Signs of the season: elephant seals, born to breed

Resting patiently in a coma-like state, the alpha bull’s heart slows to 12 beats per minute as he conserves his energy for the violent spars soon to unfold along the sandy shores of Año Nuevo State Park. Awaiting the arrival of fertile females, the alpha must continuously stake out his territory, foregoing food and drink for months for fear that he will be dethroned as “beachmaster” in his absence.

Born to breed, the life of the elephant seal revolves around a four month window beginning each December, a time when males and females crowd on beaches along the Pacific coast, the battlegrounds of mating and birth. As the world’s largest mainland breeding colony of northern elephant seals, Año Nuevo State Park is beginning to see signs that winter mating has begun. Guided by volunteer docents and State Park Rangers, visitors may catch a glimpse of this dramatic display of procreation until March, when elephant seals embark on a migratory route longer than most other marine mammals.

“This little chance of mating is all they think about, it’s their drive,” says Año Nuevo State Park volunteer docent, Sabine Laus.

juveniles learning to fight — Too young to mate, juveniles practice fighting, slowly building up a calloused chest which will one day protect their vital organs from violent fights. Photo by Courtney Quirin.

After traversing up to 13,000 miles, northern elephant seals arrive each year at their place of birth, one of which is Año Nuevo State Park. The males are first to haul out, slowly claiming their territory through vocal displays and sheer girth. However, as more and more wash ashore, tensions rise and soon battles erupt as males begin to infringe on each other’s mating prospects.

While the bulls duel it out for exclusive breeding rights to a harem, pregnant females roll in one by one, forming aggregates of 50 to 75 individuals. Before mating ensues, females give birth to pups conceived the year prior. Since elephant seals mate only three weeks after giving birth, females have evolved a “delayed implantation” process; a fertilized egg hangs out in the uterus for four months before implanting to ensure the pup will be born at the right time the next winter. Meanwhile, the delay gives the female a chance to to recover from pupping while she nurses her newborn for weeks without eating.

Pride and glory
Only the most experienced of bulls, aged 10 to 12 years, are strong and resilient enough to attain alpha status. The position, bestowed to 10 percent of the male population, allows the alpha to impregnate up to 75 females in one season. But there’s a cost to all that effort.

Alpha bulls have to subsist off their 3.5-inch layers of blubber, metabolizing it for water and nutrition during the four months of mating. Sparring further weakens them. Months spent pounding their calloused chests against other bulls costs the alpha about 12 pounds a day in weight loss. Add to that the excessive mating and many alphas die within a year.

Timing is also everything. Some males arrive well before the females and begin fasting too early. As starvation creeps in, these early birds are unable to last the whole breeding season and must surrender their harems and retreat back into the ocean to feed.

State park ranger Ziad Bawarshi said not all bulls have the personality to vie for the top.

“Some just don’t seem to care, while others are very driven,” said Bawarshi.

But being a lesser male doesn’t mean you’re a complete breeding loser. Although the alphas breed with 90 percent of the females, the other bulls have chances to score. A beta breeder gets the remaining 5-8 percent, while a gamma bull mates with any stragglers.

Breed or bust

Once the pups are born and mating is finished, the females abandon their pups and venture back into the open ocean to bulk up for next year’s mating season. The four-week-old pups are left to their own devices, learning to swim and fish through trial-and-error. Solitary at sea, instinct drives their behavior, and half never make it back to the shores of Año Nuevo.

As the last female departs Año Nuevo’s breeding grounds in March, males plunge back into the ocean, traveling up to the Gulf of Alaska to feed off of bottom-dwelling fish, small sharks, and rays. Weakened from their stark success, most alphas cannot survive the trek and die at sea, opening the door to the betas and gammas. Who will be beachmaster next year? Only the fattest, strongest, loudest and most punctual of bulls.

Don’t miss out on the action. Take a guided tour of the elephant seal colony Año Neuvo State Park in January to see newborn pups and sparring at its best. February also brings a wave of activity, as new mothers begin to mate with alphas. Warning: you must book a tour in advance as spaces fill up quickly. Alternatively, for an unrestricted viewing opportunity, go to an overlook near Chimney Rock at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Coastside State Parks Association and California State Parks are also holding a special fundraising event—Seal Adventures—that allows participants an entire morning or afternoon to observe elephant seals at the peak of the breeding season. Please visit the website to learn more and buy a ticket.

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Loving nature with pencil and paper

John Muir Laws, affectionately known as “Jack,” hugs and greets each person who enters his classroom as though they’ve known each other for a lifetime.

Sitting side-by-side in a small classroom at the San Francisco Zoo, his students, young and old, unpack their “nature journaling kits,” spreading pencils, pens and paintbrushes across their classroom tables.

“I want you all to go away from today knowing at least two new people,” says Laws as he kicks off his nature journaling workshop, which he hosts monthly in multiple locations across the Bay Area.

John Muir Laws, or "Jack", lectures to his Bay Area Nature Journaling Club at the San Francisco Zoo Education Center. Photo by Courtney Quirin — John Muir Laws, or “Jack”, lectures to his Bay Area Nature Journaling Club at the San Francisco Zoo Education Center. Photo by Courtney Quirin

Laws believes the craft of nature journaling– observing the intimate details of the natural world by creating images — will spark a connection with nature, and each other, that evolves into stewardship.

“One of the most useful and interesting definitions of love is that it is sustained, compassionate attention– and that’s what you’re doing when you are drawing a wildflower,” says Laws. “That love, that’s where stewardship is mostly born. We don’t protect that which we don’t know, understand and connect with.”

Laws speaks from experience. He credits his own appreciation of the natural world to journaling. As a child, his family took him on long hikes through the Sierra Nevadas, and he spent his time catching lizards and frogs and turning over every rock in sight. To chronicle his adventures, Laws said he would bring a journal and a pen, and sketch his discoveries, rather than capture them with words (he is severely dyslexic).

The sketching focused him on nature’s details — the thickness of a gull’s neck, the markings of a sparrow, the symmetry and shape of a wild flower’s petals.

