Cabrillo National Monument

More than 200,000 volunteers provide invaluable time and energy to the National Park Service. Meet the people and groups being honored with a 2013 Hartzog Award.

On May 21-22, 2016, Cabrillo National Monument and several other park units hosted a Centennial Bioblitz event. Utilizing the biodiversity observation application, iNaturalist, explorers of all ages made their way to Cabrillo to discover biodiversity in their National Park. Thanks to an incredible team of over 157 scientists, exhibitors, and volunteers, over 1706 observations spanning 427 species were documented throughout the 24-hour Bioblitz period landing us in 3rd place.

Each year nearly 300,000 volunteers across the National Park Service (NPS) donate more than 6.5 million hours of service, for a value of more than $185 million. Through their extraordinary work and dedication, these volunteers make an exceptional contribution to their parks and communities. We are pleased to congratulate the national recipients of the 2020 George and Helen Hartzog Awards for Outstanding Volunteer Service.

In this issue of 3Parks3Stories, we would like to share three stories of successful conservation projects in the Mediterranean parks that were reliant upon partnerships between the NPS and one or more dedicated collaborators. In these stories, we hope you see the mutual benefits of these relationships and the value they bring in the effort to protect, preserve, and understand our national legacy.

Like you, we love our National Parks and all of the wonderful flora and fauna that live within them. Our mission is to protect and preserve these natural resources for this and future generations. That’s a big task! Have you ever wondered how we at the National Park Service keep tabs on the status of everything that lives within the park?

A lot of articles have been written about the history of the National Park Service (NPS) arrowhead emblem. Many recycle the same content and outdated information that has largely come from the NPS itself. Challenging the traditional story has revealed new sources of information—and two previously overlooked arrowhead designs—that rewrite the arrowhead origin story.

The National Park Service (NPS) was only 26 years old when the United States entered World War II. The young bureau faced very real threats to its mission, with increasing pressure to contribute its natural and cultural resources to the war effort even as its budget and staff were slashed. Under the leadership of Director Newton B. Drury, the NPS was able to do its part for the war while maintaining its public trust responsibilities to the American people.

Each month on a Monday, a team of Cabrillo National Monument biologists and volunteers head out to the field to begin a week of pitfall trapping. Most often, they find common lizards and a lot of small mammals. Sometimes, a bucket will contain a snake or a salamander. This season, diversity has been particularly high. The team also found a species that had never been recorded in more than 20 years of pitfall trapping.