Rumsen Ohlone Elder Tony Cerda's Words to Pope Francis

"Saint Junipero Serra Baptized and Married our ancestors Simon Francisco (Indian name "Chanjay") and Magdalena Francisca on April 1, 1775 at Mission San Carlos De Borromeo Del Rio Carmelo.

They were from Echilat, a village that existed for more than 2000 years in the Carmel Mountains the Padres called it La Rancheria De San Fraciscito."

-Rumsen Ohlone Elder Tony Cerda
From: Rumsen Ohlone
Photo by Michael Fiala

The Closure of Rancho Cañada Golf Club

"A new land deal along the Carmel River could mean the closure of Rancho Cañada Golf Club.
The deal announced Tuesday by a coalition of conservation organizations will protect 140 acres along the river near Palo Corona Regional Park.
Part of the land is known as the Hatton Ranch, which is two miles from the ocean just east of Highway 1 and has been owned by the Hatton family since the late 1800s."

From Monterey Herald
Picture from: Palo Corona

Native Peoples & Languages of San Francisco & Monterey Bays circa 1700

"Nowhere was the linguistic diversity of the New World more extreme than in California, where an extraordinary variety of village-dwelling peoples spoke seventy-eight mutually unintelligible languages"
From: Victor Golla 
Map from: Bay Nature

The Monterey Canyon

Hidden off the central California coast is a gorge carved into the seafloor that rivals the Grand Canyon, its steep walls measuring nearly one mile from top to bottom.
Since the discovery of the Monterey Canyon at the turn of the 19^th century, scientists have hypothesized that turbidity currents eroded away the canyons and cut sinuous channels along the ocean floor.

From: Stanford

"Serra St. of Genocide."

"A young girl found the decapitated head of a Junipero Serra statue during a low tide Saturday afternoon off the coast of Monterey."

 

From: SFGate

The glassy, cold Carmel River surged through the Santa Lucia Mountains

The glassy, cold Carmel River surged through a little valley in the Santa Lucia Mountains. The Carmel was diverted around the former San Clemente Dam site into a channel fashioned out of a historic creek bed. The $83 million dam removal and river restoration project was the most ambitious in California history.
Map From: Nature Conservancy
From SFChronicle

The State Water Board ordered an additional decrease in water pumped from the Carmel River.

Cal Am Water has now delayed their testing another year because they held back the EIR schedule, potentially resulting in water rationing even under a modified Carmel River cutback order. The State Water Board has ordered an additional decrease in the amount of water that can be pumped from the Carmel River.

From: Monterey Herald
Picture from: Tales From Carmel 

Carmel River State Beach in March 2016

"The Carmel River was running at 1,150 cubic feet per second, the highest it has reached since March 2011, before the statewide drought set in."
Photo by Vern Fisher
From: The Monterey Herald

The Carmel River Hasn't Been This Healthy in Four Years

 

"The Carmel River has been able to flow constantly into the ocean like it normally should be, but because of California’s drought, it hasn't been this healthy in four years. And since it is healthy, it’s helping struggling Steelhead fish rebound."

From: KION

From: I Love Carmel Valley

For the first time in decades, the odds are looking more in the California Condors’ favor

After more than 35 years of flirting with extinction, the California Condor is finally due for a success story.
 2015 was the first year in decades in which the number of chicks hatched and raised in the wild outweighed the number of wild condor deaths—14 births to 12 deaths: a sign that these pink-faced beauties are on a steady track to recovery.
From: Audubon

The new Carmel River channel with step pools and resting pool at the former San Clemente Dam site

"Water flowed freely through the Carmel River’s new route about midway up the 36-mile river during a visit to the site. It rushed over a series of step pools and swirled into resting pools along a quarter-mile stretch of the river specifically designed to provide the best possible passageway for the endangered Steelhead to swim upstream and allow the river’s crucial downstream habitat to begin the recovery process."

From: Monterey Herald
Photo by Jim Johnson

Carmel River Step Pools

"Restoration efforts are already paying off for fish too—biologists sighted the first adult threatened Steelhead trout in one of the step pools on Feb. 11th!"

From NOAA Fisheries

Complete the historic Carmel River restoration effort and remove the obsolete Los Padres Dam.

