Nine of the 20 largest wildfires in California in the last 110 years were started by lightning strikes, including the devastating Lightning Complex fires in August 2020 that burned more than 750,000 acres in and around the Bay Area. Between … Read more
Category: Nature News
News from around the conservation world of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Urban Nature
What’s the Secret of Strawberry Hill, a Butterfly Haven in a City That’s Rough on Butterflies?
For urban butterfly habitats, more is more.
Wildlife
The Reintroduction Odyssey of the Yurok Condors
It took decades of work to prepare for this spring’s Northern California condor restoration on Yurok Tribal land.
Wildlife
This Is a Story About A Super-Cute Long-tailed Weasel Spotted in San Francisco’s Presidio for the First Time in a Century…
Erica Spotswood, the science director of the San Francisco Estuary Institute’s Urban Nature Lab, got her dissertation studying seed dispersal on the French Polynesian islands of Tahiti and Moorea. A kind of low-growing fruit tree named Miconia calvescens had arrived … Read more
Climate Change
Bay Planners Highlight Another Missing Element in California Environmental Law: It Doesn’t Account Well for the Future
As the California Supreme Court wrote, “CEQA does not require an agency to consider the impact of existing conditions on future project users.”
Nature News
With One Threat Nearly Tamed, a Related Question: What Does the Bay Most Need to Be Saved From?
If you look up the Arrowhead Marsh along the Oakland shoreline on Google Maps, the arrowhead shape is striking. If you look closer, you see that the eastern half of the marsh is noticeably darker in color than the western … Read more
Wildlife
Meet An Ancient, Amazing Fish in Need of an Image Makeover
Cape Horn is a concrete and earth-filled dam on the upper Eel River in Mendocino County. About 140 miles north of San Francisco, the dam was built in 1907 and blocks the waters of the Eel to form the Van … Read more
The Ocean
The Second-Largest Fish In the Ocean Seems to be In Decline
Basking sharks can be over 30 feet long and are characterized by their enormous gill rakers and three-foot tall dorsal fins. But these mysterious, massive, filter-feeding cousins of the great white shark aren’t just a scientific curiosity – they also … Read more
Wildlife
Annie the Falcon Came Back from Presumed Dead, but Life Hasn’t Returned to Normal for UC Berkeley’s Cal Falcons
A year of exceptional drama in the lives of Cal’s peregrine falcons continues.
Wildlife
Raccoons, Skunks, and Foxes Falling Sick in the Bay Area as a Respiratory Virus Spreads
A fox looks sick in the Presidio, and Animal Care and Control reports increased numbers of sick raccoons and skunks.
