With Whales at Record Numbers off the California Coast, Scientists Try to Help Ships Avoid Them
With big ships still moving regularly through the Northern California marine sanctuaries, whales are at risk.
Category: Nature News
News from around the conservation world of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Did Salmon Always Live in San José?
After an absence of many decades, Chinook salmon swim up the Guadalupe River in San José most winters. The fish look for places to lay eggs and often find them. If there’s enough water left in the dry season, their … Read more
A “Possible Record” Number of Blue Whales Visit the Farallones
After a foggy few weeks at the Farallon Islands, 25 miles west of San Francisco, Saturday turned clear. The five biologists who have been living and working on Southeast Farallon Island since March 30 walked the rickety path up to … Read more
The Mourning Cloak Butterfly Means Spring in the Bay Area
The mourning cloak butterfly, Nymphalis antiopa, is one of the most widely distributed butterflies in the world, ranging across most of the northern hemisphere. In some places like the British Isles it’s quite rare and to find one would make … Read more
People Should Physically Distance from Sea Otters, Too
Kayakers and boaters approaching too closely could be leading some sea otters to starve, scientists say.
A Whale’s Death Shows Us the Way Marine Giants Live
“When a whale washes up it’s kind of like being a doctor on call,” says Moe Flannery, senior collections manager at the California Academy of Sciences. Flannery’s day job means caring for more than 140,000 bird and mammal specimens at … Read more
The City Nature Challenge, Modified, Returns
The global species-finding competition returns on April 24, minus the competition.
Can AI Read Scientific Literature to Help Save Animals Like Otters?
When Kyle Van Houtan, the chief scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, first began publishing research in the 1990s, he had to physically mail a typed manuscript in an envelope to a scientific journal, with a copy for each reviewer. … Read more
It’s a Dry Heat
What happens in an always warm world when it doesn’t rain for an unusual amount of time?
The Smallest Stars Have Gone Out
More than 20 species of sea star suffered in a disease outbreak that started in 2013. But in many places in the Bay Area, one small star hasn't returned.