“If you start drawing and sketching what you see, it forces you to look at a much deeper and profound level,” Laws said. “It focuses your attention to such a degree that you develop a relationship between you and whatever it is that you are observing, and that is a really powerful connection.”

Catalyzing Community

But pen and paper alone rarely turn a naturalist into a steward. Laws sees community with other people as the other essential component necessary to sustain a love for nature. In the absence of others, even the most enthusiastic nature-lover can quickly lose touch with the natural world.

Leena Khanzode, one of Laws’s nature journaling students, is a prime example. And so is Joseph Kinyon, Laws’s previous colleague and fellow nature journaler.

A nature journaling workshop participant practices adding value, or shading, to template hand drawn by Jack Laws. Photo by Courtney Quirin.

Prior to his current nature journaling club, Laws taught nature journaling classes from time to time. Khanzode and Kinyon were enthusiastic attendees, but nothing would stick. Both fell victim to a phenomenon Laws has seen time and again.

People would show up to the classes, saying they’d always wanted to keep a nature journal and were taking the class to jumpstart the process, and leave inspired. Laws would also leave inspired, feeling like he was really connecting people to nature. But 15 months later, the same person would show up and say they hadn’t been drawing and that they wanted to jumpstart themselves into nature journaling again. This happened to Khanzode and Kinyon, as well as other diehard nature journalers.

“I realized that even though people were enjoying the class, it wasn’t translating into a change in behavior. People were taking the class because they wanted to nature journal on a regular basis, but if it wasn’t their habit to do it before taking the class, then it would not be their habit to do it after class,” says Laws.

Water color by Leena Khanzode, painted on one of Jack Laws's nature journaling field trips. Photo by Vivek Khanzode. — Water color by Leena Khanzode. Photo by Vivek Khanzode.

Devastated that his classes were ultimately failures in his mind, Laws began to think back to an under-the-radar program he was a part of years ago. Similar to a regular Sunday pickup game of soccer, Laws would meet regularly with friends and acquaintances to draw nature. It was this repeated reunion with nature journalers that encouraged him to regularly keep a nature journal and even draw in between.

“One of the most important things in establishing a new habit– whether it’s losing weight, quitting smoking, or picking up nature journaling– is to do it as part of a community. That community helps people be able to maintain and develop a new habit,” says Laws.

A club is born

The idea of his current nature journaling club was born. Providing monthly workshops and field trips, Laws’s nature journaling club gives participants the kind of structure they need to keep going.

No longer attending in gaps of up to a year, Khanzode and her family have shown up to every workshop and field trip thus far.

“Jack’s passion is infectious,” says Khanzode. “Everyone is passionately sketching and talking about nature, talking about what plants and birds they saw. It’s just so amazing, it’s hard to express it in words. You come back rejuvenated.”

Leena Khanzode's daughters, Mitali (11) and Anaya (7), embark on a day of sketching with Jack Laws's nature journaling field trip held on the last Sunday of every month. Photo by Leena Khanzode. — Leena Khanzode’s daughters, Mitali (11) and Anaya (7), embark on a day of sketching with Jack Laws’s nature journaling field trip held on the last Sunday of every month. Photo by Leena Khanzode.

Khanzode and her family have been nature-lovers for quite some time (her husband is also on the board of the Santa Clara Audubon Society), but nature journaling adds something to the mix.

“This is a whole new spin,” she said. “When you actually go out and sketch a bird, for example, you look at its behavior, the environment around it, how it perches, what it feeds on. You look at things differently and learn so many things. Even simple birds, like song sparrows, look so differently to me now.”

Khanzode’s daughters, 11 and 7, have also picked up the nature journaling bug: “Excited is an understatement.”

Kinyon has made it a point to save one Sunday a month for a day out in the field with his 2-year-old son, joining the rest of the nature journaling community around the Bay Area.

“It’s meditative,” he says. “It helps us sharpen our mind and see something that we may not have noticed before. It’s a tool for looking, a place to write questions, and reflect.”

Those questions, Kinyon explains, are like jellyfish– slippery and short-lived, they float through our brains, and “if we don’t write them down, they’re gone.”

As each outing comes to a close, more than 100 field trip participants congregate in a circle and place their artwork in the center to discuss anything from drawing techniques to their experiences in the field. They’ve also created a Facebook page where they post their drawings and continue the discussion well beyond the field trip.

It’s this sense of community–the exchange of conversations and ideas–that Laws believes is key to protecting the wild places of the world.

“If we can get a critical mass of energy behind nature journaling, there will be some other emergent property that will come out of all of this energy, and that is what makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck,” he says.

More information on the Bay Area Nature Journal Club is on Laws’ website.

John Muir Laws has regular illustrations in Bay Nature Magazine. Courtney Quirin is a contributor to Bay Nature and an avid illustrator, herself.

San Francisco, a honeybee’s paradise

Hidden on rooftops and tucked away in backyards, San Francisco’s honeybees have become part of the urban fabric, and are busier than most at this time of year, when bees elsewhere hunker down in their hives.

San Francisco’s mild climate allows honey production to be a year round enterprise for the busy bees, and that combined with lenient laws, a pesticide ordinance and green-minded residents have inadvertently made the city among the most welcoming for urban bees and their keepers.

Although many people don’t even know the bees are here, an active group of beekeepers is expanding the population and making San Francisco a worldwide hub in urban honey production whose bounty rivals, and may even exceed, other hotspots like New York, Paris and Tokyo.

In Part 2 in our mini-series on urban beekeeping, we explore how San Francisco has become a honeybee’s paradise. In Part 1 of Bay Nature’s mini-series on urban beekeeping, Thrill of the hive, we met Charlie Blevins, the president of the 180-member strong San Francisco Beekeepers Association, and the harvester of a whopping 500 pounds of honey a year.

A different tune
In places that experience chilly winter temperatures, honey bees forgo foraging and reproduction and form a dormant winter cluster within their hive. Huddling together around the queen, worker bees vibrate their bodies to generate temperatures of up to 94-degrees, feeding off their honey stocks until the spring brings warmer weather and blossoming flowers.

A honeybee and a starflower at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. Photo: Justin Beck.

