Sign up for our free weekly newsletter and understand everything better!
-150x150.jpg)
How do you get 500-plus kids to sit still on the beach? Tell them a helicopter is about to fly overhead and take their collective photograph, and that by the way, they’ll also be on television. It happened at Ocean Beach, and all in the name of ocean conservation.
-150x150.jpg)
Now extended through June 10, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking comment on a plan to use rodenticides to eradicate non-native house mice from the South Farallon Islands. Officials say the mice threaten nesting seabirds, but critics charge that the effort could actually endanger birds on the island.
-150x150.jpg)
We mostly see egrets and herons standing silently in shallow wetlands, on the hunt. But a group of dedicated citizen scientists makes a point to watch them in their nesting colonies, sometimes in seemingly unlikely spots. Join us on a trip to a heronry near Cordelia.
-150x150.jpg)
It all started with some crooked zucchinis in Bolinas. They didn’t conform to the strict aesthetic standards of the market, so they were snipped from the vine and left to rot. The folks at Marin Organic recognized an opportunity and, and the group’s School Lunch and Gleaning Program was born.
-150x150.jpg)
They can plunge to depths of more than a mile and stay submerged for 90 minutes without coming up for air. They can swim up to 14,000 miles a year. The males can weigh over two and a half tons. You could say elephant seals are “Extreme Mammals,” record-holders in several categories, including deepest divers. And with new tracking methods, we’re learning more than ever about these amazing creatures.
-150x150.jpg)
Each winter, a strange spectacle takes over San Francisco Bay. You’ll see evidence of it: moving rafts of agitated birds; strings of cormorants; pods of sea lions; plunge-diving pelicans. And fishing boats out on the Bay. But you won’t see the cause for this excitement: thousands of herring en route to their spawning grounds. This year’s season has been pretty good, but some folks think we should still go lightly on the lowly herring.
-150x150.jpg)
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and nothing melts the heart like the sight of a newborn marine mammal pup. How about a thousand of them? That’s how many elephant seals have been born at Ano Nuevo State Park, and another 500 are on the way. Throw in 700 more at Point Reyes. Oh, and it’s the beginning of gray whale migration too. What are you waiting for?
-150x150.jpg)
Marin-based artist Daniel McCormick creates “perma-sculptures,” structures he places on hillsides and creek banks to slow the rush of run-off from degraded agricultural lands and paved-over urban areas. But this time, he’s designed and create works especially for a gallery show, which opens with an artist talk on January 27.The show is a first for both the artist and the curators. He designed each piece specifically for the exhibit, taking into consideration the challenges of hanging them on a wall rather than staking them into a stream bank.
-150x150.jpg)
The annual Christmas Bird Count is the longest-running bird study in the world. But it’s not exactly kid-friendly. So Wendy Dalia of Richardson Bay Audubon Center spearheaded Marin County’s first-ever youth Christmas Bird Count on January 8. She’s already looking forward to next year.
