Red Tails September/October 2025
- naomihanvey
- Sep 9
- 7 min read
Click below to download a PDF of the newsletter!
Pollinator Garden - Habitat Hero Home Project Report
by Gayle Talbot, Conservation Chair
This year, I presented the Habitat Hero Project (AKA Pollinator Garden Project) early in March to 117 fifth graders in two Moses Lake schools: Lakeview Terrace Elementary and Sage Point Elementary. The challenge was to create a pollinator garden using native seeds or some form of backyard habitat for wildlife, such as bees, butterflies and birds. Interested students were given a packet of information, including an Adventures in Audubon At Home in a Habitat magazine, a Plant a Bee Garden brochure by Bree Edwards (the high school student who initiated this project four years ago), native seeds, and even a kit for a simple bird feeder, if requested. Students were encouraged to get parent permission and help! Then late in May, the students were asked to report back their efforts and show their evidence. I am happy to report that instead of one Habitat Hero, this year we have FOUR: Adeline Fries and Alina Mattaga from Lakeview and Audrey Preusser and Yemaya Castaneda from Sage Point. All four received the Habitat Hero medallion, but Yemaya was also awarded a trophy for going above and beyond and creating a fold-out display board with her evidence. Congratulations to all four students!
Bird Walk Report
by Margaret Heming, Bird Walk Chair
CBAS Bird Walk to Gloyd Seeps
Gayle Talbot, Jackie Chase, and I birded on June 28 at Gloyd Seeps, and were able to find about 20 species. Several large bird species flew over, including a Northern Harrier, a Great Blue Heron, an Osprey, and a Turkey Vulture. As usual, we tried to spot the elusive Marsh Wrens, which we could hear well. We managed to spot several of the wrens! We also enjoyed the handsome Eastern Kingbirds posing for us in plain view.
CBAS Bird Walk to Lind Coulee and the Chestnut Orchard
On Saturday, July 26th, we had a fun CBAS outing. Many thanks are due to Travis and Andrea Visker for letting our group go birding in their chestnut orchard. We spent our first hour below the orchard, enjoying the birds at Lind Coulee. Highlights included 10 Pelicans, a Greater Yellowlegs, and a delightful family of Pied-billed Grebes. Then we drove up to the chestnut orchard and were lucky to see a Great Horned Owl fly through the trees, just like last year! We also found one adult and two juvenile Bald Eagles, Black-headed Grosbeaks, a Downy Woodpecker, Western Wood-pewees, and Lazuli Buntings. CBAS members Gayle Talbot, Paula Zanter-Stout, Jackie Chase, and Margaret Heming found about 26 bird species in all.
Scholarship Recipient Jared Goetz’s Personal Statement
While many people grow up choosing multiple possible career goals that they would like to
pursue, I have stuck to one my entire life. Since I was in kindergarten, all I have ever wanted to be when I grew up was a veterinarian, and so far, I'm making that dream a reality.
Growing up on our family's farm, I was around cows, pigs, chickens, dogs, and many other creatures on four legs, and I learned to love them and take care of them, but also how to take responsibility for those you care for. In 4-H and FFA, I was taught the importance of agriculturally safe practices in bovine and pig practices, what goes into the meat industry, and its importance to our country. Then, through the WSU Bear Center, I learned the importance of preserving ecological diversity and animal research through conservation centers. All these have been staples in my life, showing me how important animals are to me.
My passion for being a veterinarian sprung from watching our local veterinarian interact with my dad on our farm. I didn't see someone who was there just to treat animals, but someone who had a personal relationship with my father, someone whom he trusted and relied on, and who knew that she was going to get her job done efficiently and correctly. I saw that relationship, and I knew that I wanted that type of relationship in my future career with my clients and that I could combine my passion for animals and love for making relationships together into one career.
