Yosemite Area Audubon Society

Despite a challenging economic environment, the support of members and friends like you in 2013 has enabled Yosemite Ares Audubon Society (YAAS) to accomplish a number of significant programs and goals.  In the coming year, we are planning to grow and provide even more offerings to the community as well as expand our education and citizen science programs. We recognize that it’s only with the assistance of individuals like you that we can move ahead toward our goals.  We are asking you for your financial support. Your generosity will help sustain our organization by making it possible for us to achieve our goals for the coming year and to meet the objectives in our mission statement—to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth's biological diversity.

Our goals for this year include:

Further develop our education program.  Last year we began an education program in Mariposa County elementary schools, with the goal of acquainting students with the common birds of the area and their habitats.  It was a wonderful success.  We had 12 volunteers who taught 145 students in 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades.  For the first year of the program, we purchased fifty pairs of binoculars from Eagle Optics.  Classroom and outdoor bird education classes were taught for one hour each week from February through May 2013.  One of our volunteer teachers wrote:  “The children, their teacher Kyla Brand and I loved our Audubon study and learned so much that we want to continue next term. The students presented some of what they learned, class by class, to the whole school.”  Our goal for 2013/2014 is to expand the program to the Oakhurst area and to reach the same number of students in that area.  To reach this goal, we will need to purchase additional classroom material and more binoculars.

 

Expand the nest box program.  We would like to select additional locations for nest box installation and monitoring in Mariposa County.  Last year, we increased the number of nest boxes from 81 to nearly 300.  The results were impressive, with 62 American Kestrels, 31 Barn Owls and the young of several other species fledging.  For this program, we will need to purchase additional material for the new nest boxes as well as mounting hardware and steel poles where the boxes will be mounted.

 

Increase our outreach to the community by providing additional field trips and programs that highlight the many other natural wonders of our area, such as butterflies, wildflowers, other wildlife and its geology.  We intend to increase our participation in local festivals, gatherings and activities.  We hope that you will be able to take part in one or more of our exciting and interesting activities or programs this year so that you can experience firsthand the pride we take in supporting Audubon, our area habitats and of course—the birds!

We are a 501(c)(3) organization; your donation is tax deductible.  Our tax ID number is 260732772