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Climbing the Waves at Castle Rock State Park

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The high ridges and sandstone outcrops at Castle Rock have fascinated adventurers from explorer George Vancouver to the pioneers of modern rock climbing. Prolific wildflowers, great views, and an 80-foot waterfall add to the allure.

Getting Closer to the Water in Petaluma

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River advocate David Yearsley continues his quest to connect people of all ages to the Petaluma River, now with a Petaluma River Heritage Center that focuses on boating, boatbuilding, and wetland restoration.

Restoring Two Creeks for Coho

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Restoration work along Marin County’s Redwood Creek is making this watershed more habitable for the state’s southernmost run of coho salmon, while activists push for new protections in the Lagunitas watershed, home to California’s largest remaining runs of these once-plentiful fish.

Petaluma’s Teenage Fish Force

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At first glance the tan building blends into the rest of Petaluma’s Casa Grande High School. It’s nondescript from the outside, but it houses a rare kind of conservation organization, the United Anglers of Casa Grande. The high school students in the club run their own hatchery, and learn more about salmon than most folks ever know…

Public Transit and Other Endangered Species

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Might the streets we travel have once been migratory corridors for other species, now displaced and threatened by our urban ways? Did butterflies pass by this way, looking for mates, or did salmon swim up a creek long since buried? Could we once again share this landscape and these corridors with other species, if our own daily migrations became more communal–a few buses in place of a swarm of cars, a single train where SUVs now reign?

Rafting Time for Diving Ducks

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The great rafts of ducks on San Francisco and Tomales bays, mostly surf scoter, greater and lesser scaup, and canvasback, are a wintertime spectacle. Scoter flocks can range from many hundreds to a few thousand birds. Why do they form these aggregations?

Antioch Developer Evicts Burrowing Owls

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Scott and Heather Artis of Antioch have adopted a local community of burrowing owls as their own stewardship project and were looking forward to this year’s nesting season, but in November 2009 the state handed the owls an eviction notice, to make way for a housing development…