(film reel clattering) - Welcome to today's news briefing, which we have titled, "Enjoy, Don't Destroy Our Public Parks."

It's co-hosted by Ethnic Media Services and the East Bay Regional Park District.

I'm Sandy Close, EMS Director, and the moderator for today's briefing.

We focus on the challenges faced by California's public parks, as record numbers of visitors, many fleeing the pandemic lockdowns, discovered a new appreciation for being in nature.

What we don't realize is how the growing popularity of the parks puts their habitat and wildlife at risk.

Nowhere is this more evident than the East Bay Regional Park District, the largest urban regional park district in the nation.

We will learn first what happens when people stray off the hiking trails, walk on sensitive vegetation and wildlife habitat; release turtles, fish, and birds; feed coyotes and feral cats.

Secondly, we will hear what we can do to balance the impact of our human recreation with the natural environment.

Our speakers include Dee Rosario, a board member of the East Bay Regional Park District; Doug Bell, Wildlife Program Manager; and Joe Sullivan, Fisheries Program Manager, all with the East Bay Regional Park District.

And, we start with Dee Rosario.

Mr. Rosario, welcome.

- Yes, I'm Dee Rosario.

I am currently on the Board of Directors for the East Bay Regional Park District.

And, I'm happy to say that I am the first Filipino American and first person of Asian descent to be on the board of directors in its 84-year history.

And, I fell into this career totally by accident!

And, I was a student at Cal State, what is now Cal State-East Bay.

It was Cal State-Hayward at the time.

And, I was head of household at a very young age, and had to drop out my senior year just so I could take care of my family, and ended up with a temporary job at the East Bay Regional Park District [audio distorts] in the summer of 1975.

And, that turned into a 37-and-a-half-year career with the East Bay Regional Park District.

And, in that time, I had an incredible appreciation for not only the job, but the intricacies and the delicacy of our environment.

And, that's why we're here today, to talk about the impacts of us as human beings upon the land.

And, having worked on the land, you really get a sense of need and respect.

And, what we have here is, as Sandy mentioned, the incredible influx of people coming to our parks as our only venue of getting out and about.

And, we bring with that all of our cultural heritage and our cultural resources and our biases.

And, that's something that the park district and all state parks and national parks as well have to learn how to deal with; how we, as each culture, brings its own interpretation of what it is to enjoy nature.

And, what we're here to do today is to bring a part, or to bring a sense of-- as we bring ourselves to these parks, we need to understand the history and the sensitivity and the-- that bring-- that-- that's brought into this culture; to bring us into our culture and embrace that culture of beauty, nature, and how sensitive it is to our intrusions.

So, with that, it really is all about respect for the land, respect for ourselves as people, as human beings, and I think you will get that sense today.

And, with that, I think I will leave you in good hands as I have another meeting, but if there's any questions, I'd be happy to answer.

- And, maybe you could just comment a little, from your many years as a ranger and a firefighter, how you've seen the diversity of the Bay Area, for example, affect the visitation and the enjoyment of the parks.

- That is something that I've seen through my career, and especially after the pandemic, and during the pandemic, is that, as people of color come to the parks, we come as family; we come in heaps, and we come in groups.

And, it's-- that's the part of culture that we bring to the parks.

And, that's something that parks have to recognize as far as what-- how do we meet the needs of all these different cultures, and at the same time balance the needs of the environment.

- What made you, who had never imagined working in the parks, suddenly realize that this was where you wanted to spend your working life?

What changed for you?

You had mentioned a trip to Humboldt.

- Yes!

(chuckles) I happened to be on the wrestling team for the Cal State- Hayward University, and we had a road trip to Humboldt, and that was the first time I got to see the huge redwoods in Humboldt County.

And, it struck me with such an awe that impressed me immediately and stayed with me.

And, I was so, so lucky when I first got hired that I was able to work at Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park and start my career there.

And, it was just like definitely a blessing and definitely some fate.

And...I can't I can't...I can't... [hesitates] I can't say enough about the, the love I have for that park, for these parks as a whole in the East Bay Regional Park District, but all parks, and the... [hesitates] career that I was able to have here.

And, eternally grateful, and I'm hoping that all people can have that same opportunity.

- Do you see today's briefing in a way as an opportunity for the parks to speak back to the public?

