Last fall the East Bay Regional Park District’s board of directors voted to commit public funds toward planning a 1.4-mile downhill mountain bike sport trail in the quiet Havey Canyon area of Wildcat Canyon Regional Park. Since then, CNPS East Bay joined community volunteers and other environmental organizations to form the Friends of Wildcat Canyon Park. The Friends are calling on the park district board to protect Wildcat Canyon and identify a more suitable location for a mountain bike sport trail. You can help protect the important plant and wildlife habitat in Wildcat Canyon by signing the Friends of Wildcat Canyon Park’s online petition now and signing up to receive email updates.
What’s at Stake
In a September 2025 Bay Leaf article, we described how constructing a high-intensity recreational facility (sport trail) in the Havey Canyon area violates the park district’s Land Use Plan for Wildcat Canyon Regional Park because the proposed site is part of a designated Natural Area. The district specifies that the park’s Natural Area “will be free from intensive recreation activities, and…devoid of any development except trails for hiking, equestrian and service use.”
The proposed downhill mountain bike run (called a “directional flow bike trail” in park district terminology) would add jumps, raised dirt curves, and extensive fencing onto a hillside where the grasshopper sparrow, designated a Species of Special Concern by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, is confirmed to be breeding according an East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) Biological Assessment report. Chapter volunteers and Dianne Lake, our chapter’s Locally Rare Plants Committee chair, have documented over 50 statewide and locally rare native forbs, grasses, and shrubs within Wildcat Canyon’s diverse native plant communities. The Golden Gate Bird Alliance reports observations of olive-sided flycatchers and purple martins, also Species of Special Concern, within the proposed bike trail area and possibly breeding there. Golden eagles are regularly observed in Wildcat Canyon, especially in winter.
New Developments
Many of you spoke at the August 5, 2025, EBRPD board meeting or wrote to board members, asking them not to build a downhill mountain bike run within a designated park Natural Area. In spite of this strong opposition, the board voted 5-2 to proceed with a Notice of Preparation (NOP) to conduct an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for constructing the mountain bike downhill run.
A lot has happened since then. The park district general manager, under whose leadership this project moved quietly forward with little public notification, has resigned; the search for a new general manager is underway; and community volunteers formed the Friends of Wildcat Canyon Park.
How You Can Help
With public support, EBRPD board members and new staff leadership can develop new and more inclusive ways to serve the park district’s mission. While that mission includes providing recreational services, it starts with “preserv[ing] a rich heritage of natural and cultural resources” and concludes with the declaration that “an environmental ethic guides the District in all of its activities.”
We need trails for all. That includes protecting quietly beautiful spaces with diverse and sensitive flora for the birds that nest in grasslands and the bobcat mothers that forage in them, and for all of us.
That’s why we are asking CNPS East Bay Chapter members and friends to join the more than 700 people who have signed the Friends of Wildcat Canyon Park’s simple and straightforward online petition. This month, please add your name to this important petition that calls on the East Bay Regional Park District board to protect Wildcat Canyon and identify a location for a mountain bike sport trail that’s suitable for intensive recreation, rather than building it in a designated Natural Area.
—Jim Hanson, Conservation Committee Chair, CNPS East Bay Chapter
April 2026
Wildcat Canyon in the Bay Leaf:
A Downhill Mountain Bike Run in the Heart of Wildcat Canyon? September 2025
