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When Florence LaRiviere heard last year that 16,000 acres of Cargill’s salt ponds had been acquired for restoration, the longtime Bay advocate rejoiced. “This work will start changing the land and the waters back to what they looked like a … Read more
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The baylands’ swampy smells and power lines are distasteful to many. But to Eileen McLaughlin, Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge was unknown territory to be explored. This energetic woman started volunteering at the refuge in 1998, going out to closed … Read more
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Howard Shellhammer is known as the champion of a very rare mouse. A world expert on the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse, the former San Jose State biology professor has studied these diminutive rodents for over four decades, and spoken … Read more
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Tom Laine knew the salt ponds long before they were making salt. “I was born here in 1937, and I’ve been on the Bay since I was five,” the Alviso native says. “I know what the Bay is supposed to … Read more
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Nearly forgotten today, the native oysters of San Francisco Bay once formed large shallow-water reefs, providing critical habitat for other creatures and a major food source for Native Americans. Now, local scientists and Bay advocates are hoping to coax the remaining populations of this small mollusk back to health.
As you celebrate Mother’s Day this spring, think beyond the family unit. In fact, why not commemorate Mother’s Day for All Species this year at Elkhorn Slough, one of the most important estuarine systems in Northern California (see Bay Nature, … Read more
Rush Ranch Open Space features the largest intact brackish tidal marsh in the San Francisco Estuary. That’s why it has been designated, along with China Camp State Park, as California’s newest and largest National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR). The NERR … Read more
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The rounded hills by the Bay are the first thing that catch your eye at Coyote Hills Regional Park. But the brackish and freshwater marshes behind the hills have a charm of their own. Remnant of a once-extensive mix of tidal and freshwater wetlands that sustained a thriving Ohlone community for several thousand years, the marsh is now home to marsh wrens, muskrats, and one of the East Bay’s few remaining patches of tules.
by John Hart (text) and David Sanger (photography), University of California Press, 2003, 212 pages, $34.95 (www.ucpress.edu). Early European explorers sailed right past the mouth of the San Francisco Bay; blinded by sun or fog, or perhaps the monotony of … Read more
The past two decades have witnessed an explosion of scientific studies of the San Francisco Bay estuary, vastly improving our understanding of its natural history and ecology. Every two years the San Francisco Estuary Project brings together researchers, government officials, … Read more