Through all of the leadership activities, community service projects, clubs, and organizations that I have been a part of, I have learned that I have a passion for creating and developing relationships, and veterinary medicine is the avenue that I will accomplish this. I am a second-year student at WSU's Veterinary School and am working toward earning my DVM. I will be in vet school for two more years, and then, during year four, I will earn my degree. After school, I will decide what avenue I should take next. I have a passion for large animal medicine because of the clientele that it brings, and I enjoy working in a rural atmosphere and the community
that I can surround myself with and make an impact. However, I also have a passion or wildlife conservation as a zoo or wildlife veterinarian and the importance of preserving species diversity. Still, at the end of the day, I know that I could not be happier with the career choice I have made for my life and the impact that I will make someday.
becoming a veterinarian and helping me get out of school debt-free. As a large animal veterinarian, I would want to impact my community by moving back to a rural area and serving farmers and ranchers and those who do not have access to a multitude of different veterinary clinics as they do in big cities. I would want to build relationships with my clients, invest in their lives, and have them invest in mine. I want to grow up and raise a family in that type of community, raise kids alongside my client's kids, and when I'm out on a farm call, have the chance to ask them how their kids are doing and then have them ask how mine are doing. I would like to serve those around me and a rural area because I was blessed to grow up in a rural small town that shaped me into who I am now, and if I could give back in even that small way, it would be worth it.
As a wildlife or zoo veterinarian, I would be at the forefront of guarding our state's biodiversity and the wonders we find on our lands. I would monitor potential wildlife disease outbreaks and stop them before they really took off; I would help save injured wildlife and then hopefully return them to the wild; I would guard against species extinctions and make sure that my future kids and their friends will experience the wonders of wild animals—the same ones that I grew up admiring.
At the end of the day, if I am awarded this scholarship, you will be investing in someone who wants to go and serve his future community and stay and invest in it and help those around him. I am someone who stays committed to those around me and does not abandon them in low times but sticks beside them in victories and defeats. I want to make an impact on every client that I have the pleasure to work for one day, and I hope that you can see that as a worthy investment.
Regarding my financial situation and needs, my family's status differs from what it looks like on pen and paper. Around ten years ago, my dad purchased our family's farm from my grandfather. Our farm has provided our family with a blessed and comfortable life, however, a substantial portion of my dad's income shown on our tax return goes right back into maintaining our farm and is not used by our family. This, in turn, goes to show that my family makes less money than our tax return shows us making. With this current situation, because our tax returns show we make more money than we really do, I am ineligible for many scholarships that other college students are eligible for.
However, I am not totally without college funds. Since I was two years old, I have been
blessed with the opportunity to raise five cows every year. I sell their calves at the market each year and then put that money into my college account. Besides raising 4-H pigs and working on the farm during the summers, these have been the only contributions I've been able to make toward my college education. I have, and still feel fortunate to, have this money set aside, but my goal is to use this money to cover as much of my veterinary medicine schooling as possible. I acknowledge that the road to becoming a veterinarian will be a long and expensive one. This is one reason I have worked hard in high school and college to get the best grades I can, hoping to finance much of my undergraduate degree with scholarships.
It is crazy that this is my sixth year in college because I can still specifically remember my first day moving into my dormitory, and it feels just like yesterday. A lot of things have changed in my life since the friends have come and gone, my interests have changed, and even the world around me has changed some, but one consistent thing in my life has been the support that I’ve received from the Central Basin Audobon Society. You all have been with me in my college career for all six years, and I have been beyond blessed to have your support. Your kindness and generosity all these years have known no bounds, and it means the world to me to see that you all are in my corner and believe in me. I’m doing my very best to make you all proud of me and be the man you believe I can be. God bless you all!!!
An edited version of this statement appears in the print and PDF version of the newsletter.
Thank You So Much!
by Margaret Schiffner, Treasurer
We are so appreciative of the funds that the following have donated to our Ron Van Nurden Memorial Scholarship Fund. Thank you: Stephen Peck, Carlsbad, CA; Dr. Teryl Spevak, Kenmore, WA; Lynn Thomas & Dotti Connell, Monroe, GA; Hilary McGhee, Cambridge, MA; and Smart Payables, Centennial, CO. These donations help our very deserving scholarship recipients like Jared Goetz. Thank you to Naomi Hanvey for newsletter help and A&H Printers for expert service!
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