But like many of San Francisco’s residents, the honeybees here sing to a different tune. As long as temperatures crest 50-degrees and it’s not raining, honey bees are on the fly, hitting up winter blooms and laying eggs.

Ample winter nectar and mild temperatures also give San Francisco beekeepers an additional harvest or two; while most beekeepers only get two harvests a year, some Bay Area keepers, like Charlie Blevins (President of the San Francisco Beekeepers Association), get up to four.

Blevins, who harvested 500 pounds of honey last year, attributes his fecund winter harvest to the widespread blooms of Golden Gate Park’s eucalyptus trees. As the third most abundant tree in Golden Gate Park, the blue gum eucalyptus dominates the forest canopy as well as the winter blossoms. Honey bees are also drawn at this time of the year to the blue blossoms on rosemary bushes, which are sprinkled throughout the park.

Honey bees also reap the rewards of the San Francisco Botanical Garden’s winter-blooming flora, such as the towering tree daisies of the Mexican cloud forest collection or the purple, yellow, and white blossoms of the Mediterranean Christmas heather. Blooming each February, the native California lilac is also a favorite among honey bees.

“You can hear the noise from the bees 20 to 30 feet away. There are so many of them,” said Don Mahoney, curator of the botanical garden and an expert on gardening for bees.

Since spring and summer bring many more foraging options for honey bees, it’s nearly impossible to know what exactly they are eating during warmer months.

You are what you eat
The healthy harvest could also have to do with healthy city bees, which have little exposure to lethal pesticides. In 1996, San Francisco enacted a strict pesticide ordinance, phasing out nearly all pesticide use on city parks and buildings.

“Any big city will have pesticides, but compared to other cities, people in San Francisco don’t use as much. People are more organically-minded here,” said Blevins.

A eucalyptus bloom in Golden Gate Park. Photo: Anna Conti.

Ingested through the pollen, pesticides can assimilate into a bee’s bodily tissues and disrupt its biochemistry to put them into a weakened and vulnerable state.

“Pesticides definitely stress bees out and very well make them more susceptible to the next thing,” said Eric Mussen, Extension Apiculturist at UC Davis.

It’s still not clear, however, what level of pesticide exposure is toxic to bees.

More recently, contact pesticides, which control pests through direct contact with the chemicals, are being replaced by systemic pesticides, in which chemicals are absorbed by the plant rather than merely coating it. Mussen worries that some of the systemic toxicants may find their way into the fruits, flowers, and nectar of affected plants, and go on to hurt bees.

Unlike pollen, nectar is not ingested by bees, but rather stored in a pouch-like structure in the bee’s digestive system called the crop. Once back at the hive, bees regurgitate the nectar, mix it with enzymes, and deposit it in a cell in the comb, which later becomes honey. If pesticides are present in nectar, these chemicals may migrate back to the honeycomb and cling to beeswax, later to get bound up in the bees’ bodies. Surprisingly honey tends to be free of pesticide residues, says Mussen.

Although many of San Francisco’s bees may avoid exposure to pesticides, other urban bees aren’t as lucky. For example, more than a quarter of New York City’s available land is occupied by public parks, playgrounds, nature preserves, and golf courses, all of which are all subject to the city’s widespread use of Monsanto’s Roundup, a systemic herbicide. Considering that the Big Apple’s beekeeping scene has recently taken flight, with major hotels like the Waldorf-Astoria adopting rooftop beekeeping to stay atop of latest trends, it’s easy to imagine that many New York bees have few choices beyond pesticide-laced nectar and pollen.

Lenient laws
Beekeeping’s popularity in San Francisco is also fostered by the city’s lenient laws, which make it easy for beekeeping clubs to quickly grow. The San Francisco Beekeepers Association has 180 members, all of whom own at least one hive if not five. Anyone in San Francisco can keep bees as long as the bees do not become a public nuisance.

But the beekeeping scene would never have come so far if it weren’t for the interest and passion among locals, many of whom found their way to beekeeping through organic gardening and urban agriculture.

Urban beekeeper, Charlie Blevins, removes the caps of the honeycomb in order to extract honey. Photo by Charlie Blevins.

Christian Riechert, manager of America’s first urban beekeeping supply store, Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper (HMSB), based in the Mission, said he found it easy to go from organic farming to beekeeping. Today Christian leads community-building beekeeping programs throughout the Bay Area, such as HMSB’s “Pairing Program” in which he matches urban beekeepers in need of spots for their hives, with bee enthusiasts who have the space but not the ability. (The HMSB storefront recently closed down, but the online store still appears active)

Additionally, SF BeeCause is one of many local organizations that pollinates the Bay Area with programs that combine bees with community development. Inspired by Sweet Beginnings in Chicago, a workforce development program that trains newly-released prisoners in apiculture, SF BeeCause is applying a similar model in San Francisco. Running “bee farms” in places like Hayes Valley and Glen Park, the organization provides transitional work experience and volunteer opportunities in apiculture, and trains beekeepers. The honey ends up at local organizations, like the Neighbors Developing Divisadero, which uses proceeds from honey drives to create sustainable community development programs.

While honey bee numbers are still down since colony collapse disorder hit in 2006, the rise in urban beekeeping is not only helping bees rebound, but has also bolstered local flora and fauna.

“Bee populations are slowly improving because [urban beekeepers] are providing a better place for bees,” said Blevins.

He believes recovering bee populations are one of the reasons why Golden Gate Park is flush with life.

Wall filled with Bay Area honey for sale at Her Majesty's Secret Beekeeper in San Francisco's Mission District. Photo by Courtney Quirin. — Wall filled with Bay Area honey for sale at Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper in San Francisco’s Mission District. Photo by Courtney Quirin.

San Francisco urban beekeeper, Charlie Blevins, inspects his hive. Photo by Courtney Quirin.

The thrill of the hive: San Francisco beekeeping

Eye-level with the eucalyptus canopy of Golden Gate Park, Charlie Blevins stands on his San Francisco rooftop and begins to “suit up.”

He slips on a white jacket, then pulls a spacesuit- like hood over his head that masks his face with a netted veil. A pair of thick, white gloves drawn on and Blevins is ready for “inspection.” He gently pulls a honeycomb frame from the hive.

