2024 ​Speaker Series

All speaker programs will be available to attend via ZOOM. 
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5948239658
Meeting ID: 594 823 9658
​Passcode: BIRDS
Check the events calendar for updates at: www.plumasaudubon.org/calendar
If you missed a speaker program, don't fret! You can watch our programs any time on our YouTube Channel.

April

Cultivating Connectivity: Wildlife Corridors
Wednesday, April 17th, 2024, 6:30-8:00 PM
​Quincy Library, 445 Jackson Street​
Mari Galloway will present on the importance of intact landscapes for healthy ecosystems and discuss ongoing efforts, including research, wildlife crossings, and policy, to connect habitats in the Northern Sierra and beyond. 

As California Director of Wildlands Network, Mari develops collaborative and strategic partnerships to further policy and land use initiatives that promote wildlife corridors and core habitat protections throughout California.

​Mari spent her childhood on a farm in the San Joaquin Valley of California and her summers in the Sierra Nevada, near Ebbetts Pass. Her outdoor exposure inspired her to study ecology, pursuing her bachelor degree in environmental science from Humboldt State University. Recognizing the threats to these ecosystems motivated her to protect them, prompting her to obtain a law degree at the University of Oregon in 2020. Mari has combined her passion for science and policy through working with wildlife and ecology experts to advance innovative legislation and on-the-ground landscape-scale initiatives.

​Mari lives in Sacramento, California. When not strategizing a connected California, you’ll find her outside with her dog, Bodie, either backpacking, trail running, sketching, and gardening.

This event is part of the Cultivating Connectivity Series and is co-hosted with Friends of Plumas Wilderness.

March

Friends of California Condors, Wild and Free
Wednesday, March 20th, 2024, 6:00-7:00 PM
​Quincy Library, 445 Jackson Street​
Picture
Lane Frank is a Board Member at Friends of California Condors Wild and Free. He's been involved with the organization since 2013 and has been viewing CACOs since the late 1990s when he started working at his company’s radar test site in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Sylmar, in the northern SFV. 

​Friends of California Condors Wild and Free is a group of volunteers that work closely with the U S Fish and Wildlife Service to promote the continued recovery of the California condor focusing on outreach, education, research, and support of the cooperative stewardship. Including the Friends group, there are 22 organizations supporting the CACO recovery program, and without their continual participation the recovery program would not be possible. They also perform refuge maintenance, conduct on-refuge tours, and provide limited financial assistance to the USFWS for needed equipment such as nest cameras.
Since moving to Plumas County in 2019, Lane has been providing education about these birds to interested parties and some grassroots education about lead alternatives to local hunters and the effects of lead on the local wildlife, specifically the local birds.​

​View event flyer:
pas_speaker_program__condors__3-20-2024.pdf
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Did you miss it? Watch the recording on YouTube:

Last year's speakers...
​

Plumas County Big Year:
365 days of discovery, connection, contribution, and fowl obsession in the Lost Sierra
​(Part One)
Thursday, January 19th, 2023
Paul Hardy shared the birds, the data, lessons learned, and personal reflections about his (successful) quest to break the Plumas County Big Year record in 2022.

Paul founded the Feather River Land Trust in 1999, where he served as Executive Director for 17 years. ​His 30+ years of conservation, land management, and non-profit experience includes working as an avian scientist for the University of Arizona for 3 years, a wildlife biologist on the Plumas National Forest for 5 years, ​co-creating the Sierra-Cascade Land Trust Council and Northern Sierra Partnership,​ and ​serving on the​ boards of the California Council of Land Trusts and Plumas Audubon Society.
​
Paul was born beside the Middle Fork Feather River at the Western Pacific Railroad Hospital in Portola, where he grew up, graduating from Portola High School in 1988. He and his brother, Mark, were lucky to have parents (Richard and Becky Hardy) who took them fishing, hunting, hiking, wildlife watching, and camping throughout the Feather River Watershed and western U.S. After obtaining degrees in wildlife biology from the Universities of California and Arizona, Paul moved back to the Feather River region in 1998 to help start FRLT. Paul recently launched Hardy Conservation and the Center for Conservation Renewal; however, his primary job and joy is supporting his teenage kids, Emmalyn and Andrew, in Quincy, California with lots of help from friends and family.
​
Did you miss it? Watch the recording on YouTube!
Plumas County Big Year:
365 days of discovery, connection, contribution, and fowl obsession in the Lost Sierra
(Part Two)

Tuesday, February 21st, 2023
Paul Hardy shared the rest of the story about the birds, the data, lessons learned, and personal reflections about his (successful) quest to break the Plumas County Big Year record in 2022.

Did you miss it? Watch the recording on YouTube!

View more past speaker programs...