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Imagine a time when buses and streetcars and trains are everywhere in San Francisco, when everyone takes transit and almost no one owns a private car. This was close to reality just 70 years ago. Since then the urban ecosystem has changed, and buses were outcompeted by private cars. Today, though, that urban ecosystem might be changing again.
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Every once in a while, a small and unremarkable animal makes a huge impact on a landscape. So it is with the salt marsh harvest mouse around the edges of the San Francisco Bay. The endangered species status of the harvest mouse, along with that of the California clapper rail, has been a prime mover in the restoration of thousands of acres of tidal marshes around the region.
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Reptile expert Robert Stebbins calls the San Francisco garter snake “one of the most beautiful serpents in North America.” The snake’s dazzling patterns of color serve as camouflage in its native habitat: the open marshes, stream banks, grasslands, and vernal pools of the San Francisco Peninsula. But the best camouflage is little help if your home territory gets built over.
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Now’s the time to help save our California state parks from imminent closure under Governor Schwarzenegger’s budget plan!
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Download our updated map showing transit connections to protected parks and open spaces all over the San Francisco Bay Area.
The East Bay Regional Park District and other parks agencies own and operate an impressive array of shoreline parks in the East Bay. Visit a different one every week, and you’d still be busy for at least four months. Here’s … Read more
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On October 3, 1995, a wildfire erupted on Mount Vision at Point Reyes National Seashore. Before the flames were extinguished a week later, 12,000 acres of this popular park had been scorched, and 45 nearby homes burned to the ground. A decade later, we return to Point Reyes for a lesson in local fire ecology to see how the landscape—and the community—were reshaped and renewed by the blaze.
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We tend to take the ground beneath our feet for granted, but soil is a defining feature of the landscape around us, in the garden and on the trail.
David Amme, author of “Grassland Heritage” in Bay Nature’s April-June 2004 issue, called purple needlegrass “the undisputed candidate for official state grass.” Now that may soon become literally as well as figuratively true: State Sen. Michael Machado, D-Linden, is sponsoring … Read more
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There are many local organizations working to protect, restore, explore, and educate about San Francisco Bay. Many of them welcome volunteers and new members. We found close to one hundred of these organizations in our search, but there are undoubtedly … Read more