This is from one of 35 beehives that the San Franciscan beekeeper maintains in the backyards and rooftops of Bay Area properties. Is the queen laying eggs? Is the colony in tip-top shape? Are honey stores adequate? Blevins, a cheery and warm-hearted man in his late 50s, asks himself these questions as he checks each hive for signs of disease.

“You can tell a lot about the egg-laying pattern of the queen. If the queen is not laying, then the hive will die. Bees only live six weeks,” said Blevins.

Honeybee populations are in deep trouble around the world, but in places like San Francisco, urban beekeepers are doing their part to restore the enterprising Apis to their crucial role as ecosystem pollinator. Urban beekeeping is an outgrowth of the local food movement, which has inspired countless farms in urban pockets and has stoked the dream of sustainable cities. Behind every urban beehive is the beekeeper.

In Part 1 of Bay Nature’s mini-series on urban beekeeping, we meet Charlie Blevins, the president of the 180-member strong San Francisco Beekeepers Association, and the harvester of a whopping 500 pounds of honey a year.

A big part of Blevins’ success is that he never turns down a bee in need. As one of the few people listed on the beekeeper association’s “swarm list,” he rounds up dislocated honeybees from the properties of frightened residents and helps re-establish them into “mutually beneficial habitats.” His expressed goal: “creating opportunities for disadvantaged bees.”

Who you gonna call?
Oddly enough, Blevins’ 24-year career as a police officer comes in handy when dealing with bees. That’s because much of what he does is take charge in situations where bees are on the losing end of a public relations battle.

Bees fly into a box used to capture swarms. Photo by Charlie Blevins.

Blevins rushes to the scene of a swarm and calms people’s nerves before they break out the pest control. He says that many people conflate honeybees with hornets and wasps, and don’t understand that they are actually gentle creatures.

“All they want to do is make babies and honey,” he said.

Though seemingly fierce in numbers, swarms are actually quite vulnerable. Up to 75% of swarming bees perish from either the chill of the fog or from pesticide use by worried homeowners, says Blevins. This statistic is one of the reasons why Blevins got into swarm catching in the first place.

After retiring as police chief in Woodburn, Oregon, Blevins and his wife, Jill, moved to San Francisco in December 2009 to help manage his father-in-law’s apartment complex in the Richmond District. Little did he know that this building would soon change his life, eventually providing the working space for honeybees and his nonprofit, Habitat for Honeybees.

In retirement, Blevins said he yearned for a therapeutic pastime activity.

“I wanted something totally different, something positive, and something I could get my hands dirty with,” said Blevins.

He saw a local advertising from the beekeepers association and Jill suggested beekeeping. The couple went to the San Francisco Botanical Garden to check out an observation hive on display. Encased in plexiglass, the hive revealed the secret world of bees and Blevins was instantly captivated.

“You could actually see the bees inside, you could see them working. I was just taken. I was fascinated. I don’t know what came over me, but I just needed to keep bees,” said Blevins.

Blevins said he was charmed by the sweetness of bees.

“They are so adorable. If you ever just look at a honey bee up close, its little face is so cute,” he said. “They have really big eyes and are very curious. I just fell in love with these bees.”

Blevins began attending beekeeper association meetings and signed himself up for a beekeeping series—months and months of introductory classes.

The thrill of the hive
Drawn to the thrill of the hive, Blevins dived into beekeeping, beginning with two rooftop hives. Jill offered his next big inspiration. Instead of buying bees online or from a local breeder, why not take in swarming bees? Honeybees are driven to swarm when they outgrow their old hive.

Blevins’ knack for swarm catching gradually brought hive numbers to 35 over the course of several years. Catching swarms is not for the novice, and Charlie only began this endeavor after shadowing several experienced beekeepers.

Swarm catching takes several hours and usually involves tiptoeing up a ladder onto a limb, where thousands of bees huddle together. Blevins will then lure the swarm into a box (making sure to include the queen) and then leave the box until dark, when the bees stop flying, to be sure to capture the worker bees when they come home to their queen.

Considering that Blevins normally gets one swarm call a day during the spring high season, the bees quickly outgrew his rooftop. Jill suggested they find swarms homes, or “mutually beneficial habitats” on organic farms. With a website and a flashy name, and the idea took off. “Habitat for Honeybees,” the nonprofit they founded, connects swarming honeybees with new hives on spots around the Bay Area.

New blood
Blevins is now playing it forward, mentoring five novices at a time on the art of beekeeping. This year he also intends to train more experienced beekeepers on swarm catching.

Impressed by Blevin’s passion and his successful nonprofit, the San Francisco Beekeepers Association promoted him to vice president of the group, and now president as of this year.

Real Honey, Charlie Blevin's honey which is sold at Bi-rite, Angelina's Catering and Foggy Notion in San Francisco. Photo by Charlie Blevins. — Real Honey, Charlie Blevin’s honey which is sold at Bi-rite, Angelina’s Catering and Foggy Notion in San Francisco. Photo by Charlie Blevins.

“I believe his enthusiasm will rub off on other people,” said association member and fellow swarm catcher Paul Koski. “His ideas, his enthusiasm, and his promotion of beekeeping will be good for beekeepers in the big city.”

As president, Blevins hopes to make the organization stronger. The SFBA gets up to 30 new members each year, but they shed members just as fast. Blevins thinks that’s because all the classes are geared toward beginners.

“Right now it’s kind of like a bee academy, like a police academy. You graduate and then now what do you do?” said Blevins.

He said seasoned beekeepers lose interest and drift away. Several years later, many of these departed beekeepers have stopped keeping bees altogether. Apparently, they need a colony of fellow beekeepers to keep their passion alive.

Blevins hopes to support them with continued education, retaining experienced beekeepers with the lure of advanced classes and discussions with entomologists.

Blevins’ fervor is beginning to spread, said Koski.

“Charlie has already made connections with lots of people. I’m looking forward to his line of speakers this year,” said Koski.

