James Geoffrey Monk

Part 2: James Geoffrey Monk was born Feb. 2, 1954 in San Francisco. He and twin brother Sydney grew up in Pleasant Hill and Lafayette. The family home backed up to Buckeye Ranch, which later became Briones Regional Park. Monk’s earliest wildlife studies came from trapping foxes and opossums in a box with a stick propping it open. He always released what he caught. His interests turned to falconry and keeping birds of prey: a red-tailed hawk, a Cooper’s hawk, an American kestrel. He ended up letting these go, too. At Acalanes High School in Lafayette, he discovered a second calling as a Plymouth trouble shooter in an auto shop. In timed competitions he could break down an engine, fix it and rebuild it in record time. “He was the handiest person I ever met,” said Lynch. “He could fix anything. It was an extra bonus. I didn’t realize that when I met him.” After graduating from high school in 1972 he entered Sonoma State University as a premed student, but soon transferred into wildlife management at Humboldt State. Following his junior year, he took a summer job with the Canadian Wildlife Services in Alberta where he learned how to breed peregrines in captivity. The peregrines there were dying off from eating smaller birds toxified by DDT they absorbed from the insects they ate. That was causing the eggshell thinning that Monk set out to cure. The first study he undertook involved flying low in fixed-wing aircraft over peregrine habitats in California, Oregon and Washington state. He had special dispensation from the Department of the Interior to fly in close enough to spot peregrine nests. He’d then return by helicopter. None of this sat well with the resident peregrines. The species is known as the fastest bird alive and can reach speeds of up to 200 mph. “She’d dive bomb his head as he was spinning around on the rope,” said Lynch. “Peregrines kill their prey with their feet. If he hadn’t worn a helmet he would have been seeing stars.” After four years there were 100 nests in Northern California. Monk continued until 1989, when his success restoring the peregrine population induced a career change. He left his position at UC Santa Cruz to become a wildlife consultant in Novato. A year later, he met Lynch when she was hired as a staff biologist working with Monk after graduating from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. They started doing field jobs together, looking for spotted owls at night. In 1992, Monk formed Monk & Associates in Walnut Creek, helping businesses obtain open-space preserves to compensate for the impact of development. A few years later he had enough business to hire staff. Lynch was the first employee. They were married in 2002, in a ceremony held on a friend’s cabin cruiser motoring out under the span of the Golden Gate Bridge. After living in Walnut Creek, where their son, Ethan, and daughter Megan, were born, they moved to an old horse property in Alamo. Every year, his falcon egg rescue partner Monte Kirven joined the family for Thanksgiving, bringing along his pet peregrine to perch on his wrist and watch the dinner preparation. They were looking forward to Thanksgiving in October 2017 when Kirven went silent. He was living on a hilltop in Santa Rosa when the Tubbs Fire burned through. Monk called the sheriff to check on Kirven who was found dead at age 81 in his bed. His falcon was dead, too. Monk’s last big cause was saving the California tiger salamander, which was listed as a threatened species in 2004. Housing developers in Sonoma County hired Monk & Associates to find the amphibians, who live underground and only come out in the rain. “Geoff never stopped doing all of the field work even though he was the head of the company,” said Lynch. “He once found 98 tiger salamanders in one day.” Monk’s memorial will be held at 11 a.m. Nov. 13 at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in the hills of Lafayette, down the road from where he had grown up and fallen in love with soaring birds of prey. Monk is survived by his wife Sarah and their children, Ethan and Megan, all of Alamo; his mother, Diana Monk of Santa Rosa; his sisters Kelly Monk of Ashland, and Anne Monk of Santa Rosa; and brother Eric Monk, also of Santa Rosa. Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SamWhitingSF