Perhaps we can best illustrate with quotes from our letters to the newspapers, the City, and the Friends:

“We need this open space.... You only have to walk in the Gardens to notice the activity in the land next to it. I have often, in the spring, watched Mother Quail taking her chicks into that area. And it is the only place in Claremont that a Roadrunner can be located . . . . I often point out this land to visitors in showing them what this land looked like before civilization arrived.”

“The native vegetation there is special, and increasingly endangered, particularly the Coastal Sage Scrub.... The vegetation supports native animals.... The continued presence of these and many other species points to the value of the Biological Station in maintaining viable populations of wildlife that, though not now endangered, may easily slip into this category in the future as a result of piecemeal development... The field station is a close, safe, and interesting biological resource for all the students of the Claremont Colleges and the populace of the Claremont area.”

“The field station is an ecological and educational treasure, and I will continue to actively support the efforts of those community leaders who still have the courage to hope for a better outcome. . . .”

“On my drive to work along Foothill Boulevard, I slowed as I passed the site of the Bernard Field station, looking to the north to admire the broad vista of Santa Ana wind-swept snow-covered mountains and flowering native plants . . . . Surely that unique, breathtaking view, coming so unexpectedly in the midst of the wall to wall city commute along Foothill Boulevard has lured many a new resident to Claremont through the years. It is unique among major thoroughfares in southern California in having such a grand, unimpeded view.”

“Ecologically, educationally and aesthetically, the Bernard Field Station is invaluable to our community. Let's do the right thing by assuring its preservation as a working biological reserve within our city.”

“The Bernard Field Station is a 75-acre plot used not only by all the animals taking refuge there, but also by college students and professors from the Claremont Colleges, Cal Poly, University of La Verne as well as boy scout troops, girl scout troops, and locals including myself who simply enjoy its beauty.”

“When the Bernard Field Station was developed on the CUC land many years ago no one thought, myself included, that that block of undisturbed native coastal sage vegetation had any special merit on its own . . . . By the simple law of supply and demand, today the land has great value for what it is naturally. There is nothing else like it in this city . . . . or any other that I know of.”

“The word Claremont means "clear mountain." Artists and writers have long made their homes here because of the inspiration they derived from this presence. This is our heritage, and a heritage we should be able to leave for future generations. This last remaining mountain view uplifts us all when the world seems "too much with us."”