MONTHLY SPEAKERS
MONTHLY SPEAKERS
**Programs will no longer be held at the Poinsettia Pavilion. See below for details**
OCTOBER 2026 - SHOREBIRDS: A JOURNEY ACROSS THE AMERICAS
Migration, Flyways & the Wetlands That Connect a Hemisphere
Speaker: Benny Isaac Jacobs-Schwartz
Date: October 13, 2026 at 7:00pm
Location: Oxnard Performing Arts Center (Thousand Oaks Room) -
800 Hobson Way, Oxnard
Follow shorebirds from their Arctic breeding grounds through the Pacific Flyway and south across the Americas. Through remarkable migrants like godwits, sandpipers, and plovers, we’ll explore the adaptations behind their epic journeys, the critical stopover habitats they depend on, and the conservation challenges connecting Alaska, California, and South America.
Speaker Bio: Benny Isaac Jacobs-Schwartz owns and operates a bird-guiding business and lifestyle brand called BIRDS by BIJS (pronounced Bee-jus). With a background in biology, ecology, and outdoor education, Benny has worked for over 15 years as a naturalist guide, expedition trip leader, and international bird guide. Benny offers guided birding outings in Southern California and premier birding tours to top favorite tropical locales like Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Colombia.
Benny is a passionate educator and photographer, specializing in birds! Benny is active on social media, where he creates fun, educational videos and posts to inspire others about the natural world with the goal of getting folks to put down their phone and pick up their Binos.
NOVEMBER 2026 - ARE CALIFORNIA PELICANS IN HOT WATER?
Speaker: Amelia DuVall and Tammy Russell
Date: November 10, 2026 at 7:00pm
Location: Patagonia HQ - 235 W Santa Clara St, Ventura,
Just off the coast of Ventura, on the California Channel Islands, lies the only place in the United States where California Brown Pelicans nest. Half a century ago, these birds nearly vanished. Contamination from DDE, a breakdown product of the pesticide DDT, made their eggshells so thin that eggs broke under the weight of their own parents, and the colonies saw near-total reproductive failure. Thanks to a ban on DDT and decades of conservation work, pelicans made a remarkable comeback and were removed from the endangered species list in 2009.
After breeding, pelicans travel the length of the Pacific coast, linking the Channel Islands to colonies in Mexico and feeding grounds as far north as the Pacific Northwest. Across that range, they face threats such as a warming ocean that disrupts their food supply and entanglement in fishing gear.
In this program, the Pelican Science team will share the pelican's life history and population trends, as well as recent insights into movement patterns and survival from tracking data using the Motus Wildlife Tracking System. As pelicans weather back-to-back marine heatwaves and a strong El Niño this year, this research can help inform the next chapter of their conservation story.
Photo by Jim Howard
Speaker Bios:
Dr. Russell is a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Russell is a marine ecologist whose research focuses on seabird foraging ecology, habitat use, and impacts from climate change.
Dr. Duvall is a quantitative ecologist who turns messy seabird data into conservation answers. Her work has taken her to islands across the Pacific, from the California Channel Islands to French Polynesia and southern Japan.