San Diego Bay Bird Festival (Jan / Feb)
Imperial Beach is just south of San Diego on the border with Mexico. The Bird Festival features a number of bird watching trips and other activities that highlight the wildlife and natural areas in and around San Diego.

Quail Gardens Insect Show and Sale
Quail Gardens in Encinitas, just north of San Diego (take I-5 Encinitas Blvd. exit, travel east along Encinitas Blvd. and watch for sign. Quail Gardens is on the north side of Encinitas Blvd. a little ways up a side street, a mile or so from the freeway.) Last year (2000) this show was held in the fall.

Los Angeles Natural History Museum Insect Show and Sale (around May)
It will be held at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Sonoran Arthropod Studies Institute (SASI) (Tucson, Arizona) (end of July)
7th Annual Invertebrates in Captivity Conference
see web site for program or details, including submission deadline for papers

North American Butterfly Association
NABA works to promote public awareness and conservation of butterflies. It also publishes a color journal, American Butterflies. Check the NABA Chapters for contacts and/or information on local clubs. California has chapters in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Orange County.

Annual Forth of July Butterfly Count
Contact NABA for more information on counts in your area.

Torrey Pines State Park (San Diego) Display of Coastal San Diego Butterflies
The exhibit is on permanent display on the wall inside the visitors' center.

Monarch Butterfly Program (Encinitas, California)
Objectives of the program include preserving Monarch Butterfly breeding and overwintering habitats, monitoring migrations, promoting educational programs, supporting related conservancy issues, and encouraging the study of plant and insect relationships through butterfly gardening. The organization also operates a vivarium in Encinitas.

San Diego Natural History Museum
The museum houses a large collection of local insects. It operates a number of education programs, some of which involve insects. For more information write to:

University of California, Riverside (extension)
As part of the certificate program in field ecology, the University of California Riverside (extension) offers a number of credit courses in geology, botany and zoology (including entomology and arachnology) that would be of interest to anyone interested in natural history. These are scattered all around (some courses were even held in the Tetons). The courses involve field trips (often on weekends) and / or lab work. I personally recommend these courses to anyone interested in natural history.

University of California (San Diego, Los Angeles, Riverside, etc.)
Biologists in the UC system have published a number of contributions on insects in the Bulletin of the California Insect Survey. For other references, some bibliographies (like Biological Abstracts) are also available on CD-ROMs for use in the libraries. The UC system also has an online catalogue and a periodical index.

Forgotten Pollinators Campaign
For background information on this campaign, based at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson, read the book, "Forgotten Pollinators", by Gary Nabhan and Stephen Buchmann. This campaign is co-sponsored by the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, Arizona Native Plant Society, Bat Conservation International, Center for Plant Conservation, National Wildflower Research Center, Society for Ecological Restoration and the Sonoran Arthropod Studies Institute.

Young Entomologists' Society
Do you teach entomology or arachnology to youth and the general public? (Or, would you like to ?) Are you looking for age-appropriate materials to use in your presentations? Y.E.S. stocks and sells over 750 items...the cream of the crop in "minibeast" educational materials, many field-tested in our outreach programs. Request a catalog!

For information on other bugs or areas check out:

• Entomology Index of Internet Resources (a searchable database of all insect-related sites on the Internet)
• The World-Wide Web Virtual Library: Entomology (Biosciences)