Summer 2026 Almanac: Fruiting Bodies
Life during summer … bears fruit.
Price-Tagging Nature
Inside mitigation banking, a multibillion-dollar industry where restoring and preserving rare habitat and species makes big money.
Editor’s Letter: Acre by Acre
Consider any single acre of land in the Bay Area today and all the lives it may have lived.
Bay Nature Events
LATEST STORIES
How Would California Forever’s Proposed Solano Shipyard Affect the Environment? Details Are Scant.
The idea is to build newfangled autonomous vessels. Possibly over 1,000 feet long. Possibly as soon as 2028.
Newsom Wants Prop 4 Funds for Golden Gate Fields. Some Local Conservationists Have Other Priorities.
“This timeline is moving quicker than anyone imagined,” says an East Bay parks rep.
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Mud-Starved Wetlands Get a Meal, At Last
With Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding, the Bay’s wetlands are finally getting some precious muck. Why have we been dumping it offshore?
IN SEASON IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Black Bears Move Into the North Bay
For the first time in history, black bears are occupying this ecological niche once filled by grizzlies.
How the Mistakenly Named ‘Himalayan’ Blackberry Became a California Summer Tradition
With five to seven leaves resembling outstretched fingers on the palm of a hand, the blackberry Rubus armeniacus grows from curved, blood-red stalks resembling veins. Sonoma County horticulturalist Luther Burbank acquired the seeds in 1885 from a trader in India, and dubbed it the “Himalaya” blackberry, though it was actually…
Why Sneaker Waves Are So Insidious
Every now and then, the ocean sneaks up on the land, with a wave that’s bigger than all the rest. Scientists are working out where these dangerous waves come from.
Staff picks
The Backstory on Pacifica’s Whale Bonanza
Scientists surveying marine life off our coastline have been watching marine mammals roll in for the Bay Area seafood buffet.
The Rewilding of California’s Parched Central Valley
As SGMA deadlines loom, groundwater sustainability agencies, environmental organizations, and farmers in the San Joaquin Valley are scrambling to prepare for a drier future by experimenting with ways to repurpose fallow farmland.
The Presidio’s Miracle Manzanita
A construction site along one of San Francisco’s busiest thoroughfares hardly seems like a good spot to find one of our region’s rarest plants. But that’s just where a passing biologist saw a manzanita thought extinct for decades. And now a whole lot of people are trying to make sure this lone survivor isn’t the…
The Tree That’s Rare, Endangered and Common
Should we worry about the Monterey pine going extinct?
