Upcoming Presentation About Wildlife and Forest Fires

What Happens to Wildlife in Recently Burned Forests? Upcoming Presentation Answers Your Burning Questions

California has experienced large forest fires in recent years due largely to climate change influences. Naturally, many have questions about how these wildfires affect beloved and important wildlife such as black bears, mountain lions, foxes, owls, and more. Wildlife biologist, writer, and filmmaker, Maya Khosla, will draw from her thousands of hours spent tracking and monitoring animals in recently burned forests to present “And Still, They Rise: Life in Post-Fire Forests,” a free presentation in the Santa Barbara Public Library’s Faulkner Gallery on Tuesday, January 23 at 6:30pm.

Maya’s talk will focus on the incredible biodiversity of life after wildfire—including the natural regeneration of conifers and other native plants, and the return of raptors, songbirds, woodpeckers, and other wildlife to recently burned areas. She will share her photography, hidden trail camera footage, and experiences doing protocol surveys in unlogged forests throughout California that have burned over the last decade.

Maya has written numerous award-winning books such as “All the Fires of Wind and Light” (Sixteen Rivers Press; 2020 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award) and “Keel Bone” (Bear Star Press; Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize). As Sonoma County Poet Laureate (2018 – 2020), she brought Sonoma’s communities together to heal through gatherings, field walks, and shared writing after the 2017 wildfires that heavily affected the area.

Her recent awards highlight years of environmental activism as well—Maya was the recipient of the 2023 Fund for Wild Nature Grassroots Activist Award and 2020 Environmentalist of the Year Award in Sonoma County. Her work has been featured in For the Wild, and her writing has been featured in award-winning documentary films such as Village of Dust, City of Water about water crises in rural India. Maya has also made films about post-fire forests such as Searching for the Gold Spot. She was featured in the 2023 feature-length documentary Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire.

This presentation is hosted by Los Padres ForestWatch and is free and open to the public. There will be ample opportunity for questions following Maya’s talk.

Learn more and RSVP at LPFW.org/rise.