Community members can now meet eye-to-eye with wildlife that surrounds the La Cañada Flintridge community at Descanso Gardens’ latest exhibit. The home of the beautiful gardens has teamed up with the Arroyos and Foothills Conservancy to give visitors a closer look at animals, and what it’s like “Living in a Wildlife Corridor.”
Since 2000, The Arroyos and Foothills Conservancy’s goal is to preserve land and restore habitat in and around the San Gabriel and Crescenta Valleys, thereby protecting natural areas for birds and wildlife and providing access and educational experiences for the community.
The Boddy House of the Descanso Gardens has opened its doors to this exhibit for members of the community to be immersed into the sights and sounds of a wildlife corridor. Various forms of information and artwork are included throughout the exhibit — from wildlife photographers and camera trappers, to paintings from local artists and stories from the Tongva people.
“I wanted to create a room where people felt immersed in nature,” said Barbara Goto, director of operations for the Conservancy. “When it’s quiet in here you can hear the birds singing. We wanted people to see interpretations of nature through art [of] nature.”
Until Oct. 1, community members are encouraged to check out this exhibit to not only experience what a typical wildlife corridor looks and feels like, but to educate themselves on what more they can do to preserve it.
“We just wanted to be inclusive,” said Goto. “We wanted there to be something for everyone. There’s information for experts, and they can use QR codes and figure more things out, and then there’s a lot of information that’s more introductory.”
Descanso Gardens itself is surrounded by a variety of wildlife corridors, like the San Gabriel Mountains, the Verdugo Mountains and the San Rafael Hills. The area is surrounded by development, which makes it difficult for wildlife to move from one corridor to another.
“So, the idea of this — living in a wildlife corridor — is to just let everybody know that we are all living in these corridors, and the animals are passing from one place to another,” said Goto.
The Conservancy likes to focus on mountain lions to learn how they can conserve the property and make sure they can have room to pass to different corridors. The exhibit shows the process of how the National Park Service places a tracker on a mountain lion. The exhibit has a cage where children can walk or crawl through.
“This is an actual cage that they use to capture mountain lions,” said Goto. “They try and do it as humanely with as little stress as possible. But if a mountain lion goes through, it’s going to sense and trigger it, and that sends a message to their cell phone.”
Goto said that the GPS collar is the best way to track animals in their movement to find possible pathways, like tracking the famous and beloved mountain lion P-22, who was euthanized in December after suffering from disease and multiple injuries consistent with being hit by an automobile. He was about 12 years old. Pictures and tributes to P-22 are displayed in the exhibit to honor his life and tell a story of his years roaming the hills of Los Angeles.
“We’ve got a tribute to P-22 because he did so much to get everyone involved,” said Goto. “He brought everyone from such diverse backgrounds together, it’s just amazing. His legacy is lasting, and it’s going to continue.”
The exhibit also shares information about the Tongva people and their efforts to preserve wildlife corridors.
“Most of our design team is indigenous,” said Goto. “So they helped us keep a really grounded perspective, and include that perspective in the exhibit, which we felt was really important.”
Tongva artist Weshoyot Alvitre was featured for a piece she did on P-22 and his connection to the indigenous people.
“It’s a tribute to P-22, but it’s through the eyes of the indigenous community,” said Goto. “This is meant for folks to come and reflect on themselves, as they reflect on what she’s saying. So, this is a really deep piece.”
Alvitre explores the connection of P-22 to the indigenous people, specifically the Tongva people.
“They, like P-22, were displaced from their land here and continue to find a way through an increasingly developed environment that pushes nature to the margins,” read the description next to the piece. “The piece also highlights the time P-22 passed away and whether they would study his body or lay him to rest in peace.”
“It’s much more important to us to work with indigenous peoples in the field,” said Goto. “So, we have a very strong relationship, I think, with the Tongva community, which are the original caretakers of the land, right here, where we are.”
The exhibit not only features work from well-known photographers like Johanna Turner and Denis Callet, but also interns from the Conservancy who have blossomed with their talent.
In partnership with many organizations, including KidSpace Children’s Museum, the exhibit was able to shine. KidSpace specifically helped create a mobile depicting a swarm of monarch butterflies that filled a room and spun, as if they were flying.
“We have a monarch recovery project where we’re trying to give away as much milkweed as possible and give people planting instructions so that they have more milkweed,” said Goto.
There is also information encouraging homeowners to install plants native to California, which could help residents avoid wasting valuable resources, like water, and make their homes safer by preventing or mitigating wildfires.
Each room was filled with QR codes for people to scan and learn more about wildlife corridors, backyard restoration or just getting more involved.
Along with its interactive features included a map that people could walk on and would light up to show the different corridors, waterways and pathways.
Upon exiting, visitors will view a mural done as tribute to P-22 by Jules Muck, or MuckRock.
“We go into the community, and we start talking to all the neighbors,” said Goto. “We offer to put cameras on their property, so that they can see the wildlife that’s passing through and we really do a lot of in-depth research to try and figure out if that [place] is going to be good for wildlife.”
The exhibit was planned to run in 2020 but was put on hold due to the pandemic. Rich Toyon, who is a board member for the Conservancy and a cinematic production designer for companies like HBO, Netflix, Disney and Paramount, was part of a team of designers to help bring the exhibit to life.
“Our first effort was to dissect and define the theme of wildlife corridors and the relationship of humans to non-humans,” said Toyon. “All sorts of ideas were on the table, but we zeroed in on what carried the theme forward the best, always keeping in mind the feasibility, the cost, exhibit partners, etc.”
Toyon said that the work couldn’t be done without some key players like retired Disney theme park designer Joe Rohde and graphic designer Timara Lotahlink, to name a few.
“For me, as a cinematic production designer, I treated the exhibit as a ‘set’ of sorts in a historic location and took great care to carefully install to limit any damage to the house,” said Toyon.
Having big ideas and making sure the team could execute them was the main issue, but they were able to nail down their priorities.
“Perhaps the more difficult ideas were the electronic installations, specifically the interactive map,” said Toyon. “We were inventing the methodology as we went, however our electronic media expert, Alex Dryer, was hands on and quite collaborative even though we had to make last-minute alterations. We also had a few other projections we had to cut due to budgetary reasons.”
The overall goal for the team was to attract visitors through art and interactivity, said Toyon.
“There is a ton of information in the exhibit but accessible in smaller bites or presented through works of art that just about anyone could come away quite informed,” said Toyon.
Like Toyon, Goto emphasized the need to get involved.
“We want everyone to understand that there’s something they can do,” said Goto. “And there’s a lot of little somethings you can do, and all those little somethings mean a lot. It makes an impact. … So, they’re just a lot of things people can do, and we just want to equip them with the knowledge to go out and make a change.”
First published in the August 17 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
