Exploring Nature in the San Francisco Bay Area
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Can You Bag 15 SF Peaks on Sept 25?

Beware of pedestrians, San Francisco drivers, for they are taking back the streets on September 25. That’s when more than a hundred folks will be trekking a near half-marathon over 15 “peaks” through the urban fabric of San Francisco. It’s all part of the local nonprofit Walk San Francisco’s seventh-annual “Peak 2 Peak” walk, and spaces have filled up quickly this year.

Watch out for the walk leaders’ brightly colored flower leis, the walker’s Walk SF T-shirts, the purple sidewalk chalk marking the route – and perhaps most importantly, the hoards of pedestrians demanding attention on that day.

San Francisco is “an extremely walkable city,” says Elizabeth Stampe, Walk San Francisco’s executive director, “but it should be safer. Pedestrians really should have the priority that they deserve and we see too many people hit by cars here–that’s what we’re working to change.”

Each year in San Francisco, cars hit, more than 800 people, 100 of whom are seriously injured or killed. Stampe says Walk San Francisco uses the proceeds from Peak 2 Peak in campaigns to make San Francisco safer for pedestrians.

The Peak 2 Peak route covers ground far beyond the busy downtown sector of the city, however. As it leads participants up and down 15 peaks in San Francisco, it promises “urban streets, hidden staircases, park trails and glorious views, a combination of nature and city that is pretty unique.”

Of course, this is a walk in San Francisco, so coffee shops stand ready for those in need, and public transit is also an option if 12 miles proves too challenging. It’s a fairly casual walk, and participants are welcome to break off from the group as they please–just another perk of hiking through a city.

To participate in the Peak 2 Peak walk, register online. The benefit walk, which starts in the West Portal neighborhood at 9:30 a.m. and runs through 4 p.m., is $75 including lunch, $95 including lunch and an “I Walk SF” T-shirt.

Got Mice? Get an Owl!

Facing a rodent problem? Before you head to the hardware store for rat poison, Alex Godby, founder of the Marin-based nonprofit Hungry Owl Project (HOP), wants to persuade you that there are better ways to deal with rats and mice.

And one of those ways is to attract owls by installing nest boxes and keeping the surrounding area free of rodenticides, which can be deadly not just to rodents but also to the birds and other predators that feed on poisoned animals and then die themselves.

“I don’t think people realize how detrimental [rodenticides] are to the environment,” says Godby. “The threat they present to wildlife and pets, and that they don’t actually work in the long term.”

Over in Bolinas, HOP volunteer Stockton Buck hopes to take the effort a few steps further than just an owl box in his backyard: He recently started a “Rodenticide-Free Bolinas” campaign in the small West Marin community at the souther end of the Point Reyes peninsula.

“Because Bolinas is a small and isolated enough community, if we could convince those in Bolinas to forego rodenticides then we could create an environment free of influence from surrounding communities,” says Buck. Wildlife there, in other words, would bye unlikely to encounter poisons in neighboring towns.

Buck began his campaign by sending out surveys to Bolinas residents. About 10 percent have responded, nearly all “strongly in favor of” a rodenticide-free Bolinas, given viable alternatives. “If you care about the environment, it’s hard to argue against,” he says. “There are so many downsides to poisons, to me it isn’t worth it.”

Through HOP, Buck has installed three owl boxes in Bolinas, and he says he hopes to eventually install at least 100 boxes throughout the community.

Godby has similarly high hopes for the project, especially because HOP now has a full decade of experience encouraging barn owls as natural rodent control, which she touts as better for the environment, good for owl populations, and effective–barn owls are skilled predators with fast metabolisms, capable of consuming thousands of rodents in a season.

If the Rodenticide-Free Bolinas campaign goes well, it may inspire similar measures in other parts of the Bay Area. As Godby says, “We’re hoping that if one town can set the example then others will follow.”

You can learn about all this and more at a presentation called “Using Barn Owls for Safe and Effective Rodent Control” at Sunnyside Nursery in San Anselmo (130 Sir Francis Drake Blvd) on August 27 at 11 am. Wookie, HOP’s wildlife ambassador who happens to be a barn owl, will also be making an appearance at the presentation.

Learn more at www.hungryowl.org.

New Exhibit Explores Muir’s Living Legacy

On Saturday, August 6, the Oakland Museum of California opened “A Walk in the Wild,” an exhibit highlighting the life of naturalist John Muir. Open through January 2012, the exhibit combines historical artifacts with modern technology to create a fun, interactive learning experience. Curator Dorris Welch says the goal is to portray Muir’s life in a way that captures the attention of a diverse audience, to reawaken the “spirit of Muir” in the general public.

Welch spent over four years researching the intricacies of Muir’s life for this exhibit, research that took her to the Sierra, to the top of Yosemite’s Half Dome, and even all the way to Alaska. All that travel was challenging, but she says a hands-on approach was essential to creating an exhibit that aims to “inspire people to go out and explore the natural world, and really take a positive step in stewarding the natural world.”

The exhibit is structured around several themes or “realms” of Muir’s life. It all begins with “wonder,” complete with multisensory technology to transport observers to the heart of Yosemite Valley meadows, craggy Sierra peaks, and a snowy Alaskan coastline.

The exhibit aims for immersion: Enter the hollow trunk of a giant sequoia as you listen to Muir’s story of his own experience watching a forest fire from within a real hollow sequoia. Exit the tree and you’re able to follow Muir’s trek from to Yosemite using Google map technology, or have a look at any number of Muir’s original journals and sketches, usually not accessible to the public.

The last gallery in “Walk in the Wild” highlights Muir’s work in conservation and calls the public to action, and also includes a number of original artifacts from Muir’s life.

As part of the effort to bring Muir’s legacy to life, the museum decided to highlight a number of “Modern Muirs,” nine environmentally minded individuals somehow embody the “spirit of Muir” today. They range from Yosemite National Park rangers to Alaskan activist/fishermen to tree planters for Oakland Releaf. “You’ll find they aren’t all cut from the same cloth,” says Welch. Their stories are introduced intermittently throughout the galleries, and serve both to show Muir’s spirit in a contemporary light and to inspire visitors to act themselves.

Highly interactive and multisensory, “A Walk in the Wild” carries on the pattern set with the museum’s recent remodeling of the art and history galleries, and bodes well for the reopening of the natural sciences galleries in summer 2012.