San Jacinto Valley Conservation team:  Shea Millan,  shea.meara@gmail.com

 Native plant team: Caren Hanson, carenhansonb17@gmail.com

 Wildlife Crossings: Pam Nelson, pamela05n@yahoo.com

Murrieta Regional Creek Trails Project

Take a look at the Murrieta Regional Creek Trails Project PDF (click the title above to be directed to the PDF) to learn more.

Locally, this historic trail route closely follows the Murrieta Creek corridor, heading north from Temecula to Murrieta, Wildomar, and Lake Elsinore before eventually continuing on to Corona through Temescal Canyon.

The vision for the Murrieta Creek Regional Trail is to create a non-motorized, multi-use trail along the river linking the cities of Temecula, Murrieta, Wildomar, and Lake Elsinore.

Murrieta Creek Regional Trail Interim Map - Murrieta (PDF)

Murrieta Creek Regional Trail Interim Map - Temecula (PDF)

Murrieta Creek Regional Trail Interim Map - Wildomar to Lake Elsinore (PDF)

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We R 4 Butterflies

Volunteers are needed for a pilot project, We R 4 Butterflies, in the San Bernardino National Forest near Lake Hemet. Local well-known butterfly specialist, Dr. Gordon Pratt, is working with the U.S. Forest Service to restore habitat that has burned in recent wildfires.  

Please contact Dr. Gordon Pratt for more information: euphilotes1@gmail.com

Dr. Gordon Pratt did his undergraduate in Biology at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts and his Masters in Molecular Biology isolating mRNA from female blowflies at Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario, Canada.  He later did his Ph.D. on the systematics of the dotted blues (Euphilotes) at the University of California at Riverside.  These butterflies potentially evolved in sympatry through food plant shifts on to buckwheat species with different bloom times.  From there he went to the University of Delaware to do a postdoc on sympatric speciation through host plant shifts in Enchenopa binotata (treehoppers).  In the mid-1990s Dr. Pratt returned to the University of California at Riverside and continued his research on butterflies and their food plants.  During his time at the University of California Pratt taught an extension course on butterfly ecology, studied insect and plant diversities on military installations, and endangered butterflies of southern California.  In 2013 Pratt retired from the University of California but still works on butterflies and their food plants of southern California.

 
 Pratt, G. F.  2008.  Buckwheat Blues: Part 1, Introduction and Rita, Spalding’s, and Small Blues.  American Butterflies 16: 4-32.

Pratt, G. F. & J. F. Emmel. 2008b. Buckwheat Blues: Part 2 Dotted Blue and Square-spotted Blue Complexes.  American Butterflies 16: 4-29.

Pratt, G. F. & J. F. Emmel. 2010. Sites chosen by diapausing or quiescent stage Quino Checkerspot Butterfly, Euphydryas editha quino, (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) larvae.  Journal of Insect Conservation 14 (2): 107-114.