- These are our lands; belongs to everyone.

But, with that ownership becomes responsibility to take care of that land.

And, we all share this-- these public lands, and we all should share in the taking care of that land, as well.

And, that goes with an etiquette, not only how we treat each other, but also how we treat the land and its animals and the environment.

So, I think that's the message; is that we have to share in its responsibility to take care of these lands, and I think you'll get that sense from the speakers that follow.

- Okay, thank you so much.

And, you remind us that we're talking about the East Bay Regional Park District, but we're really talking about all the public parks, from Humboldt, from the farthest north to the farthest south.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your years of service as steward of the parks.

So, let us go now to our next speaker, Doug Bell, wildlife program manager, who will talk about the creatures in the parks, including those some of us unwittingly release or leave behind.

Mr. Bell, please go forward.

- Thank you very much this morning for all being here.

What I wanted to speak to you today about is three main things that the public can do, and I'll go into a little bit of depth on some of them, that will lessen this overall impact of so much park visitation.

And, the number one thing is "enjoy, don't disturb."

That is try not to disturb wildlife.

Number two is "enjoy, don't feed."

That would be, don't feed the animals in the park as tempting as that is.

A lot of people just think, "Oh, I've got an extra hot-- "half of my chips.

I'll feed that to this gull, or I'll feed this raccoon."

And, the third thing is "don't release."

And, that is release animals into the park thinking, "Oh!

"I can't take care of my kitten anymore.

It'll be better off in the park where it can be free and enjoying life."

So, I'll point out the consequences of some of those actions as we move on.

And, I'd just like to add that I was born in California.

I grew up in the Bay Area, and as Becky Tuden alluded to, we are really fortunate to be in an area like the San Francisco Bay Area.

It really is a diversity hotspot.

And, again, the mission of the district is to really to preserve a rich heritage of natural and cultural resources.

And, preservation: that means having them available for future generations, you know, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, a hundred years from now.

That really is what we're all about, is to maintain this area.

And again, our park district, 125,000 acres; shoreline parks, inland parks, regional wilderness is down in the Ohlone; shoreline parks along Berkeley, Richmond, San Leandro.

Incredibly diverse habitats that really offer refuge for wildlife as well as refuge for people.

So, we're very fortunate in the Bay Area to have such a collection of parks.

And in addition, we also work with neighboring agencies like Mount Diablo State Park, and water agencies like San Francisco Water down here in the southern part of Alameda County to really try to evermore take a more regional approach to wildlife management.

I'm going to focus a little bit on the shoreline parks.

These are outlined here in orange, where we have a lot of species present.

It turns out these are limited habitats as you can imagine, along the shorelines.

And, we do have four critically threatened and endangered species that use these habitats, you know, right next to the urban edge with picnickers right behind them in the picnic areas.

One of these species- I won't show all four, because I don't have the time for that- is the western snowy plover.

It's federally threatened.

Here's a picture of an adult plover with her two chicks, and she's nesting on beach habitat, sandy habitat, which, you know, is right up against the urban edge.

So, it requires really care in providing protecting protected areas for these birds to nest, and at the same time, the park district has been involved in habitat restoration.

And, that is trying to create new habitat, little islands of habitat in those areas where we can, say, restore what used to be a former rural area or even a parking lot and change it back into viable habitat.

The western snowy plover is found particularly in the winter at Crown Beach.

So, in many cases, like for the plovers out at Crown Beach, we will post a sign with a... just a simple rope fence around it where the plovers like to hang out, and we just say, "Area is closed, snowy plover resource protection area."

So, ideally, the public stays out of that roped off area.

And, look at this picture; here's Alameda right behind it.

A couple park users on the beach, and, boy, are these birds crowded into the shoreline!

So, you can imagine 10, 20 people walking past the spot every day, a hundred people.

These birds would never get a chance to rest without this kind of closed area.

Other things that people may not even realize what's going on, as we have very sensitive species, things like golden eagles that nest in our inland parks.

So, this is away from the shoreline, closer to, like, Del Valle Regional shore or Sunol Regional Wilderness.

You might think you're in the wilderness, but, lo and behold, especially with the pandemic, we've had a hundred-fold increase in human use of areas in these regional wildernesses and other parkland areas to where people are.