Human side of bees

Though Blevins never gets tired of his bees, it’s the human component of beekeeping that really makes him tick—meeting different people, calming the public’s fears, and sparking interest in this miraculous species.

“When you go to a swarm call, it’s really rewarding to show up, put on your suit, and say that everything is going to be fine.”

Typically homeowners and neighbors watch through their windows as he crawls up a ladder and takes care of the swarming bees. Once caught and minds at ease, the swarm catch turns into an impromptu beekeeping class and inevitably ends with curious bystanders wanting to join the club.

A master at managing people’s concerns, Blevin’s 24 years as a cop are not far behind him. Swarm catching is almost like driving a police car, just a lot less dangerous.

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Wild Turkeys, Introduced as Game, Now Thriving a Bit Excessively

Tom turns to Jake and raises his crown. Elsewhere, Jenny eyes her mother hen and emits a distinctive “Putt!”

Watch out, it’s hunting season.

As turkey naming convention goes, Jenny and Jake are juveniles. Tom is a globber—that is, an adult male turkey. And each fall, the gregarious Meleagris gallopavo frolic across California’s countryside in search of acorns and wild grasses.

If the young turks had more presence of mind, this year they’d be especially cautious. For the first time in 14 years, California hunters are allowed to take two (rather than one) turkeys in the fall hunting season, and they get an extra 16 days to do so, into early December.

Wild turkey. (Photo by C.V. Vick, via Flickr)

The California Department of Fish & Game made the change in response to a sizable growth in the population of wild turkey, a species first introduced to California in 1877 as game for hunters. Paradoxically, hunters are now seen as part of the solution to keeping wild turkey numbers in check.

Too many turkeys can be a stress on the local acorn crop and they can out-compete ground-nesting and grassland birds. They also make a nuisance of themselves by damaging gardens, defecating on sidewalks and harassing people for food. Wild turkeys can reach 20 pounds and become quite aggressive, occasionally even charging people.

Consequently, the number of nuisance cases has grown from few to many in recent years, especially in areas east and north of the San Francisco Bay as well as in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Range of wild turkeys in California. (Courtesy of California Department of Fish and Game)

The fall is the time when hunting can have the most impact on turkey populations. Trimming down the number of females before the breeding season means fewer chicks will eventually hatch.

But only the patient hunter can capitalize on fall hunting. Since food sources are widespread during November, turkeys roam vast areas of oak woodlands in search of a meal, which means locating rafters can be quite a challenge. (The spring hunt, on the other hand, coincides with the mating season, a time when Toms and hens are easy to lure with the lascivious calls of “clucks” and “gobbles.”)

Interestingly enough, outside of spring mating season, the bearded Toms stick with the Jakes and the Jennys with the hens. They exist in tight groups, segregated by family and sex and characterized by a strong pecking order.

The success of wild turkeys in California might come down to the fact that some 10,000 years ago, a turkey species existed here that potentially filled the ecological niche. Remnants of an extinct California turkey, Meleagris californica, have been found in the south, including Santa Barbara, Orange, and Los Angeles counties. More than 11,000 California turkey bones have been unearthed in the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits. It was smaller than today’s wild turkeys and had a wider, shorter beak, and it’s speculated that it went extinct because of climate changes in rainfall.

Turkeys say way more than just “gobble.” Here’s your guide to speaking wild turkey. Go here for audio recordings of their calls.

Putt: Watch out! Something dangerous is afoot.

Purr: I’m so happy.

Cluck: Hey, I’m talking to you.

Cackle: Hello, or goodbye,

Cutt: Come check this out!

Kee-kee run: Where are my peeps?

Gobble: Why, hello ladies.

A male wild turkey in full display. Photo by Random Truth/Flickr.

Courtney Quirin is a Bay Nature editorial intern. Alison Hawkes, the online editor of Bay Nature, contributed to this story.

In unpoliced oceans, marine mammal shootings go unsolved

Whirlybird has survived against all odds. In July, the male sea lion took a bullet to the head and landed on the shore of Corcoran Lagoon in Santa Cruz. Metal fragments had scattered throughout his head, destroying his eyesight.

Transferred to the care of the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands, Whirlybird now lives in surprisingly good spirits. But like many other marine mammal gunshot victims, his injuries are so severe that he’ll never be able to call the ocean home again.

Under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, it’s strictly illegal to harm, capture or kill a marine mammal. Nevertheless, gunshot victims like Whirlybird are a common occurrence along the coastlines of North America. Last month a bottlenose dolphin washed ashore in Louisiana after suffering from a gunshot behind its blowhole. Meanwhile, on the border of Oregon and Washington, 20 sea lions were found dead with gunshot wounds between April and June. Whirlybird’s case brought the Marine Mammal Center’s tally of gunshot victims up to six this year (it treated 539 gunshot victims between 1986 to 2010, which amounted to between 3 and 9 percent of overall admissions).

The Wild West
While the number of victims has held steady over the years, there’s been little progress in solving the marine mammal gunshot cases. That’s because the oceans are vast and go largely unpoliced, a kind of Wild West that produces no discernible witnesses or evidence. The ocean’s game warden, the Office of Law Enforcement at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), usually has only the animal itself to examine.

“Bullet fragments aren’t enough. Though we may be able to identify the type of firearm used, we still don’t know who the weapon belongs to. We end up with a lot of open cases,” says Martina Sagapolu, the acting special agent of NOAA’s southwest division of law enforcement.

Officials often don’t even know where the crime occurred.

“Injured sea lions could have traveled quite a distance before stranding. The shot could’ve happened miles away at sea,” says Jim Oswald, a Marine Mammal Center spokesperson.

What’s even more troubling is that the extent of the problem is unknown, because presumably many shootings go undiscovered.

“We definitely don’t see all of the gunshot victims,” said Bill Van Bonn, the Marine Mammal Center’s staff veterinarian. “What we don’t see are the acute, fatal gunshots and the ones that are minor.”

So the number of gunshot victims is very likely an underestimate. In the last 24 years in California, the tally of recorded gunshot cases includes 988 pinnipeds, 12 cetaceans, and one leatherback sea turtle, according to NOAA reports.

