Newport Bay Earth Day draws families, highlights OC habitat loss

OC Parks and the Newport Bay Conservancy drew families to the Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center on Sunday for an Earth Day at the Bay celebration featuring live native animals, a baywide scavenger hunt and food trucks, Voice of OC reported.

The event came as Orange County advances a newly adopted voluntary climate action plan — and as conservationists warn that 95% of the county's coastal sagebrush habitat has already been lost to development.

Earth Day was established in 1970 following a major oil spill off the Santa Barbara coast, and it has since anchored annual conservation gatherings across Southern California. OC Parks and the Newport Bay Conservancy partnered this year to blend hands-on family activities with habitat education at one of the county's last remaining coastal ecosystems.

Michael Jiang, a Newport Bay Conservancy naturalist who has volunteered with OC Parks for four years, brought live snakes, owls, turtles and ferrets to trail-side booths for children. He urged visitors to build consistent conservation habits. "I wish people would save more water. Every little bit helps… there are simple things that you could do, just make it a habit of paying a little bit more attention," Jiang told Voice of OC.

Jiang offered a stark measure of how much has already been lost. "The thing I always go back to is how we lost 95% of our coastal sagebrush habitat, which is pretty unique. Some California and parts of Baja, that's all the coastal sagebrush we have. And we lost 95% of that, of course, because of people having to build. Thankfully, there are places like this that preserve," he said.

Attendee Barry Grossman said the day reinforced his belief in incremental action. "I think there are lots of little things that you can do… just making nature a part of your daily life," he said. "Some of it is just around simple things like cleaning up trash or not adding to other problems that are out there."

Orange County's climate action plan, adopted earlier this year, includes voluntary emissions reduction measures and encourages electrification among residents and businesses, according to Voice of OC. The plan carries no binding enforcement mechanism.

Grossman said the experience sharpened his sense of responsibility toward future generations. "I think the goal is always to leave something better than the way you found it," he said.