In order to achieve the historic watershed and Steelhead recovery effort underway on the Carmel River, an unnecessary dam upstream now needs to be removed. On the heels of the San Clemente Dam removal project, it is time to remove the Los Padres Dam

From DamNation
Photo: Demolition of 106-foot tall San Clemente Dam. California Department of Water Resources (Aug. 3, 2015)

Wild Condor population to again face the threat of Extinction

"By 1987, for the first time in tens of thousands of years, no Condors patrolled the California skies.
Today there are 230 California Condors in the wild: 128 in California, 73 in northern Arizona and southern Utah, 29 in Baja California." 
 "Without continued management to prevent lead-related deaths, the wild Condor population is predicted to again face the substantial threat of extinction in the coming decades."

From KCET

The Elusive Tularcitos Aquifer

"But so far no one has struck a deep source which will produce water at a rate of at least 1,000 gallons a minute, which the water company would need for a commercial well. Nor is there evidence that the deeper valley wells are not just isolated pockets. Nor can it be said with any certainty what effect the more shallow Carmel Valley Aquifer has on this elusive Tularcitos Aquifer, or, indeed, how the Tularcitos aquifer would be replenished."  From Monterey Herald July 6, 1977

From Monterey Bay Partisan

Heteromeles Arbutifolia: Toyon

Heteromeles arbutifolia, known as Toyon, Christmas berry or California holly, occurs naturally within the chaparral and oak woodland ecosystems of California. It is often considered a shrub but can grow into a small tree.
From: Homeguides

The Carmel River Notch

 

The Carmel River Notch was first put in after the 1995 flood.  The notch is at a section of the river where the bed narrows. It allows for water to spill through the levy and into a flood plain.

From KSBW

Carmel River Flood 1998

The lower Carmel River has overflowed its banks numerous times throughout history causing extensive flooding of businesses and homes. For example, storms in 1995, 1997 and 1998 caused millions of dollars in flood damage to the mouth of Carmel Valley, and in 1995 destroyed the State Highway One Bridge at the Carmel River, causing a closure of the highway at that location for six months and cutting off access to and from Big Sur.

From: Big Sur Land Trust

The Carmel River ran its new course as the San Clemente dam finally came down

"The engineering involved rerouting and reconstructing the Carmel River and creating dozens of pools for Steelhead to spawn and mature. Natural barriers have also been constructed to stem the flow of water during flooding and native vegetation has been planted to restore the area to its natural setting."

From KSBW

Ponciano's Cabin

"This is Ponciano Manjares' Cabin during the 1960's on the ridge that bears his name."
From: San Clemente Rancho

Fermín de Francisco Lasuén de Arasqueta

Fermín de Francisco Lasuén de Arasqueta continued the work begun by Saint Junipero Serra, establishing 9 more missions, bringing the total to 18. He died at Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on July 26, 1803.

“Here are aborigines whom we are teaching to be men, people of vicious and ferocious habits who know no law but force, no superior but their own free will, and no reason but their own caprice. A people without education, without government, religion or respect for authority, and they shamelessly pursue without restraint whatever their brutal appetites suggest to them. Their inclination to lewdness and theft is on par with their love for the mountains. Such is the character of the men we are to correct and whose crimes we must punish" 

From: Converting California

Picture From: Pandisoo

The Carmel and the San Clemente Converge Sooner

The Carmel River and San Clemente Creek confluence used to be at the dam, but a new channel has been carved, so the Carmel and the San Clemente converge sooner.
"Without the natural habitat being restored, and all of the step pools being restored, we're not going to be able to have a natural functioning river."
From KSBW

Mission Santa Cruz was founded by Serra's successor, Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén

Vandals splashed red paint across the front door of the Mission Santa Cruz, one of 21 Spanish Franciscan missions stretching from Sonoma to San Diego. The mission wasn’t founded by Serra but by his successor, Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén.The attack is the fourth incident of vandalism on Serra-related buildings and statues along the Central Coast.

