North Bay
Deal with Seals
Want to help rehabilitate puppy-eyed pinnipeds? Volunteer with the Marine Mammal Center’s animal care crew. You’ll spend your time feeding, weighing, cleaning, and caring for the California sea lions, elephant seals, harbor seals, and fur seals that call the San Francisco Bay Area home.
Bring Gloves
Keep one of the Bay Area’s most iconic beaches clean and safe for people and wildlife alike. The Golden Gate National Parks Volunteer Program holds monthly Muir Beach cleanups on the second Thursday of each month. Register, grab a garbage bag, and get out there!
South Bay
Hammer Time
If you’re a handy sort—perhaps even with experience in construction or contracting work—consider helping maintain the Marine Science Institute’s 4,000-gallon aquarium system and 90-foot research vessel in Redwood City; you’ll play a critical role in keeping this nonprofit educational organization shipshape. Hammerhead Building Team volunteers may construct wooden lockers or display cases, install windows, do plumbing, or repair decks and fences.
Meet the Seals
Every winter, elephant seals flock to Año Nuevo State Park and form a loud, blubbery, lumpy-nosed rookery. You can introduce the public to these mammals by becoming a volunteer docent. You’ll lead guided walks through the elephant seal rookery, meet visitors at wildlife overlooks, and answer questions about the wildlife and history of the area. Application submissions close October 11.
East Bay
Litter Fairy
Lake Merritt is home to more than a thousand different water-loving species, including ocean dwellers that float, swim, fly, or scuttle their way from the San Francisco Bay through the Lake Merritt Channel and into this historic tidal lagoon’s depths. Help keep this jewel of Oakland a jewel by removing trash every Tuesday and Saturday at 10 a.m., at cleanups hosted by Lake Merritt Institute. Volunteers meet near the Lake Merritt Institute office, 568 Bellevue Avenue, in the Sailboat House.
Sign up today!
East & South Bay
Adopt a Flyway
The Bay Area’s tidal marsh needs your help. Join the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory in restoring and caring for these important habitat zones and former salt ponds along shorelines at the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve, Bair Island, Alviso Marina County Park, and Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge—which lie along the migratory route of thousands of shorebirds and include nesting areas for western snowy plovers and California least terns. Check the SFBBO events calendar for volunteer days, when you’ll learn how to restore these critical habitats.
