Monte Rio Grows, Connecting Sonoma’s Redwood Corridor
With the addition of 1,500 acres, the regional park gains miles of new trails.
25 Years of Change
A quarter century of hard work has restored nature to the San Francisco Bay Area in places where it was once unimaginable.
LATEST STORIES
The Endangered Endangered Species Act
How five proposed Trump Administration changes threaten protections for struggling species in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Juristac: Proving the Sanctity of a Landscape
It’s up to a county planning commission to decide if lands sacred to a local tribe are sacred enough to merit protection. If the opinion is no, a sand-and-gravel quarry will likely be developed.
IN SEASON IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Meet the Urban Osprey
Do these large, wild, fearsome fish predators prefer our built-up shoreline bristling with apartments, cargo ships, and manufacturing equipment? And what does it mean if they do?
The Adder’s-Tongue—Our Fetid Friend in the Shadows
Deep in the shadows of redwood understory, when winter rains still drip on the mosses and ferns, an unusual flower heralds the beginning of the blooms—a sort of “flower new year” before spring.
Naturalist’s Notebook: How to Tell Northern California Hawks Apart
Watching distant raptors in dim light? Ignore color and look at values.
Staff picks
A marvel of magnolias
Magnolias may not be native to Northern California. But the SF Botanical Garden has been conserving this endangered flowering tree, and now’s the time to see them in full bloom.
Grassland Heritage
When Spanish explorers first saw the San Francisco Bay in 1769, they found a land cloaked largely in perennial grasses. But the extirpation of the native elk herds that grazed the land, the introduction of cattle, and the incursion of European annual grasses abruptly and dramatically transformed the landscape into the familiar green hillside carpets…
Where Do Turtles Go in Winter and Summer?
Where do turtles go in the winter and summer? —Alma, Sebastopol I am assuming you are referring to our only native freshwater turtle—the western pond turtle—which you might see basking in the sun and then quickly kerplunking right into the water. The turtle has ranged from Baja California to British Columbia, although its taxonomy is,…
A Battery Fire Deposits Heavy Metals into Elkhorn Slough
Lithium-ion battery components—nickel, manganese, and cobalt—were found at concentrations thousands of times greater after the fire. The implications for wildlife hang in the balance.
A Land Back Success for the Amah Mutsun Within Its Historical Territory
The tribe has been landless for more than 200 years.
Land Back
Repatriation is much discussed and little practiced in the Bay Area. Why is it hard to return land?