From LA Times 
Picture from: breibart

Rain Along the Carmel River on Monday

Fueling this storm system is "polar air" coming from the Gulf of Alaska and a narrow atmospheric river, resulting in snow and "heavy showers."
Picture by: David Royal

Mission Grapes

The current order requires Cal Am to cut pumping from the river by about two-thirds

Monterey Peninsula water officials expect to publicly release a final proposal for extending the deadline for pumping cutbacks on the Carmel River by four years.
The proposal calls for Cal Am to secure a desal project permit from the state Public Utilities Commission by September 2017, start construction on the desal plant or the groundwater replenishment project by September 2018, and begin providing a new water source by the end of 2020.
The current order requires Cal Am to cut pumping from the river by about two-thirds by the end of next year

From: Monterey Herald 
Photo from: Yelp

The statue of Saint Serra at Lower Presidio Park in Monterey has been decapitated

Just more than two weeks after the Junipero Serra statue at the Carmel Mission was toppled and defaced, the Serra statue at Lower Presidio Park in Monterey has been decapitated. 
Picture by @davidmschmalz

From MC Weekly

Rancho Cañada

Rancho Cañada Golf Club is comprised of two 18-hole courses that weaves back and forth across the Carmel River.
This estate was once a prized portion of the 4,366 acre California Rancho named, "Cañada de la Segunda."
The proposed Carmel Valley Rancho Cañada development  is heavily scaled back from the original vision: Instead of 281 housing units there will only be 130.

From: MPGolf
From: MCWeekly

Western Houndstongue: Cynoglossum Grande

Houndstongue is a perennial herb that is native to California.

Picture from: Mama Quail

Mass graves dot the California missionary system

Today, mass graves filled with Native peoples dot the California missionary system. Tens of thousands died while the missions were in operation. Within 100 years of Serra's arrival, the indigenous population had been decimated from over 300,000 to 16,000. And the man at the helm was made a Saint. 
From: Huffington Post

Carmel Valley Hills Restoration Project

In 1984, restoration of eight miles of river was scheduled to be completed by MPWMD within ten years. In 1992 and 1993, the restoration of the Valley Hills reach was completed and has since been irrigated.
After re-contouring of the site and the planting of cottonwoods, willows, alders, and dogwoods, a total of 4.10 acres of riparian vegetation exist, showing a 185% increase in riparian vegetation in this reach.

From: http://www.mpwmd.dst.ca.us/MapGallery/Valley%20Hills%20copy.jpg 
Picture from: robin purcell

The Pope conducted the canonisation in front of 25,000 people

Pope Francis has made a controversial Spanish missionary a saint in an elaborate ceremony that inspired mass devotion as well as protests branding the new saint a persecutor of Native Americans.

The Pope conducted the canonisation in front of 25,000 people in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

“Junípero sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it,” he said.“Having given mature deliberation and having begged the help of divine grace, and the opinion of many of our brothers, blessed Junípero Serra, we discern and define to be a saint, and we inscribe him in the catalogue of saints, establishing him in the universal church among the saints who should be appealed to with devotion.”

Serra oversaw the whipping, beating, flogging and extermination of Native Americans in what is now California.

From: The Guardian

Ambystoma Californiense: California Tiger Salamander

The California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense) is a large, stocky, terrestrial salamander with a broad, rounded snout and gorgeous black-and-yellow body.
These amphibians are restricted to vernal pools and seasonal ponds in grassland and oak savannah communities in central California. The primary cause of their decline is the loss and fragmentation of habitat through human activities and encroachment of nonnative predators. 

From: Center for Biological Diversity
Picture from: Kueda

"Saint of Genocide"

The Carmel Mission was vandalized days after Junipero Serra's canonization by Pope Francis.  The vandals splashed paint throughout the cemetery and basilica and scrawled "Saint of Genocide" on a headstone.
The Spanish missionary arrived in what would become California in 1769 and established nine missions between San Diego and San Francisco. He viewed the indigenous tribes as heathens who desperately needed the Gospel, and baptized thousands of Native Americans.

From: LA Times
Picture from KSBW

Malacothamnus palmeri: Carmel Valley Bush Mallow

Malacothamnus palmeri: Carmel Valley Bush Mallow is a native shrub that is included in the CNPS Inventory of Rare and Endangered Plants.

From: CalFlora
 

Relic of Saint Junipero Serra

First Class Relic that contains a piece of bone from Saint Junipero Serra at Carmel Mission

Photo by Vern Fisher

Anniella pulchra nigra: Black Legless Lizard

This form of Anniella from the coast of Monterey Bay in Monterey County was formerly recognized as the subspecies Anniella pulchra nigra - Black Legless Lizard, but it is actually just a melanistic form of Anniella pulchra.

