april-june 2016
baynature.org—your portal to nature nearby
A N E X P L O R A T I O N O F N A T U R E I N T H E S A N F R A N C I S C O B A Y AREA
The Draw of Nature
This Was (and Is) Indian Land $5.95
Our Newest National Monument
Mud Lovers at Crab Cove
THIS IS HOME
ŠGlenn Nevill 2008
Untitled-3 1
openspacetrust.org 3/14/16 1:43 PM
c o n t e n t s
april–june 2016
Features 28
36
mud lovers Getting Dirty Is the First Rule at Crab Cove The placid surface and drab colors of the mudflats at Crab Cove marine reserve on Alameda belie the riot of life—crabs, clams, ghost shrimp—just below the surface and in the nearby tide pools. Some 7,200 schoolkids a year meet the denizens of these nearshore habitats with the help of naturalists from the East Bay Regional Park District. And you can too! by Blake Edgar
John Muir Laws
©2015 Richard Morgenstein
Sally Rae Kimmel, flickr.com/photos/sallyraekimmel
22
rekindling the old ways The Amah Mutsun and the Recovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge In 1769, Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola and his men stopped for food and rest at a village of the Quiroste people on the San Mateo coast. Just a few years later the natives’ way of life would disappear due to Spanish colonization. Now, two-and-a-half centuries further on, a new tribal land trust is partnering with UC researchers and conservation groups to heal both the land and the people. by Mary Ellen Hannibal
nature journaling with john muir laws Artist and naturalist Jack Laws has been captivating readers of Bay Nature for the past 15 years with insightful and engaging observations of the natural world shared through his “Naturalist’s Notebook” page. Now he’s put together a book on how he does it. Here, several selections from the book reveal some of Jack’s philosophy and methods as he encourages the rest of us to get out, slow down, observe, and learn. by John Muir Laws
Departments 4
Bay View
6
Ear to the Ground
12
Letter from the publisher News from the conservation community and the natural world 8
Opening Shot
Look what El Niño has brought to the shores of Bodega Bay!
9
Signs of the Season
What’s up with those jousting jackrabbits? by Alison Hawkes
11
Of a Personal Nature
A daughter’s questions prompt a closer look at urban nature. by Nathanael Johnson
Conservation in Action
A gentle slope, wastewater, and volunteers are the ingredients for an innovative approach to keeping sea level rise at bay. by Ted Trautman
On the Trail
14 Berryessa Snow Mountain
Northern California’s New National Monument President Obama’s July 2016 declaration of a new national monument has brought attention to this largely unknown 100-mile-long swath of wildlands on the northeastern edge of the Bay Area. Our writer explores the little-seen back roads and trails. by John Hart
20 Elsewhere . . .
Joaquin Miller Oakland City Park, Pulgas Ridge Open Space Preserve, Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve
40 Local Hero Awards
We visit three people who’ve done extraordinary things for local nature. Allen Fish: Hawk Man of the Marin Headlands by Brendan Buhler Andrea Mackenzie: Clear-eyed Visionary for Open Space by Alison Hawkes Naftali Moed: Leader for a New Generation by Aleta George
54 Ask the Naturalist
Wolves in the Bay Area? Why not? by Michael Ellis
visit us online at www.Baynature.org
4
by david loeb
bay view letter from the publisher February, spring is popping out all over. Milkmaids are abundant along trails and roads. Footsteps of spring are flowering on San Bruno Mountain. And yesterday on Mount Vision, I saw my first Douglas iris of the season. Can shooting stars be far behind? The opportunity to track the arrival of these harbingers of spring—the overture to my favorite time of year—is one of the many joys of living in this area, with so many places to seek out such wild beauty. As I’m out greeting wildflowers, I think about the many people—some recognized, most not—responsible for protecting these areas and preserving our region’s biodiversity. Recognizing some of these people is the purpose of Bay Nature’s annual Local Hero Awards dinner, a March gathering of the local conservation community, which this year also marked our 15th anniversary. (Read about this year’s bumper crop of local heroes on page 40.) Speaking of local heroes, I’d like to take a moment to honor a true Bay Area superhero, Sylvia McLaughlin, who passed away at age 99 on January 19. McLaughlin cofounded Save the San Francisco Bay Association (Save the Bay) with Kay Kerr and Esther Gulick in 1961, spawning the movement responsible for halting the unregulated development of the Bay shoreline. Thanks to McLaughlin’s vision and organizing skills, we are now well on our way to restoring the health of the iconic natural feature that holds this
contr i butors Brendan Buhler (p. 40) is an award-winning science writer and coauthor of Follow Your Gut: The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes (2015). He lives in Petaluma. Michael Ellis (p. 54) is a Santa Rosa–based naturalist who leads nature-related tours with Footloose Forays (footlooseforays.com) and waxes eloquent for KQED’s Perspectives series. Aleta George (p. 43) writes about nature and culture in California. She is the author of Ina Coolbrith: The Bittersweet Song of California’s First Poet Laureate.