Sea Lions on a Boat in Monterey_2 — Two sea lions soak up some sun off the docks of Monterey, CA. Photo by Julian Fong.

A fight over fish?
While NOAA has found no hotspots or clear trends in the shootings, most cases seem to be happening in areas where schools of fish have moved closer to shore, possibly sparking battles as marine mammals interact with fishing operations, said Sagapolu.

Every summer the Marine Mammal Center sees a surge in gunshot victims, of which California sea lions are the overwhelming majority.

“There are more people out recreating and boating, which means more people are in contact with sea lions so the likelihood of conflict is higher,” said Van Bonn.

Getting into trouble
Juvenile males seem to be the ones most at risk, as their naïveté and curiosity get them into trouble fast. Young males have yet to learn to forage for fish farther off the coast and consequently are competing with the same fish that fishermen go after.

Unlike skittish harbor seals, California sea lions are also quick to habituate and are fond of human spaces, like docks and harbors. At Monterey Bay, sea lions are known to have capsized uncovered boats as they pile on for an evening shuteye.

Most marine mammals are shot in the head or spine as they skim the ocean’s surface. The prognosis of is far from uplifting. The Marine Mammal Center, which handles a 600-mile rescue range, reports that 21 percent of its gunshot admits survive, and are either released back into the wild or placed at zoos and aquariums.

Whirlybird may have beaten the odds, recovering well with his penmate Mr. Peppy. However, Whirlybird’s journey is not over. Each day he must prepare for his new life as a blind sea lion, undergoing extensive training by rehabilitation staff so that he can learn how to thrive at a future home at a zoo.

Courtney Quirin is a Bay Nature editorial intern.

Keeping the peace with urban coyotes

When a pet goes missing, urban coyotes can quickly develop a bad rap. But many wildlife experts say it’s not the coyotes who need better management — it’s us.

Most of the time coyotes live peaceably among their human neighbors, often going unnoticed as they prefer the secrecy of the night. But when conflicts do arise, it’s often humans who set the stage by feeding coyotes, or disregarding trail closures and dog leash laws.

“The best way to manage coyote behavior is to manage human behavior,” said Damien Raffa, the education program manager of the Presidio Trust, quoting a veteran park ranger.

In this third and final Bay Nature installment on urban coyotes, we examine how people can help keep the peace with the normally reclusive Canis latrans as it expands its range into cities like San Francisco. In the second story in the series we looked at why coyotes see cities, of all places, as ideal habitat, and in the first story we uncovered how they got to San Francisco in the first place.

Loving coyotes to death

Conflict between urban coyotes and people can unfold in many ways, but most cases starts with wildlife feeding, which creates a big problem fast.

“Feeding wildlife is literally loving animals to death,” says Camilla Fox, the executive director of the Larkspur-based coyote education nonprofit, Project Coyote.

When leaving food outside for pets, cat colonies, or other wildlife, you also lure coyotes in to human areas and teach them that humans are the key to a delicious meal.

Feeding can also be the gateway to habituation, a phenomenon where a coyote loses its natural fear of people due to one too many innocuous interactions. A habituated coyote may be more bold, curious, and likely to explore new urban terrain, regardless of how many people and cars stand in its way.

“There’s more chance for something bad to happen,” said Bill Merkle, a wildlife ecologist at the Golden Gate National Recreational Area. “These animals are still wild and unpredictable.”

Habituation and wildlife feeding are also a community problem. Even if only one person feeds a coyote, pretty soon the whole neighborhood might have a regular, uninvited backyard guest who may even get a bit testy at times, or sample a pet as a meal.

“If a person gets bit, it’s likely because the coyote was habituated due to feeding,” said Stanley Gehrt, a leading urban coyote expert and associate professor at the Ohio State University.

But habituation goes both ways and sometimes it’s hard to say who habituated first, the coyote or the human. People are quick to forget that a city coyote is still a wild coyote, and therefore definitely not a playmate for their dog or a furry friend in need of some TLC.

The dog conundrum

While conflicts were once mostly limited to missing cats, these days scuffles with dogs — off-leash in parks and in backyards — are the most common problem.

In San Francisco, where the luxury of a backyard is few and far between, most dog-coyote conflicts occur in Glen Canyon Park and Golden Gate Park, places where dog walkers frequent and often disobey on-leash laws.

“Dog owners violate leash laws, which results in playful or curious dogs approaching coyotes,” said Lt. Lee-Ellis Brown of San Francisco Animal Care and Control. “We wouldn’t have this kind of dog-coyote problem if owners kept their dogs on leash in designated areas.”.

The coyote usually chases away the dog, and then a report is filed with Animal Care and Control, although sometimes it’s the dog that gains the upper hand.

Usually the trouble is the worst during pupping season (April, May and June), when coyotes are unamused by dogs running around their dens.

“We are trying to promote the consciousness that free-roaming pets are possible participants in the food web of the park. It’s painful to lose a pet, and completely avoidable with a mindful effort,” said Raffa of the Presidio Trust.

Getting proactive

After years of experience dealing with coyote conflicts, San Francisco officials are now proactive in their efforts. The city has started closing off trails near den sites and enforcing on-leash dog laws during the height of coyote pupping season. And it’s broadcasting its message to residents through community meetings, fliers and public service announcements to teach people to be cognizant of coyotes and their needs. It’s a policy that Fox said should serve as a model for other cities which should be “managing” humans to keep the peace with coyotes.

That comes down to correcting misperceptions about coyotes, changing the way people and their pets behave around them, and shaping media coverage of sightings and incidents.

“The media feeds into the fear mongering with sensationalist headlines. We don’t hear about all of the times we are coexisting with these animals. People end up being terrified,” says Fox.

Living peacefully among our canine neighbors requires some work on our part. To learn more about how to coexist with urban coyotes and recognize warning signs, visit The Cook County Coyote Project and Project Coyote.

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Courtney Quirin is a Bay Nature editorial intern.

Cousteau: Youth the answer to imperiled oceans

In 1973, Jean-Michel Cousteau led 45 children into the dense bush of Papua New Guinea with the bare essentials: beans, rice, camping gear, swimming and diving equipment, a doctor — and a pig.

