Friends of Wildcat Canyon Park

Friends of Wildcat Canyon Park (FoWCP) https://ProtectWildcatCanyon.org was formed in 2025 in response to a proposal for a highly engineered, high speed, downhill, one way mountain bike trail in an otherwise Natural Area of Wildcat Canyon Regional Park, which is administered by the East Bay Regional Park District (PD).

The mission of FoWCP is to defend and protect the flora and fauna and the watershed and wildlands in Wildcat Canyon, which have been designated as a Natural Area since 1981. Our group does not object to thoughtfully and democratically planned access for mountain biking in the 70+ regional parks in the district, which spans lands in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. What we do object to is the secretive way in which the plan for this mountain bike "flow trail" or "thrill trail" was created, including secret meetings between PD staff and mountain bike advocates for nearly two years before the plan for the trail was revealed to other stakeholders. Noteworthy in this context is that over 85% of regional park users are hikers, with mountain bikers representing less than 10% of users.

Public records also show that mountain bicycle advocates offered the Park District $1 million to locate the flow trail in Wildcat Canyon, conditioned on the Park District Board's approval of the project, including its Environmental Impact Report (EIR), which is currently pending. The secret dealings between flow trail advocates and Park District staff were only revealed by a public records request initiated by one of our group leaders, and our web site shows the content of the discovery from this public records request in full detail. Among the impacts that FoWCP anticipates if the flow trail is built include: increased erosion impacting Havey Creek and Wildcat Canyon Creek, undermining years of work by the PD to restore the trout and steelhead fishery; harm to several endangered species, including the Grasshopper Sparrow, the California Red Legged Frog, and the Alameda Whipsnake; increased risk of landslides; and harm to the Havey Canyon seasonal wetland.

Friends of Wildcat Canyon Park is a project of our fiscal sponsor (SPRAWLDEF https://sprawldef.com, a 501(c)3 organization) We are currently a 100% volunteer organization, with about 20 very active volunteers, but no paid staff. With the Draft EIR due out by late summer or early fall, our campaign is working hard to expand awareness of the threat to Wildcat Canyon to hikers and other interested parties, and to the press.

I am happy to answer any questions Idealist or any interested volunteer candidates may have about the structure, membership, and activities of Friends of the Wildcat Canyon Park organization, and I thank Idealist for creating and sustaining its service.

NOTE: there are several images of Wildcat Canyon at https://protectwildcatcanyon.org