When it comes to motherhood, it doesn’t get much more extreme than tarantula hawk wasp moms, known to duel tarantulas—and win.
Art & Design | Botany | Climate Change | El Niño | Fire | Fungi | Geology | History | The Bay | The Ocean | Urban Nature | Water | Weather | Wildlife
Recharge Alone Won’t End California’s Groundwater Drought
Groundwater recharge is a useful way to put surface water back underground, but experts say it is a limited solution.
The Rewilding of California’s Parched Central Valley
As SGMA deadlines loom, groundwater sustainability agencies, environmental organizations, and farmers in the San Joaquin Valley are scrambling to prepare for a drier future by experimenting with ways to repurpose fallow farmland.
Scientists Are Decoding the Love Language of Pacific Chorus Frogs
For a male frog wanting a mate, it is vitally important to stand out, to be heard in his declarations, for listeners to glean his meaning.
It’s (Metaphorical) Superbloom Season: Summer 2023 Editor’s Letter
“I’ve been reporting on the environment for nearly 30 years, and this is the moment,” Victoria Schlesinger writes, “that environmental thinkers have been fighting for since the early 1990s, when the world began to grasp the threat of climate change.”
Historic Money for Bay Area Nature Has Started to Flow. The Challenge? Spending it.
Meet BIL and IRA—two federal bills with forgettable names that belie their enormous potential impact on the environment.
Time Traveling With Clam Fossils
Ancient clams offer a uniquely detailed fossil record. As they build their shells, layer by layer, they preserve clues to the climate they once lived in.
Bald Eagles Have Adopted a Baby Hawk in the Bay Area
Photographer Doug Gillard witnessed the female eagle bringing in the first fuzzy, gray baby bird, but he assumed it was dinner for the eaglet.
Birds Flock to a Resurrected Tulare Lake, Peaking at Nearly the Size of Lake Tahoe
The resurrected Tulare Lake and thousands of acres of nearby flooded farmland are providing a temporary respite for the millions of migratory birds that pass through California along the Pacific Flyway every year.
Moss Knows How to Wait
Mosses are not particularly competitive; they do not crowd out other species. They find a foothold where there are the proper resources: moisture, a place to tuck their rhizoid roots. The range from which they can acquire nourishment is limited. Humans are on the opposite end of that spectrum, able to move resources long distances, at increasingly devastating costs to one another and to ecosystems.