Cousteau, soon to be world-renowned conservationist and son of the legendary French ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, wanted to teach them how to live off the land, as well as a major lesson of nature: there’s no such thing as waste. So, he had the kids throw their meal scraps to the pig, and at the end of the trip the pig itself became the meal.

The trip to Papua New Guinea was the second of many youth education programs led by Cousteau, whose latest event was hosted last Thursday by the Marine Mammal Center and the America’s Cup Healthy Oceans Project in the Marin Headlands.

The children in Papua New Guinea were reminded of their close connection with nature, and the difficult decisions they must face, something that has been lost in today’s mega supermarkets and fast-food consumer culture.

“In order to care about nature, people must understand how it works,” said Cousteau in a recent Bay Nature interview.

Cousteau attributes today’s environmental problems, such as the rapid accumulation of garbage in our seas, to a disconnect people have with nature. He believes youth education is the answer.

Gathered along the epic coastline of Rodeo Beach, Cousteau talked to children from Willow Creek Academy, in Sausalito, and Marshall Elementary, in San Francisco, about their role in sharing their experiences with others as an “ambassador for the ocean.” The children watched Cousteau assist with the release of three sea lions in rehabilitation at the Marine Mammal Center.

Cousteau believes that early experiences with nature, like participating in a sea lion release or living off the land in Papua New Guinea, will make children better decision-makers when it comes to the natural world.

“Educating the youth is the best investment we can make,” said Cousteau.

Cousteau also uses the power of film to connect people with nature. This week his latest documentary, “My Father, the Captain,” about the life of his famed father, will premiere at the Blue Ocean Film Festival in Monterey. And he’s just finished up a television show about fish bones, a waste product that’s become a resource in West Oakland, where it’s mixed with soil to neutralize contamination from the use of leaded gasoline before it was banned.

Though Cousteau’s work may highlight the somber truth that our oceans are in peril and human activity is to blame, his stories are all one of hope. Though it’s unknown what the solutions will be, the unknown excites Cousteau.

“We always look at these things as a catastrophe, as putting people out of work. That’s not the case,” he said.

To Cousteau, addressing our environmental problems brings new opportunities and a hope for a better future and society.

“People are going to come up with new ideas, new creations, new ways of handling things, new jobs, thousands of new jobs, new technology, and new industries,” he said.

[slideshow]

Athena, a juvenile male sea lion, was released on Rodeo Beach by the Marine Mammal Center after successfully recovering from a shark bite a month ago. He was rescued from Monterey Harbor and was one of three sea lions released as part of the youth education program hosted by the Marine Mammal Center and America’s Cup Healthy Oceans Project. Photos by Courtney Quirin.

Navigating cities: survival skills for the urban coyote

One recent sunny morning a young coyote lounged on the fairway of San Francisco’s Lincoln Park Golf Course, unphased by the whizzing golf balls and carts. Over the past decade coyotes have become part of the city’s scenery, including Lands End and the adjacent Lincoln Park Golf Course.

“You mostly see them early in the morning, but sometimes during the day in the middle of the fairway. They don’t move when people play golf,” says Larry, the pro shop clerk.

About five years ago, coyotes turned up at the golf course, part of the gradual march towards urbanization that has taken hold of the normally reclusive Canis latrans. Although seemingly unsuitable habitat, coyotes actually do quite well in cities like San Francisco. The survival rate among urban coyote pups — up to 67 percent — is nearly five times higher than rural ones.

“That’s almost unheard of in a natural environment,” said Stanley Gehrt, associate professor and wildlife biologist who leads the longest-running urban coyote study in the world.

Gehrt’s work centers in Chicago, but he says survival rates among urban coyote pups are probably similar in San Francisco and other cities. In the rural Midwest, pup survival is 15%, with most dying before reaching their second year.

In this second story in the Bay Nature series on urban coyotes we examine why coyotes see cities like San Francisco as ideal habitat — despite all the cars, cement, and whizzing golf balls. In the first story in our series, “Urban coyotes in our midst,” we found out how the Golden Gate Bridge is the highway for coyote migration, and connects distinct populations north and south of the city.

Under protection

Under the protection of the city’s no hunting and no trapping laws, pups thrive and urban coyote populations continue to grow. Pups account for the greatest number of individuals in a population and are also the most vulnerable, hit hardest by hunting and trapping in rural areas. In cities, the leading cause of coyote mortality, for both young and old, is collisions with cars.

This pup is about three months old. Photo by Janet Kessler.

Surprisingly the urban coyote’s diet doesn’t differ much from its country-bumpkin cousin; both prefer to feed on small rodents and fruit, and rarely rely on garbage as food. Though barely any research has been conducted on the ecology of San Francisco’s coyotes, Animal Care and Control has a hunch that the city’s coyotes are feeding on gophers, food left out for feral cats, free-ranging cats, and occasionally trash.

However, cities do offer a more eclectic array of dining options, such as food left out for pets and feral cats. Golden Gate Park, where coyote pups brought in national attention earlier this year, has an extensive albeit ad hoc feral cat feeding program.

Feeding coyotes, even unintentionally, is a major source of conflict.

“Coyotes that are fed in residential neighborhoods can lose their fear of people, and may eventually test humans or pets as possible prey,” says Gehrt.

This why slogans like “a fed coyote is a dead coyote” has been appropriated by cities, agencies, and nonprofits across North America in an attempt to keep urban coyotes wild and foster coexistence. Attacks on people and pets can be lethal, as occurred in Golden Gate Park in 2007 after two coyotes were euthanized after they bit a pair of leashed dogs.

Just being coyotes

A coyote bounces up and down in a display of warning after a dog rushes in too close. Photo by Janet Kessler.

Not all conflicts are the fault of coyotes. Sometimes coyotes are just being coyotes and their behavior is deemed appropriate, especially during breeding season (April through June) when they protect their dens from curious explorers like off-leash dogs. Earlier this year, the Presidio Trust dealt with tensions among residents when a coyote took a small dog in the Presidio near its denning site (the unleashed dog antagonized the coyote, chasing it as it was crossing a lawn).