From: CA Herps

An astoundingly diverse array of indigenous cultures

 When Spanish soldiers and missionaries arrived in the land they called Alta California in the 1700s, they were entering an astoundingly diverse array of indigenous cultures' homelands. Then deadly waves of epidemic diseases swept over the terrified indigenous populations — an outcome the Spanish had anticipated.

Military and religious officials subsequently used a combination of bribes and physical force to incarcerate the survivors in filthy, disease-ridden, and crowded labor camps. By 1836, at least 100,000 aboriginal people had died as a result of the Spanish mission system.
From: East Bay Express

Tassajara Fire off Cachagua Road

"North section of the Tassajara Fire off Cachagua Road. The fire was holding at 1086 acres."
By Vern Fisher - Monterey Herald

The Highest Honor in the Catholic Church — Sainthood

"The Carmel Mission will be the site of celebration and silent protest tomorrow as the revered and reviled Father Junipero Serra, the man who built the California Mission system, will be bestowed the highest honor in the Catholic Church — sainthood — by Pope Francis. He will be the first Hispanic-American saint."
From Monterey Herald

Artemisia douglasiana: California Mugwort

  Artemisia douglasiana was named after a Scottish botanist.  The Scottish botanist was named David Douglas (1798-1834) who made many trips to the Americas.  He identified many California species of plants.
From: SFSU

Laureles Fire Contained

"The Laureles Fire was reported about 3:30pm on Saturday and within hours about 160 firefighters were battling 100 acres. The garages of two homes in the Corral de Tierra neighborhood were nearly destroyed, but the houses were not burned. By Sunday evening the blaze was 100 percent contained and the fire was no longer active."

From Monterey County Weekly

Father Serra thought he was ministering to people of equal dignity

“Father Serra advocated continuously, closely, and at great risk for himself, for the Indians against the Spanish military,” says Gregory Orfalea, an instructor at Santa Barbara’s Westmont College "Unlike the Pilgrims in New England," who considered Native Americans subhuman, Serra “thought he was ministering to people of equal dignity"
From Washington Post

Laureles & Tassajara Fires 2015

Picture from: Melendez Salinas

Mountain Lion attacks on humans are rare

According to California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) website, “Mountain Lion attacks on humans are rare. There have been only 16 verified attacks in California since 1890, six of them fatal."

Picture from: San Clemente Rancho

Read more here: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2015/06/10/3673568/mountain-lions-can-pose-a-danger.html#storylink=cpy

Lupinus Nanus: Sky Lupine in the hills above the Carmel Valley

Sky Lupine is an annual, growing as a fire-retardant ground cover in grasslands, from about January to June. The plant dies after seeding. Seeds germinate the following spring to once again cover the area in flowering plants.

From: http://www.moremesa.org/wordpress/sky-lupine/
Photo From: Rod M. Yeager, MD

Carmel Valley Ranch

Billionaire John Pritzker of San Francisco acquired 500-acre Carmel Valley Ranch in 2009, a former pear orchard that had opened as a private golf club in 1981. Drawing on fond memories of summer camp that punctuated his childhood in Chicago as son of the founder of Hyatt Hotels, Pritzker quickly began sowing the seeds for a multimillion-dollar, largely nature-based transformation.
From: SFGate

The Renowned Jester of the Lord - Brother Juniper

Junípero Serra was born Miquel Josep Serra i Ferrer in Petra, Majorca an island in the kingdom of Spain in 1713. As a sixteen year old young man he entered the service of the Catholic Church and shortly thereafter the Order of St. Francis de Assisi where he acquired the name Junipero in honor of St. Juniper, beloved original companion friar of St. Francis.

The Servant of God, best known as Brother Juniper (Italian: Fra Ginepro) (died 1258), called "the renowned jester of the Lord," was one of the original followers of St. Francis of Assisi. Not much is known about Juniper before he joined the friars. In 1210, he was received into the Order of Friars Minor by St. Francis himself.

Picture From: https://twitter.com/catholic_coast

From: http://www.serraclubelp.com/fr.serra/

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juniper_%28friar%29

Finished With The San Clemente Dam

"Within California, 42 percent of the state's dams are privately owned, and more than half of the dams in the total registry (685 dams out of the 1,248 listed) are considered "high-hazard potential," meaning their failure could cause loss of human life."

From: CNBC
Picture from San Clemente Rancho