Dear Puente-Chino Hills Native Species Project members,

You all have made amazing contributions to this project, made for the Diamond Bar Natural History Project, designed to educate people of the webs of biodiversity within our communities. And I feel gratitude and respect towards all of you, thank you!

However, times are changing and as you may be aware, the projects have been updated on INaturalist. Using this opportunity, I decided to create a new Puente-Chino Hills project under a similar title. This new project has features such as:
-pie charts to visually display our findings
-the ability to automatically accept certain taxa

As a result of this new change, this project will legitimately accept California native species only, no non-native species will be accepted. This is not an act of discrimination towards certain observations, this is rather an act which will fulfill the project's goal of documenting the native flora and fauna of this region.

This notice is also an alert to the current project members, @renisfoxy @fundad @marcossantos @rivasca @carrieseltzer @sara_medina @glmory @rsmithnaturalist , because in about a few weeks, the original project will be deleted. It's assured that the current observations you have in the original project will be automatically uploaded to the new project.

If you have any questions about this new change, send me a message, I'll be quick and eager to respond!

Hello everyone,

As the project curator, I desire to ensure everyone involved with this project has a common goal, a common paradise, a common hotspot of life we can all say we are supporting. To bring out this message, I am currently creating a beautiful presentation, illustrating the beauty and diversity of life in the Puente-Chino Hills Wildlife Corridor. I could be taking this presentation to various nonprofits in the area, such as the Diamond Bar Preservation Foundation and Hills for Everyone, also the Diamond Bar City Council. Any critiques on these slides are greatly welcome!

Link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1QMAJiiUnDu9Hz7PUPydZNjCzF7zso8GpvrVAoOcx2Ng/edit#slide=id.g260fce6f55_0_258

This morning at the trails in Diamond Bar, one of the most northernmost populations of a Special Species of Concern: the Red Diamond Rattlesnake, has been verified! After sighting a Coastal Whiptail, several tansversing Mule Deer, and very intact woodlands of S. CA. Black Walnuts & Coast Live Oaks, this site is on the road to hopefully permanent protections! More info on this treasured species can be seen here: http://www.californiaherps.com/snakes/pages/c.ruber.html

Since this project was created two months ago, we have encountered tremendous growth, thanks to all the observations we gathered. However, to fully protect these wildlands, we crucially need these threatened species to be recorded for this project:

• Western Pond Turtle
  -Cactus Wren
  -California Gnatcatcher
  -Coastal Horned and/or Coastal Whiptail Lizard

Thank you for everyone who has contributed and will continue to do so! :)