On the Road to Becoming a Certified California Naturalist

by Amy Jaecker-Jones


It was the first day of the California Naturalist Program at the Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum. That morning I had wondered aloud to my husband, "Would I be the only middle-aged housewife, sandwiched between young students, who are just starting out in their careers, and older, professional naturalists?" It turns out, the answer to that question didn't matter, and that's one of the things that makes the program so wonderful. People introduced themselves as students, paralegals, master gardeners, psychology professors, geophysicists, and retired teachers. The list of professions was wide-ranging, but two common themes united the participants – a love of nature and a commitment to volunteering. In those two respects, I fit in perfectly.

Certified California Naturalists are an elite, but growing corps of educated, passionate, environmental stewards and citizen scientists. The California Naturalist Program began in 2012. It is modeled after Master Naturalist programs in other states and run by the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Volunteering and service in the name of our environment are two of the program's core values. To date, 760 naturalists have completed the course, and together contributed a little over 21,000 hours of volunteer service. During and after completing the program, California Naturalists log hours spent in the following areas: citizen science, conservation/restoration, interpretation, and program support.

If you've ever taken a guided nature walk, you're already aware of the role that naturalists play as interpreters. Naturalists also do the hands-on work of conserving and restoring wild areas. Although we are fortunate to live in a time where people are paid to do this work, program support also relies heavily on dedicated volunteers. Nearby Madrona Marsh Preserve has one full-time staff member, a team of part-time employees, and 7,000 volunteers. Another area in which volunteers make a difference is the growing field of citizen science. Citizen scientists are regular people, just like you and I, who assist with the gathering of scientific data. If you think about it, all the world's scientists are just a small percentage the total population. Even something as simple as recording what birds visit a backyard feeder helps scientists to gauge the effects of  important subjects like climate change and habitat destruction.

Sabrina Drill, Associate Director of the California Naturalist Program, kindly shared this graph with me. It describes the distribution of service hours across the four volunteer categories of citizen science, conservation/restoration, interpretation, and program support.

Image used courtesy of the California Naturalist Program

For the first time, the California Naturalist course is being offered at the historic Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum, part of the original Rancho San Pedro. Dating back to 1784, Rancho San Pedro was the first Spanish land grant in California. The land was given to Juan Jose Dominguez and consisted of 75,000 acres. Descendants of Juan Jose Dominguez, now bearing the surnames of Watson and Carson, still own portions of the original grant. This is an almost unheard of example of continual ownership in California.

Today, the Dominguez Adobe operates as a museum and sits on 15 acres of land, originally granted to the Dominguez family. Its mission is to, "preserve and increase community awareness of early California history as it relates to the Dominguez family, homestead adobe and the Rancho San Pedro, the first Spanish land grant in California."

Museum Executive Director, Alison Bruesehoff, told class participants that, while the history of the Dominguez family and its dwelling is well-known, the natural history of the land is little studied. In order to increase knowledge of the site's natural history, she led the museum to partner with the California Naturalist Program. During the class, students will be taking a close look at the land surrounding the Adobe and entering their observations into iNaturalist, a leading portal for citizen science projects.

Program instructors will also be describing museum land within the larger context of South Bay and California ecology. The lead instructor for the Dominguez Rancho's program is California State University, Dominguez Hills professor, John Thomlinson. In his introductory lecture, Professor Thomlinson described California as a state of extremes. North-south and west-east running mountain ranges chop the state into smaller regions, thereby affecting the climate of each region. Words like "weird" and "jumbled" were used to describe the variety of geology existing within the state. This variety of soil types enables a high variety of plant and animal life so that California has one of the world's highest number of endemic species (meaning species that occur only here). While we can celebrate the amazing biodiversity of California, we must also be aware of a looming biodiversity crisis. According to Professor Thomlinson, the global rate of species' extinction is greater than the background extinction rate prior to the emergence of modern humanity. To put it simply, we're losing individual species faster than ever before.

The first class of the California Naturalist Program was a wonderful introduction to what it means to be a naturalist. I left, excited to be going to my next activity. I was planning to tell my young Cub Scouts about something Professor Thomlinson taught us. It was a sad fact, but one that tied together two separate themes previously discussed at Scout meetings. He described how animal waste, draining to the ocean, negatively affects marine life. As a result the sea lion population, in particular, is in danger. Toxoplasmosis, a parasitic illness that comes from cat feces infects sea lions, causing their decline. It wasn't good news to impart, but something that I knew the Scouts would connect with and care about. After all, isn't that why we train to be naturalists?


Reference:

Bruesehoff, Alison, Sabrina Drill, and John Thomlinson. "Introduction to California's Natural Resources and the California Naturalist Program." (lecture, California Naturalist Program, Rancho Dominguez, CA, January 24, 2015).