Meet Our Community: Merav Vonshak

Paige Combs - KCCB
3 days ago
3 min read

As part of our seasonal spotlight series, we’re celebrating our incredible employees, partners, and volunteers who help make the work of Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful (KCCB) possible. In our Earth Day Blog, we talk about the ‘Ripple Effect’ and how it only takes one person to inspire many to make a change in their community. Today we’re excited to introduce Merav, our BioBlitz leader who has been involved with Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful for 9 years! Merav started her journey working with bird data, but her focus is on entomology, with a love for spiders and other small bugs and critters.

Role: Consultant, BioBlitz Leader, Tabling Volunteer

With KCCB: Over 9 years!

Fun Facts 🌟

Happy place: The coast, the ocean, the tide pools, our foothills 🌊
Unusual creek sightings: Leech and freshwater sponges 🌱
Favorite hobbies: Exploring nature and documenting it 🔎
Favorite food to eat: Vietnamese food 😋
Favorite color: Any color / all the colors 🌈

When asked about her favorite places, Merav said, “I love the coast, but I also really like the foothills here. It’s just gorgeous. There are so many different ones. The coast, the ocean, the tide pools.”

How it All Started 🌱

When Merav founded the BioBlitz Club in 2017, the goal was simple: help people discover the incredible biodiversity that exists right outside their doors while contributing to meaningful scientific data.

Her inspiration came from research she conducted on bird diversity. While compiling information from existing databases, she realized there was so much left to learn about countless other plants, insects, fungi, and wildlife.

A BioBlitz offered the perfect solution. By bringing people together to document every living thing they could using iNaturalist, participants could learn about local ecosystems while contributing observations that scientists, research students, and conservationists can use for years to come. Merav was introduced to Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful, and the partnership quickly proved to be a natural fit. While KCCB worked to restore and protect natural waterways, BioBlitz events gave people the opportunity to see what those restoration efforts help protect.

Merav said, “There are all sorts of things that affect the creek, but I feel like we could see why it’s worth it. Why should we protect this habitat? How magnificent it could be, you know, to have a healthy creek in our city, because it is home for so many different species… that’s what I like about working with KCCB is we do our events in the middle of places that are highly accessible.

Impact on the Community 🌎

The most rewarding aspect of the BioBlitz events is seeing people realize that nature isn’t something found only in distant wilderness. It exists in neighborhood parks, along local creeks, and throughout the communities where they live.

Families are at the heart of many events. Children get to explore, and their curiosity often spreads to parents, creating a shared experience that inspires lasting appreciation for the natural world.

Beyond the participants themselves, many volunteers return as docents, helping guide future events, while others are inspired to organize similar community activities.

Merav shared, “I think last month we did an event in Hellyer Park, and we had these two little kids that came with a little magnifying glass, and they were walking in the grassland looking in the grass. We scooped some creatures out of the pond, and they were looking with their magnifying glasses. It was just so cute…natural curiosity that many kids have in nature. They just want to be out there and touch things, and we let them smell leaves and ants and touch different things.”

Looking Ahead: The Future of KCCB ☀️🌳

For Merav, she identified the most important part is continuing to bring people together to explore, learn, and connect with nature. Every BioBlitz is different. Participants never know exactly what they’ll discover. It might be an unusual insect, a colorful bird, or even a species that hasn’t previously been documented in the area. BioBlitzes remain an important part of connecting conservation and community, and creating lasting advocates for the environment.

Merav said, “I just hope we can continue. We could keep going and that people would still be interested and keep coming to our events.”

Final Thoughts ✨

Protecting the environment begins with events like these where people can take time to slow down and notice it. As Merav noted, you don’t have to travel far to experience nature. Sometimes it takes realizing that an incredible world of biodiversity has been there all along.

“We’re not looking for something specifically, but we’re looking for everything at the same time,” Merav described.