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
Lech Naumovich Photography, lechphoto.com
As
i write this note in late
region together and gives us our identity. On June 7, we’ll have the perfect opportunity to honor and complete McLaughlin’s vision for the Bay by voting for Measure AA. It’s a parcel tax to fund the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority, established by the state in 2008 to oversee efforts to restore the health of the Bay and its shoreline. Passing this measure to raise $500 million over 20 years for Bay restoration will not only be a sentimental tribute to McLaughlin. It’s also our best chance to prepare the region for the looming challenge of sea level rise, which threatens much of the human and natural infrastructure around the Bay. It would fund more of the kind of innovative projects described in this issue’s “Conservation in Action” (page 12), wherein the creative power of applied science is unleashed to create the kind of resilient infrastructure we need to withstand rising tides and storm surges while also providing essential habitat for native plants and wildlife. Passage of this measure requires a two-thirds majority of the voters in all nine Bay Area counties, so please get out and cast your vote for Sylvia and for a healthy Bay … and Bay Area! And speaking of resilient infrastructure, in June we’re raising the subscription and newsstand prices for Bay Nature by an average of 18 percent. Our first price increase since 2007 will help us keep pace with higher costs for printing, rent, health insurance, etc. But we’d like to invite you, our loyal readers, to renew or extend your subscription at the 2007 price! Go to baynature.org/holdon to take advantage of this offer. Thanks for your continuing readership and support for the future of Bay Nature and the future of the Bay. Valerie Hamill (p. 11) is a Bay Area artist/illustrator who loves all things Herodotus and drawing from everyday life. Info at vhamill.com. Nathanael Johnson (p. 11) is Grist’s food writer and the author of All Natural: A Skeptic’s Quest to Discover If the Natural Approach to Diet, Childbirth, Healing, and the Environment Really Keeps Us Healthier and Happier. Obi Kaufmann (p. 15) is an Oakland–based artist, curator, writer, and avid hiker. coyoteandthunder.com Naturalist and illustrator
BayNature Exploring, celebrating, and understanding the natural world of the San Francisco Bay Area
Volume 16, Issue 2 april–june 2016 Publisher David Loeb Editor in Chief Victoria Schlesinger Editorial Director Eric Simons Contributing Editor Alison Hawkes Research Editor Sue Rosenthal Copy Editor Cynthia Rubin Design Susan Scandrett Adverstising Director Ellen Weis Associate Director Judith Katz Marketing & Outreach Director Beth Slatkin Office Manager Jenny Stampp Information Technology Manager Laurence Tietz Development Associate Katy Yeh Board of Directors Carol Baird, Christopher Dann, Catherine Fox (President), Tracy Grubbs, Bruce Hartsough, David Loeb, John Raeside, Bob Schildgen, Nancy Westcott Volunteers/Interns Drew Baldwin, Samantha Cook, Paul Epstein, Melanie Hess, Lucy Kang, Andrea Laue, Lauren McNulty, Elizabeth Rogers, Jane Scolieri, Isabel Soloaga, Ruby Solomon, Kimberly Teruya, Benjamin Whiting Bay Nature is published quarterly by the Bay Nature Institute, 1328 6th Street #2, Berkeley, CA 94710 Subscriptions: $53.95/three years; $39.95/two years; $21.95/one year; (888)422-9628, baynature.org P.O. Box 92408, Long Beach, CA 90809 Advertising: (510)813-1903/advertising@baynature.org Editorial & Business Office: 1328 6th Street #2, Berkeley, CA 94710 (510)528-8550; (510)528-8117 (fax) baynature@baynature.org baynature.org issn 1531-5193 No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission from Bay Nature and its contributors. © 2016 Bay Nature Printed by Commerce Printing (Sacramento, CA) using soy-based inks and alternative energy.