This is a picture of Del Valle, and it shows our regular trails, in other words, established trails that people can use to enjoy the park and the environment.

And then, based on cell phone coverages, where cell phone tracks were basically captured anonymously, and then our GIS department mapped where people were going.

And, these little dotted lines show people using bootleg trails that hundreds of people have been using over the course of a couple years that are-- you know, people may think, "Oh, this is great.

I'm in the wilderness.

I can just go hike wherever I want."

But, unbeknownst to them, some of these trails go real close to, like, a golden eagle nest, and these birds are so sensitive that it can result in the destruction of the nest.

So, if there's too many people walking past the nest, it will scare the eagles off of it, expose the eggs to cold weather, to too much sun, and they can potentially die or cause the birds to abandon the nest.

So, just the mere act of hiking across the terrain can disturb the wildlife.

So, again, it's important to impart this idea of we're trying to direct where people can go in a safe manner to enjoy the park and yet not disturb wildlife.

- [Sandy] Um, just-?

- [Doug] Go ahead, yes.

- [Sandy] Mr. Bell, because of time, could you tell us very quickly, what about feeding the animals of the park?

Can you tell us a little about the impacts you're seeing from visitors who want to be kind to the animals and feed the animals?

- Right.

So the bottom line is "enjoy, don't feed," because this picture here, the picture on the left, shows a raccoon foraging in a garbage can.

Ideally, we try to keep our garbage cans closed to prevent animals like raccoons from going in there.

But, they'll show up in a picnic area, and somebody might go, "Oh!

What a cute, little animal.

Let's feed it."

Well, one of the consequences of that is suddenly you get not just one animal, or it gets around in the neighborhood, right?

And, suddenly, you get many more animals concentrating in the area.

Concentrating animals and feeding them like that can increase diseases among the animals, and then it causes behavioral problems with the animals themselves.

And, they get so used to people that they can start climbing on them, and that just leads to bad outcomes.

Really bad outcomes because, say, somebody sits down at a park bench.

They don't wanna feed the animals.

Raccoons come up; there's no food.

The raccoons could get very aggressive and actually bite the person thinking that, "Hey, your hands are food because other humans have been feeding me."

So, the consequences are dire.

There's a saying is, you know, "a fed animal is a dead animal" in that sense, and I'll come to the next slide.

Coyote; people have been feeding coyotes in their neighborhoods nearby.

We do not allow feeding of any wild animals in the parklands.

But, again, an animal like a coyote can get very accustomed to humans by being fed, and then become essentially very aggressive.

And then, once they become aggressive they can- and lose their fear of humans- they can wind up biting children, biting adults, and at that point- a fed animal is a dead animal- that animal has to be removed.

So, it's essentially something to be avoided by simply don't feed them no matter how tempting it might be.

The best thing is to "enjoy, don't feed."

And then, finally, I'll finish up with "enjoy, don't release."

Again, at the beginning with the pandemic too, unfortunately, people lost their jobs.

They couldn't-- in a sense, many couldn't even feed their families, much less their pets.

So, the incidents of people releasing their pet cats into the parklands really did increase through the pandemic where people would dump them thinking they'll be okay in the wild.

But, again, that leads to problems, and that is, overpopulation of feral cats free roaming in the parks.

Even if they are being partially fed, they still predate all the animals.

They can threaten our very endangered and threatened shoreline species, like I mentioned, like the snowy plover.

This cat has caught a coot at the shoreline.

So, it just increases the predation pressure of these non-native animals in the park lands.

So, again, that message is "enjoy, don't release."

There's animal shelters where- - [Sandy] Right.

- [Doug] Feral animals can be taken to and taken care of.

And so, finally, kind of the bigger message is "enjoy, follow the signs."

Again, here's a picture of Crown Beach in Alameda.

Here's a sign that says, "No dogs," and there's a dog on the beach!

And, with that, I will ask for questions, but I guess we're pressed for time, so I'll turn it back over to Sandy Close.

Thank you very much for your attention.

- You have some terrific sound bites: don't disturb.

Don't feed.

Don't release.

Follow the signs.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Joe Sullivan, fisheries program manager, who will talk about the aquatic life of the East Bay Parks.

Mr. Sullivan, it's all yours.

