AUDIENCE WITH A MONARCH
Monarch butterflies are beautiful orange creatures that follow remarkable migration patterns and – like many Midwesterners and Canadians – prefer to spend the winter in California. Although most hang out on the state’s Central Coast, the most intrepid make it all the way to Southern California. Walt Sakai, biology professor at Santa Monica College and a highly recognized authority on monarchs, shares with us his favorite local viewing spots:
The premier site in Southern California is Ellwood Main in Gaviota. From Hwy 101, take the Storke exit south, turn right on Hollister Ave and left on Coronado after the 7-Eleven. At the end of the road, walk into the gully and turn right towards a clearing. After Thanksgiving in late-November/early December is the best time to see the butterflies.
In Ventura, a good spot is Camino Real Park in December and January. Monarchs can be found in the eucalyptus grove above the creek near the tennis courts, upstream and north of Telegraph Rd. Access is via the church parking lot and up the drainage. From Hwy 101, go north on Victoria Ave, left on Telegraph Rd, left on S Bryn Mawr and right on Aurora Dr.
Big Sycamore Canyon in Point Mugu State Park in the Santa Monica Mountains also plays host to the butterflies, especially in the sycamore trees by the Hike and Bike camping area. October is the best month to see them and they’re often gone by mid-November.
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LOS ANGELES RIVER: STRUGGLES OF A TORTURED STREAM
Obstreperous. Wimpy. Murderous. Unpredictable. And occasionally nonexistent. At a mere 52 miles in length, perhaps no other river on earth has experienced – or caused – more calamity per mile than the Los Angeles River. From its source near Calabasas it wends its way through the San Fernando Valley, then right through Downtown LA and finally empties into the Pacific at Long Beach, where the Queen Mary is the ‘toothpick’ in its mouth.
The LA River was the water source for the original pueblo settlers and has changed its course constantly. Sometimes its flow was completely halted by droughts. At other times it became a raging torrent, bringing death and destruction to nearby townships. It was this aspect of the river’s ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ personality that inspired the Army Corps of Engineers to encase the ‘off-and-on monster’ in concrete in 1938.
Since that time the LA River has been many things: a movie set (Terminator II, Chinatown, Transformers); an eyesore, neglected and polluted; and a political battleground between developers, City Hall and green activists. Enter Friends of the Los Angles River (FoLAR; www.folar.org) in 1986. Spurred on by its founder, poet and journalist Lewis MacAdams, the river has become a cause célèbre for a vast coalition of environmental and political groups, including the Coastal Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land. Enormous effort is going into cleaning up its banks and marshes and protecting it from industrial runoff and toxic dumping. A master plan (http://ladpw.org/wmd/watershed/LA/LA_River_Plan.cfm) has been put in place that will create a sanctuary for 400 bird species and establish biking paths and parks along the river.
Where will the story of the Los Angeles River end? For now, all that’s certain is that the river ends in Long Beach. Perhaps one day it will simply tire of its uneasy relationship with Los Angeles and just ‘run off’ – so to speak – with another city altogether.
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So what about those earthquakes? Yup, we got ’em. Every day. Many of them. SoCal sits on one of the world’s most active earthquake zones, right where the Pacific Plate and North American Plate butt heads. But don’t worry, most are way too small to notice.
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WILDLIFE
Animal