6:30 PM Doors Open
7:00 PM Announcements
7:15 PM Refreshments and Raffle
7:30 PM Main Program: Bay Area Wildlife: An Irreverent Guide
*as a conservation organization we encourage you to bring your own mug for coffee or tea

Conservationist Jeff Miller will talk about his new book Bay Area Wildlife: An Irreverent Guide, which invites Bay Area denizens to embrace their local fauna. Bay Area Wildlife casts a spotlight on the whereabouts and personalities of the Bay Area’s furred, feathered, and fork-tongued neighbors. Meet “screaming death parrots” (aka peregrine falcons), “disco slugs dressed for a P-Funk concert” (nudibranchs), and “rototillers with fur” (badgers), among many others. Jeff’s colorful descriptions offer a compilation of each species’ natural history and fun facts—did you know beavers have vanilla-scented butts, elephant seals have the loudest recorded burps (at 130 decibels), only Usain Bolt can run faster than a roadrunner, or that pooping whales might possibly save the world? Each section also includes tips on when, where, and how to best find and observe each animal. This irreverent and quirky guide to the coolest animal neighbors in the Bay Area will have you gawking at elk, whooping with cranes, and crowning yourself a crossing guard for newts before you know it. Mount Diablo critters featured in the book include gray foxes, bobcats, long-tailed weasels, golden eagles, peregrine falcons, Alameda whipsnakes, western rattlesnakes, tarantulas, and convergent ladybugs. Jeff will discuss iconic and ecologically essential wildlife species that are returning to our region, such as beavers, steelhead trout, condors, and black bears.

Jeff Miller is an amateur naturalist, professional conservationist, and passionate advocate for wildlife. Jeff is the founder of the nonprofit Alameda Creek Alliance and has served as its executive director since 1997, working to restore steelhead trout and salmon to Alameda Creek and protect the Bay Area’s largest local watershed. He’s a senior conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, spearheading biodiversity protection campaigns throughout the Bay Area and California, preparing endangered species listing petitions, writing press releases, and doing public outreach and organizing around wildlife protection issues. Over the last quarter century, he has been involved in conservation efforts for dozens of the most iconic imperiled wildlife species in the Bay Area, the most recent being securing state protections for burrowing owls. Jeff says that loving nature is as important as fighting for it and grieving ecological destruction. People tend to care more about animals and places that they have a direct experience with, so he wrote Bay Area Wildlife: An Irreverent Guide to try to connect readers with our regional fauna and inspire them to make a pilgrimage to witness the Bay Area’s spectacular natural phenomena.