| Fish and Game Senior
Volunters Welcomed A graduation ceremony was held at Shellmaker Island on March
21, 2003 for the 20 Orange County residents enrolled in the third Senior Volunteer Academy
of the California Department of Fish and Game. The Senior Volunteer Program was conceived
by Mervin Hee, Assistant Chief, South Coast Region, just over a year ago and is already
working well in San Diego County, where two academies have already graduated.
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| The program is the first of its kind in California in that it focuses on the use of
trained Senior Volunteers to provide county-wide wildlife and environmental resource
education to urban and suburban communities. The program will target assessed educational
needs of communities throughout Orange County, such as coyote education and coastal and
state lands monitoring. The program endeavors to work with the many other volunteer
organizations that have been instrumental in helping safeguard Orange County’s
coastal tide pools, beaches, wetlands and state ecological reserves. Some of these
Volunteer Organizations include Newport Bay Naturalists and Friends, Bolsa Chica
Conservancy, California State Parks, Crystal Cove and the County of Orange Coastal
Facilities Operations, Harbors, Beaches and Parks (Marine Life Refuge Program). The DFG
program will also be working with other Senior Volunteer Programs that may have wildlife
or resource related issues in their cities. These include Laguna Woods, Laguna Beach, San
Clemente, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Seal Beach.
The DFG Orange County Senior Volunteer chapter looks forward to basing its operations
at Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve. Satellite offices are currently being set up at
Laguna Woods City Hall and Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. The program wishes to thanks
all the DFG personnel and organizations that participated in the academy curriculum and
supported this program. A special thanks to the City of Laguna Woods for providing office
space.
The DFG Senior Volunteers, have no powers of arrest or law enforcement authority. They
are empowered by their ability to give back their talents to the community, not by the
position they would be entrusted with. They will focus on educating the public regarding
the importance of ethics in natural resource conservation. One of the motto’s of the
program, is "People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you
care". The program emphasizes the importance of understanding the relational aspect
of the public coexisting with wildlife and natural resources. Equally important is the
role of the Senior Volunteers in networking with other volunteer organizations and the
public to achieve mutual conservation objectives. Senior Volunteers add value through
their maturity in character, wisdom and life experience. They are a minimum of 50 years
old and serve 24 hours or more per month.
Trained to observe and report, the Senior Volunteers are an extra set of eyes and ears
for DFG wardens, biologists and public officials. Senior Volunteers increase field time
for warden patrols and investigations. They additionally free up more time for biologists
to do management and research, and for other volunteer organizations to focus on their
core activities. The Newport Bay Naturalists & Friends have welcomed the Senior
Volunteers as partners in educating the public about the ecological value of Upper Newport
Bay and how to protect it.
Lt. Kent Smirl
Department of Fish and Game |
