This article is part of a monthly series of photos and articles on the transformation of Mount Diablo following the 2013 Morgan Fire, funded by special donations from Bay Nature readers. You can find ourย stories, as well as event listings, iNaturalist sightings, and magazine features, at baynature.org/diablo.
A team of researchers, with a grant from Save Mount Diablo, has installed hidden cameras in a variety of plots around the Mount Diablo burn area to see what sort of large wildlife shows up. Here’s a photo gallery of what they’ve seen so far.
Black-tailed deer in the evening.
Wild pigs tramp up the hillside.
A skunk sets off the camera.
Project botanist Anna Larsen and GIS specialist Jessie Parteno pose as mountain gorillas, a surprise for the wildlife biologists keeping track of species recorded.
A deer investigates.
Something — aside from the camera — catches a deer’s attention.
Joan Hamilton is producer of Audible Mount Diablo, a podcast for people who love the outdoors and want to know more about the plants, animals, and history of the Bay Area. Her interest in fires was sparked by the 2013 Morgan Fire in Mount Diablo State Park. She wrote two articles and numerous web posts for Bay Nature about nature's recovery from that conflagration, and has been a fire follower ever since. Most recently, she's been working on Diablo Range Revealed, a series that explores life in the inland coast range after the SCU Lightning Complex fire. You can find evidence at savemountdiablo.org/learn/diablo-range-revealed/.
