At Point Pinole, 21 sturgeon carcasses––some more than seven feet long––lay strewn along a mile-long stretch of beach in late August 2022, baking in the relentless heat. It was the peak of the largest harmful algal bloom on record in … Read more
Guananí Gómez-Van Cortright
How Indigenous People Got Some Land Back in Oakland
The city of Oakland just made history by giving over five acres in Joaquin Miller Park to an Indigenous land trust’s stewardship. But the backstory was decades in the making.
How a ‘Sturgeon Surgeon’ Tracks the Bay’s Giant, Stealthy Living Fossils
Researchers are investigating the secrets of our two resident sturgeon species, which have razor-sharp armor and shlorp up clams with their vacuum-shaped mouths.
The Nearly Unkillable Eucalyptus Meets Its Match
Eucalyptus trees on Albany Hill are wasting away from blight. Some people may cheer—but these trees are also home to endangered monarchs.
The Living Drill Bits That Grind Holes in Beach Rocks
The piddock clam makes its mark on the world at the rate of one millimeter per month.
Can We Have More Whales and Fewer Whale Strikes?
Anchovies sparkled and seawater sprayed from the crusty maws of gray whales as they burst through the surface, again and again, off the coast near Pacifica, fifteen miles south of San Francisco. Groups of up to six gray whales devoured … Read more
Largest Tidal Restoration Project in California Will Make Way for Wildlife & Mitigate Floods
Two landscapes stand divided by the hundred-year-old Yolo Bypass West Levee in Solano County. To the south of the levee’s U shape, canals tangle toward the sprawling Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, which teems with wildlife. North of the levee, former … Read more
In the Wake of Wildfire, Big Basin Redwoods State Park Partially Reopens to the Public
Big Basin State Park is not the lush, shady ancient forest it once was. In August 2020, 97 percent of the old-growth forest nestled in the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains burned in the devastating CZU Lightning Complex fire. … Read more
Soon-to-Open Tunnel Tops Park Supports a More Inclusive Future
This weekend, on Sunday, July 17, the new 14-acre Tunnel Tops park opens to the public in San Francisco’s Presidio, a former military base turned urban national park that hosts around 10 million visitors a year