High survival rates and fine dining doesn’t mean that city life is easy living. Coyotes can go to great lengths to avoid city hazards. Most urban coyotes switch to a strictly nocturnal schedule, helping them to avoid people and their dogs and cars. In rural areas, coyotes are usually active during the day or at dawn and dusk.

golf 1 — A coyote plays with a golf ball. Photos by Janet Kessler.

Not all urban coyotes steer clear of people. Like the coyote spotted in Lincoln Park Golf Course, some coyotes get used to having people around. In these cases, known as “habituation,” a person becomes part of the landscape, like a tree or a bush, with neither a positive or negative association.

Habituation, and whether it is good or bad for wildlife, is a relatively new and understudied concept among scientists. But we do know that habituated coyotes can get people nervous.

“It’s influenced by personal perception, by an individual’s comfort around the presence of coyotes and by what amount of space makes that person feel scared or excited,” said Camilla Fox, executive director of Project Coyote.

At Lincoln Park Golf Course, where staff say three coyotes now live, people have pretty much accepted them. Problems mainly arise with dog walking, which is prohibited, says Jim, a grounds keeper.

“People try to get their dogs to chase the coyotes,” says Jim. “Otherwise there is no problem. They’re really docile. You can hit a ball 10 feet away from them and they won’t move. They’re really friendly.”

This is the second in a BayNature.org series on urban coyotes. Come back next week for Part 3 to learn about living with urban coyotes.

Courtney Quirin is a Bay Nature editorial intern who has studied urban coyotes extensively in a graduate degree program.

Urban coyotes in our midst

Fabled as a wily shape-shifter and trickster, the coyote’s latest magic trick has been turning cities into habitat, and San Francisco is one of its latest acts.

Coyotes may have evolved in the plains and deserts of Mexico and North America, but they’ve rapidly expanded their range and are now making new homes for themselves in some of the largest urban centers, including Chicago, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and now San Francisco. San Francisco has seen a small but steady increase in the coyote population since they first appeared in the Presidio and Bernal Heights in 2001. Earlier this spring, coyote pups showed up in Golden Gate Park, sparking national attention and trail closures to protect the dens. San Francisco animal control estimates at least 15 individuals reside in city limits. Coyote hotspots include Twin Peaks, Lake Merced, Diamond Heights, Glen Park, Glen Canyon, Lands End, the Presidio, and Golden Gate Park.

“Coyotes are all over the city, in every neighborhood,” said San Francisco Animal Care and Control’s Lt. Le-EllisBrown.

This is the first in a series of BayNature.org stories about our urban coyotes, where we’ll explore how Canis latrans got here and how it’s adapting to city life. Coyotes are hardly the first species to find suitable habitat among humans — raccoons, opossums, and bears also like to take advantage of all the waste we produce. But the San Francisco coyotes have a unique story to tell about how cities can be a bridge connecting rural populations. Quite literally a bridge, as it turns out.

Bridging the divide
In 2003, the Presidio Trust partnered up with Dr. Ben Sacks and Dr. Holly Ernest, from UC Davis’s School of Veterinary Medicine, and wildlife ecologist Dr. Erin Boydston of the US Geological Survey to learn more about the Presidio’s latest canine addition. Through radio-collaring and extracting the DNA from a coyote caught in the Presidio, these researchers found that the San Francisco coyotes originated from populations north of the Golden Gate Bridge, and not from the Peninsula, as one might assume. They must have crossed the Golden Gate Bridge to get there.

California State University graduate student Katherine Marquez also found that San Francisco serves as a link between northern and southern populations, which historically have been genetically distinct. Marquez sampled a coyote in Lake Merced, on the southwestern edge of the city, that was related to the southern population, not the northern one. The genetic similarity in San Francisco’s urban coyotes also suggests that this population is rather insular, supporting theories that California coyotes aren’t too fond of leaving their natal habitat. Once a city coyote, always a city coyote.

Just how the northern coyotes got across the bridge leaves much to the imagination. Sacks and his group believed the coyotes came on their own, without hitching a ride with anyone. That idea was proven possible in 2004 when a coyote was spotted on videotape trotting across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Other methods of getting here seem unlikely. Coyotes are good swimmers, but they probably can’t make it across the treacherous currents of the San Francisco Bay. The only other land route would take a coyote over 250 km, circumventing the Bay-Delta Estuary and moving through the South Bay Hills population. Sacks and his group found it “especially unlikely” that coyotes utilized this jughandle approach to reach San Francisco.

The advance from the north is a bit surprising because historically the southern border has had the denser population. It wasn’t until coyotes began to recolonize Marin County, well after the Golden Gate Bridge was built in 1933, that they kept moving south, using the bridge as a highway of their own.

Coyote colonization

A handful of studies have begun to reveal how coyotes manage to live within urban landscapes, but it’s still unclear to scientists what prompts some coyotes to colonize cities while others remain on the periphery. Coyote specialist Stanley Gehrt, who directs the world’s longest-running urban coyote study in Cook County, Illinois, says that coyotes move into cities because of territorial pressure. Known as “land tenure,” older coyotes force out the youngsters who have yet to establish their own territory. When young coyotes leave their packs, usually after their first or second year, they embark on a journey to find vacant habitat to claim as their own.

In a phenomenon similar to sprawl, as coyote populations thrive, more and more young coyotes venture off in search of available territory, leading them into unoccupied suburbs and cities.

Since they’re a generalist species, capable of adapting their diet and lifestyle to a range of environments, coyotes can call any place home, even if it’s concrete. However, urban coyotes are still wild and prefer more natural areas, sticking to woodlots, canyons, open parks, and golf courses, and choose to avoid people and their residential and commercial areas.

It seems that the Golden Gate Bridge has upheld San Francisco’s reputation as an open and green city, connecting habitat and helping to spread the gene-flow love from north to south, rather than fragmenting wildlife populations like so many man-made structures do.

This is the first in a BayNature.org series on urban coyotes. Come back next week for Part 2: Survival 101 for the urban coyote.

Courtney Quirin is a Bay Nature editorial intern who has studied urban coyotes extensively in a graduate degree program.