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8 | September 7, 2017 | Malibu surfside news News
malibusurfsidenews.com
INNOVATION/ADVANCED METER
TECHNOLOGY UPGRADE
FOR MALIBU
Recently, SoCalGas ® has been installing Advanced Meter
technology in the City of Malibu.
Nearly all residents and businesses now have a state-of-the-art
data module attached to their natural gas meter.
The final step is to build the communications network that will
relay the data from your Advanced Meter to SoCalGas.
When it’s completed, you’ll be able to monitor your natural gas
usage more closely with My Account/Ways to Save on socalgas.com
to help you conserve energy and save money.
SoCalGas is working closely with the City of Malibu to establish the
network with minimal impact on the community.
To learn more about Advanced Meter technology, features
and benefits visit: socalgas.com/advanced.
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Western Toads are pictured at various stages of life. Photos by National Park Service
Local toads adapt in wake of drought
New research
highlights change
in Western toads’
breeding patterns
Submitted by National Park
Service
The prolonged drought
in California had at least
one silver lining for researchers
studying wildlife
in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Native western toads
were found to be breeding
in September 2015, the latest
ever known observation
for the species, which
has a breeding season that
typically begins in late
January.
Western toads need
pools of water to breed
and without winter rains,
it wasn’t until an unusual
summer rain event, caused
by Eastern Pacific Hurricane
Linda, that the toads
in this particular spot bred.
The finding, which adds
previously unknown information
about the species,
was published Aug. 25
of this year in the journal
Bulletin of the Southern
California Academy of
Sciences. It was authored
by researchers at the Natural
History Museum of
Los Angeles County and
Santa Monica Mountains
National Recreation Area,
a unit of the National Park
Service.
The discovery was made
in November 2015 when
Katy Delaney, a wildlife
ecologist with the recreation
area, observed what
looked like Western toad
tadpoles in a seasonal pond
in Los Robles Open Space
in Thousand Oaks.
“It was a strange sighting,”
noted Delaney. “I
thought to myself, ‘It’s the
completely wrong time of
year for this.’”
Delaney submitted the
observation through the
iNaturalist mobile app to
the Associate Curator of
Herpetology at NHMLA,
Greg Pauly, who runs a
reptile and amphibian citizen
science project on the
app (everybody, regardless
of scientific background, is
welcome to participate!).
Pauly agreed the observation
was unusual and began
researching.
“To the best of my
knowledge, this is the latest
observation of Western
toads breeding,” explained
Pauly, noting that tadpoles
found in November meant
breeding likely occurred
two months earlier in September
when the remnants
of a hurricane dropped 1
to 2 inches of rain across
much of the Los Angeles
area. “Western toads are
a relatively common species,
but we still lack a basic
understanding of their
biology. This goes to show
how much we still have to
learn about even the common
species that surround
us.”
Evidence of breeding
was not observed again
until this past winter,
when a spell of winter
storms interrupted a fiveyear
drought. Western
toad breeding was explosive
and an abundance of
toadlets have been seen
throughout freshwater areas
of the Santa Monica
Mountains.
“They’re everywhere,
and I mean everywhere,”
said Delaney, who monitors
mountain streams.
Western toads (Bufo
boreas) are a wide-ranging
amphibian species found
from Baja California to
Alaska and from sea level
to around 12,000 feet in
elevation. Across much of
this range, Western toads
have declined in recent
decades. Breeding activity
normally occurs as
soon as ponds form, which
could be in late January
in Southern California or
early summer at higher elevations.
It is now known,
however, that individuals
can also breed much later
in the year with appropriate
weather conditions.