- Thank you very much.

It's a pleasure to be here, [audio stammers] and reaching this audience is something we've been working on for a long time, so it's really a great opportunity to speak with all of you.

I'm gonna bring it to the aquatic life, because we do operate 10 fishing reservoirs in the East Bay, and four shoreline fishing piers where you can fish in the San Francisco Bay.

And, there's a number of aquatic resources.

We offer fishing, and we want people to go out and enjoy these reservoirs, but there are reasons why-- Doug mentions releasing pets.

And, this happens in reservoirs and streams, and ponds that we have that have sensitive species.

People release their goldfish, or they'll release a turtle that they don't wanna take care of anymore.

And, these have consequences, and they have impacts on the aquatic life in our park district.

So, you've seen this map, but in the blue what you're seeing is all the fishing areas that we offer in the East Bay.

Um...and-- [hesitates] what do people enjoy?

They enjoy fishing.

I grew up fishing myself, and we want people to go out and enjoy these resources because they are plentiful, and it's a great family thing to go out and take your kids fishing.

I take my own, and there's really-- it's a great resource, recreational activity that we offer and we promote.

But, there are sensitive species.

These are a few of the native species that we have in East Bay.

On the left, you'll-- on top left is a California red-legged frog.

On the bottom is a California tiger salamander.

Both of these are federally endangered species that we are protecting in the East Bay.

And then, on the right, you'll see on top right is a native rainbow trout that resides in streams in the East Bay.

And, on the bottom right is a steelhead, which is a rainbow trout that migrates out to the ocean to get very big, as you can see here.

And then, they come back into the streams to reproduce.

And, that is a federally threatened species that we are protecting in the bay.

It's mainly the fish that people are releasing coming from a pet store or from a marketplace that could carry disease or a parasite.

And, that disease or parasite could spread to the native aquatic life.

Here, you can see just a few examples that-- I'm sorry.

It's kind of a morbid picture, but the frogs on the bottom have a fungus that is deadly.

And, this fungus has been detected in streams in the East Bay, and it is directly related to pets being released that have carried this and then they pass it to the native species.

So, again, this is the common theme.

We want you to enjoy, but don't destroy our parks.

- I know you're mainly responsible for aquatic, but have you seen examples of people releasing birds?

- I personally haven't witnessed it, but we know it happens.

[audio stammers] You name it.

It's-- I was driving on the road in Tilden Park.

We were speaking about it this morning!

And, I saw a white rabbit on the side of the road.

And, it was clearly a pet that somebody didn't want to take care of anymore.

So, they think putting it in a park is a better life for it.

But, it's actually a really hard life.

I doubt that rabbit lasted very long.

Probably got eaten by a bird; a raptor, or a hawk or an owl.

So, it's really a hard life for a pet.

To be a pet and then get released into the wilds, and they're-- - [Sandy] Right.

- [Joe] completely disoriented!

(he chuckles) - Right.

There's a question from Henrietta Burroughs, and in the interest of time, Henrietta, I'll read it for Mr. Sullivan.

"What stops people from catching "a protective fish species?

How would they know and what are they encouraged to do?"

- Right.

So, all of our protected fish species are in the streams.

They're not necessarily in the reservoirs.

The reservoirs are [audio stammers] strictly for recreation.

We want people to go fishing there!

What they're not allowed to do is fish in our streams.

And, that's a law by the state of California.

In any stream in the East Bay, you're not allowed to fish.

And, if you do fish, you are threatening a species that's native to those streams.

And, I mean, it comes with fines, and... no fishing in the streams where there's protected species!

(chuckles) - What is the single most damaging thing we're doing as visitors, often unknowingly, that is impacting the wildlife you are seeking to protect?

And, what is the one thing you would most want to have us change in the way we're behaving?

I would love to ask you to be the first, and then go to our other speakers.

- I think the number one threat to aquatic life is people releasing aquarium species into the lakes and streams, and that could-- it could wipe out entire populations.

- Thank you.

I'm going to ask that of Doug Bell.

- That's a hard question to put your finger on to just one answer, but I would say releasing cats into our shoreline parks is probably the most damaging, because of this nexus of threatened and endangered species that live in these small habitats and the pressures they face.

- Thank you.

♪