Exploring Nature in the San Francisco Bay Area
At the turn of the 20th Century, the California Academy of Sciences was the oldest scientific society in the western United States. From its humble beginnings in 1853 as California’s de facto cabinet of curiosities stemming from “the systematic survey of every portion of the State,” the Academy had matured to a respected position at…
Botanists and nature lovers celebrated good news this spring as the Mount Diablo buckwheat (Eriogonum truncatum)—presumed extinct until its rediscovery in 2005—germinated and bloomed for a second year in the wild for and for the first time in carefully-tended greenhouse pots. Prior to its rediscovery in May 2005 by UC Berkeley graduate student Michael Park,…
With our strong state Coastal Commission, major public support for ocean protection, and thousands of square miles protected in marine reserves, California’s bountiful coastal waters might seem amply protected from major industrial uses like offshore oil drilling. But a bill that would allow individual states to opt out of a ban on drilling on the…
This story was updated on March 1, 2017. Fitzgerald Marine Reserve is home to some of the most diverse and accessible tidepools in the state, but there are many other good tidepooling destinations along California’s more than 1,000 miles of coastline. As a rule, tidepools are most exposed and best explored at low tide. Consult…
To really see marine upwelling up close, you’d need to put on SCUBA gear and jump into the frigid Pacific to swim with the humpback whales, dolphins, sharks, and salmon that thrive off the upwelling-fueled food chain. But here are some less adventurous ways to get a little closer to the world under the waves:…
As we reported in our July-September 2006 feature The Ups and Downs of Coastal Upwelling, last year’s delayed coastal upwelling event proved catastrophic to animals that depend on this annual cycle of marine nutrients, and indications when we went to press in early June didn’t bode well for this year either, particularly for sensitive species…
Independent, nonprofit environmental journalism connecting people with nature in the San Francisco Bay Area.
