Former Audubon California Executive Director Glenn Olson last week was appointed by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to thee-year term on the North American Wetlands Conservation Council. Olson was also named to the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Advisory Group. Olson recently left his post as executive director of Audubon California to become Audubon’s Donal O’Brien Chair in Bird Conservation through Advocacy and Public Policy.

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Great article today in the Contra Costa Times by Aric Crabb about how the resurgence of the Bald Eagle is particularly evident in the Klamath region on the California/Oregon border:

Each winter near the California-Oregon border, the largest gathering of bald eagles in the continental United States takes place. The Klamath Basin comes alive when hundreds of thousands of migrating waterfowl and hundreds of bald eagles settle in the area to hunt and feed. The eagles are a sight: Full-grown adults can weigh 14 pounds, with wingspans reaching 8 feet.

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A great article in Audubon Magazine highlights the terrific research and conservation work being done on Tejon Ranch since a major conservation agreement protected up to 240,000 acres of the property in 2008.

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Thanks to all of you, we’ve scored a big win for conservation in the Joshua Tree National Park. You might recall that last December, we told you about a proposed landfill just outside of Joshua Tree National Park that threatened some of the most precious desert landscape in the nation. Although two courts had blocked the project, the Department of Interior was giving serious consideration to launching another appeal. This week, Interior decided against the appeal after many of you expressed your opposition to the plan. If the Eagle Mountain landfill ever went forward, this part of California’s fragile desert ecosystem — home to many species of concern such as the Golden Eagle, Peregrine Falcon, California Black Rail, and desert tortoise — would instead become home to huge amounts of waste. The Audubon effort to kill this project was led by the local San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society. A large coalition of conservation and civic organizations fought the Interior move.

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Senator Dianne Feinstein has dropped her proposed amendment to the Senate’s jobs bill that would have undermined the complex water deal recently arrived at by California lawmakers by suspending the Endangered Species Act. Her decision was made easy when state water officials decided to release addition water supplies in response to the recent rains.

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Just a few minutes ago, the U.S. Department of Interior announced its decision on the potential listing of Sage Grouse: warranted but precluded. This means that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service believes the listing of the bird is justified, but that other species are in greater danger.

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As you may know, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has until the end of this week to announce its decision on whether or not to place the Sage Grouse on its list of threatened or endangered species. The bird would seem to be a good candidate, falling from 16 million to just a few hundred thousand in recent years scattered across 11 western states, including California. The New York Times today editorializes that the government is unlikely to list the bird this week, and says that more needs to be done to help this species. In California, we have about 5,000 breeding Sage Grouse, mostly in the northeastern eastern part of the state — the Modoc plateau and Mono Lake area. At least nine Important Bird Areas have Sage Grouse.

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Last week, high school students from Sacramento descended on a field just outside of Winters and got a hands-on lesson in habitat restoration. Check out the video:

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The San Diego Bird Festival starts this week. Here is a great preview article in the San Diego Union Tribune.

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Staff at the Audubon Starr Ranch Sanctuary in Orange County recently did some bird banding, and we were fortunate to come across a Coastal Cactus Wren, a species of special concern in California. Check it out! Featured in the video — aside from the Cactus Wren — is Jessica Griffiths, biologist/educator at Starr Ranch. The video was shot by Karen Straus.

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Following this week’s press coverage of the recent announcement of new legislation that we’re sponsoring to ban lead shot in state wildlife areas, a friend of Audubon California wrote to tell us that he heard the story. In his email, he recounted a harrowing story of what lead can do to birds. Here’s the email:

I heard you today on NPR about bill to ban lead in bullets on state wildlife areas. I am no expert on those details but as someone who is married to a raptor rehabilitator and has listened to bald eagles slowly die from lead poisoning in the room next to our bedroom – well, if the people who used lead bullets had heard what I did, they may understand that giving up lead in their bullets would not be so bad. 

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Great article in Santa Cruz Sentinel today regarding how the State Parks Initiative is inspiring a lot of people to get involved. Lots of people volunteering to gather signatures, etc. The article also features Audubon California.

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A federal judge gave the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service another week to make its decision on whether or not to grant Sage Grouse protection under the Endangered Species Act. The extension was granted due to the unexpected death last weekend of Service Director Sam Hamilton. Sage Grouse populations have declined rapidly in recent years, and the bird has become a particular cause for Audubon. Recently, the Bureau of Land Management announced a new leasing policy for energy development, worked out with Audubon, which stands to greatly benefit the bird’s conservation in Wyoming. Sage grouse are more commonly found in Wyoming, although there are populations in California, Nevada, Montana, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and the Dakotas.

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Word today that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is looking for an extension on its deadline to decide whether or not to list the Sage Grouse under the Endangered Species Act.

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