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Bad News for Knowland Park: Judge Grillo Decides Zoo Expansion Plan Is Not a New Project

By on June 20, 2012 in Campaign Updates, Nature & Wildlife, Oakland Politics, Personal Journals, Uncategorized

This heritage Coast Live Oak, Oakland's namesake, will be cut down to make room for the Interpretive Center.

Yesterday Judge Evelio Grillo issued his final ruling in our lawsuit, stating that the Zoo’s current expansion plan into Knowland Park is merely a modification of the 1998 Amended Master Plan project.   Sometimes in the court of law it’s possible  to find that up is down and black is white.  Such is the case here.  Our attorneys – Shute, Mihaly, & Weinberger – argued eloquently that the Zoo’s plan, which adds a veterinary hospital and an aerial gondola, quadruples the size of the Interpretive Center, and includes other major changes that were detailed in our briefs, results in a new project.  In the end, the court disagreed, and the accompanying photos show who loses as a result of the court’s decision.

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The tomb of the unknown bobcat: How named captive animals displace unnamed wild ones

By on June 14, 2012 in Nature & Wildlife, Uncategorized

California Bobcat. Photo by U.S.FishandWildlifeService

The zoo’s planned development onto Knowland Park habitat currently used by multiple wild animals will include exhibits featuring captive animals that no longer are native to the area–due to loss of habitat and other human activities. It will also include exhibits displaying captive specimens of animals that are still around here in the wild and currently using Knowland Park for hunting, raising their young, and migration between habitat zones. The irony of this seems so obvious that it is sometimes hard for environmentally active folks to understand how zoo patrons can possibly support such a destructive project. One explanation may lie in the fact that zoo animals become personal to people, particularly those who visit often: they are given names like Molly, Milou, Ginger and Grace, the tigers rescued last year from a private zoo in Texas, and people begin the process of identifying with them.

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Goats, Regrading, and ‘Genista’ roll into Knowland Park – Anybody have a Plan?

By on June 7, 2012 in Campaign Updates, Nature & Wildlife, Oakland Politics, Uncategorized

Longtime Knowland Park aficionados know that every year as summer approaches, a herd of mother goats and their kids appears in Knowland Park to munch down the tall dry grass. The process is intended to reduce the dry grass and brush that could fuel wildfire—and thus is an important, low-tech way of helping to protect residents who live near the Park. Those who walk the Park year-round may have noticed how oak trees are trimmed very evenly in the Park. This is due to the goats, who love to nibble on the oak leaves as high as they can reach, sometimes standing on their hind legs to snack.

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An Evening Talk with Jim Hale, Wildlife Biologist, on the Wildlife of the East Bay Hills

By on April 18, 2012 in Nature & Wildlife, Uncategorized

Jim Hale

by Laura Baker and Donna Reynolds

Guests at the talk by wildlife biologist Jim (Doc) Hale on Friday night were treated to fascinating accounts of his encounters with East Bay wildlife.  Jim grew up in the area and has been a wildlife biologist for over 40 years, tramping the hills, valleys, woodlands and creeks of Contra Costa and Alameda Counties.  During the course of his career, he has studied nearly every local critter you can imagine from badgers to bobcats and skinks to skunks.

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The “Galapagos Islands” of the East Bay Hills
What you won’t learn at the Oakland Zoo’s Earth Day, #1

By on April 12, 2012 in Nature & Wildlife, Uncategorized

After the California Native Plant Society was told that it would not be welcome to bring materials about Knowland Park’s plants and animals to the Zoo’s Earth Day (see http://www.saveknowland.org/2012/03/27/earth-day-at-the-oakland-zoo/) , we decided to share here some of what we might have presented. This is the first in a series on what you WON’T learn about Knowland Park at the Oakland Zoo’s Earth Day. As the designated steward of the park and as an organization that claims the “conservation” mantle, the Zoo should be focusing its conservation message on its own back yard.

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