Turning Back the Plastic Tide
An innovative program uses albatrosses as “winged ambassadors” to help middle school students learn about the distant consequences of plastics that end up in our ocean.
The Ocean
Naturalist’s Notebook: A Worm Ties Together Crabs, Otters and Scoters
Find out how a little worm ties together the lives, and deaths, of several ocean animals, from sea otters to surf scoters to common sand crabs.
New Marine Life Management and Protections
The Pacific Coast is home to more than 50 species of rockfish, including Pacific snapper. Rockfish and other groundfish were once plentiful, but years of commercial fishing have depleted stocks. In some cases there has been an 80 to 90 … Read more
Elephant Seals and Climate Change
A new study suggests that warmer ocean temperatures brought on by climate change may permanently skew sex ratios of northern elephant seals, the huge seals that visit a few Bay Area locations to breed.
On the Rocks, with a Pup
If you're looking for northern elephant seals, there is no place better to visit than Ano Nuevo State Reserve, home to the world's largest mainland breeding colony.
Gray Whale Migration
Now is the time to see gray whales migrating along the California coast and maybe even appearing inside the Bay.
Book Review: Watching Giants
by Elin Kelsey, UC Press, December 2008, 304 pages, $24.95 Long-lived, slow to reproduce, and often hidden beneath ocean waves, whales and dolphins have remained elusive subjects for scientific study, though they have fascinated humans for centuries. In her book … Read more
Give Me Shelter
Harbor seals, migrating seabirds, and other wildlife find shelter in the productive waters of Drakes Estero at Point Reyes.
Letter from the Publisher
Springtime certainly has its charms–the hills turn green, wildflowers emerge, the days get longer. And summer is the traditional time to get outside. But fall is the season I look forward to most. True, the days are shorter, and the … Read more
Whales at the Farallon Islands
Picture hungry tourists swarming around an all-you-can-eat buffet. Only the tourists are 100 feet long and weigh almost 200,000 pounds. These are blue whales, the largest animals ever, and they've come to feast on some of the tiniest animals on the planet: millions upon millions of tiny shrimplike krill.
