What’s going on with the Shipley Nature Center?

NATURAL PERSPECTIVES

When we heard that the Shipley Nature Center was staying open, we

were thrilled. But it turns out that this isn’t really what is

happening.

Ranger Dave is being reassigned to beach duty as of Oct. 1, where

he will issue parking tickets. All the animals in the center--six

snakes, three turtles, a tarantula, stick insects, fish, a desert

tortoise--will be given away. The lights will be off, the door will

be shut and the gate will be locked. That sure sounds like closed to

us.

The city hoped that volunteers from the newly formed Friends of

Shipley Nature Center could keep the center open and give the tours

for school children that Ranger Dave formerly conducted. Sounds good,

but there’s a problem with that plan. The group is not up and running

yet as an organized group. They hope eventually to have a docent

program, but they don’t yet. And even when they do have their docents

trained, volunteers cannot take the place of a full-time ranger. The

group cannot possibly provide as much presence at the center as

Ranger Dave did, and they certainly won’t be able to patrol the park

with the full air of authority that his uniform and badge provided.

Also, it will be hard -- no, impossible -- to replace the depth of

biological knowledge that he brought to the nature center. While

we’re really happy that there is a group willing to try to fill the

void, we know -- and they know -- that it won’t be the same.

The nonprofit group won’t be able to give as many tours as Dave

did and they won’t be giving tours for free. They’ll have to charge

to offset their expenses, which will put this experience out of reach

of the poorer school districts. Many of the children who come to the

nature center have never seen anything outside of their neighborhood.

To their eyes, our little nature center is a true wilderness. An

eye-popping, awe-inspiring, scary adventure into the wilds of nature.

If you walk the winding, intersecting paths of the nature center,

which you can still do for the rest of this month, you can see how

the kids might think that. It’s a wild world apart from the rest of

the park, a world filled with turtles, frogs, butterflies,

dragonflies and birds. But the children won’t get to walk through our

urban jungle this school year, because it will be closed.

The closing of the nature center couldn’t have come at a worse

time. All of the giant reed (Arundo donax) that was crowding out the

native plants has just been removed. Huge piles of it now sit on bare

dirt, awaiting a decision of what to do with it and the money to deal

with it. Next spring, the deeply buried roots will send up sprouts.

Arundo is amazingly resilient and incredibly hard to eliminate. To

kill the sprouts, the area will need to be sprayed with herbicide.

(Yes, there is one that is approved for use near wetlands.) However,

the city won’t allow volunteers to use it due to liability issues.

That means that city workers must do the spraying. It is our

understanding that there is no money for this project.

This is a job that needs to be given high priority. If the work

isn’t done in a timely fashion, it will cost the city vastly more to

do it in the future. If Arundo is allowed to grow back, the project

will need to be started all over again, as it was after the delay in

restoration that occurred several years ago when mitigation funding

was lost.

A ray of hope in this dismal picture is that the council did

approve $21,000 to pay for landscape architect Guy Stiver to draw up

detailed restoration plans. However, there is no money to implement

these plans. Already, deadly castor bean, which contains the poison

called ricin, is sprouting where Arundo used to grow.

There are more glimmers of hope for the future. Ron Hagan,

director of community services, said that he is requesting $10,000 in

the budget to fund California Conservation Corps workers to continue

to weed and do trail maintenance and that Ranger Dave will be able to

spend up to one-third of his time at the center to work with the

volunteers on weed abatement. The Huntington Beach Tree Society has

donated $12,000 worth of trees toward the $500,000 restoration

effort. And the Friends of Shipley Nature Center have a work party

scheduled on Nov. 23 to plant some of those trees. But there are no

plans to reopen the center.

We look at the price of housing in this town. It’s astronomical.

We see many cars on our streets that sell for more than $50,000. We

know there is money in this community. We don’t believe that the

citizens will allow a beloved nature center to close over a measly

$120,000 a year. That’s less than $1 per capita for our community.

We’re sure that there are private funds available to reopen the

gates. If you can offer help, the Friends of Shipley Nature Center

could certainly use it. Visit their Web site at www.fsnc.org, call

them at (714) 963-1658, or e-mail them at [email protected].

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].