Cover: A selection of Bay Area native spring wildflowers, clockwise from upper left: single-leaf onion (Allium unifolium), Ithuriel’s spear (Triteleia laxa), narrow-leaf mule’s ears (Wyethia angustifolia), and purple western morning glory (Calystegia purpurata ssp. purpurata). [John Muir Laws, johnmuirlaws.com]
John Muir Laws (p. 36) is the author of The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds and teaches nature observation and illustration. Info at johnmuirlaws.com. Ann Sieck (p. 20) is dedicated to helping people with disabilities, including those using wheelchairs, find parks and trails they can enjoy. See her reviews at baynature.org/asiecker. Ted Trautman’s (p. 12) work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Slate. Edward Willie (p. 29)(Pomo/Walkiki/Wintu) is a Marin– based artist, basket weaver, regalia maker, and father.
Dear Editor, The article in the January-March 2016 issue by Elizabeth Lopatto, “Identifying with Lichen,” calls to mind something we docents at ACR Bouverie Preserve in Glen Ellen tell schoolchildren to help them remember the structure of these organisms: “Freddy Fungus met Alice Algae and they took a lichen to each other.” On a more serious note, there is some incorrect chemistry in the article. In several places the author states that nitrogen is a pollutant. Nitrogen is not a pollutant; it is an inert gas that comprises 79 percent of air. Various nitrogen compounds cause environmental damage and are pollutants: nitrates in water, from runoff from agricultural fields where it is added as fertilizer; and gaseous compounds of nitrogen and oxygen in several ratios, collectively known as NOx, coming from auto and truck exhausts and industrial smokestacks. Bay Nature is a great resource. I look forward to reading each issue. Bob Alwitt, Sonoma Dear Editor, I enjoyed the insightful article on lichens in the January-March issue. Regarding the possibility of combining constituent myco- and photo-bionts in the lab, methods for successful resynthesis of some lichens are in common use. In 1867 Simon Schwendener proposed the “dual hypothesis,” that lichens are intimate combinations of fungi with photosynthetic partners of algae and/or cyanobacteria. (The term “symbiosis” was Current Price (now!) coined in a 1879 paper on lichens.) Only 1 year: $21.95 when2these could be sepayears:components $39.95 years : $53.95 (BEST(pure) DEAL!culture ) rated3and grown in axenic in the laboratory, and then recombined to New Price (after 6/10/16) form1lichens, would Schwendener’s idea be year: $25.95 years: $45.95 fully 2accepted. This was not definitively 3 years : $62.95 accomplished until 1939. Several hundred lichens have now been resynthesized from their components in the laboratory. In axenic (pure) culture a
Richard Droker, Seattle Dear Editor, I enjoyed reading the “Ear to the Ground”
article by Eric Simons on foxes in San Francisco. It has been about 15 years since I saw gray foxes at Harding Park golf course and on San Bruno Mountain, where I saw a mother with pups. I wonder if they are still there. I would not be surprised to find out that foxes are more prevalent than we think in SF, but they might be limited to areas where coyotes do not occur. Marc Sylvester, San Francisco Dear Editor, While reading the story titled “A Banner Year for Monarch Butterflies,” I felt the article was giving a bit of a misconception. According to a Xerces Society press release: “Early data from Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count suggests a small increase in butterfly numbers in some parts of the overwintering range.” Although there is some increase, a “banner year” may be a bit exaggerated. We don’t want folks to think it is okay to no longer be concerned about the monarchs. Reny Parker, Cloverdale
Beat the Bay Nature
Photo by Rick Lewis
letters
lichen fungus—the mycobiont—resembles relatively formless mold, while a culture of a corresponding photosynthetic partner—the photobiont—is more like greenish slime. Only if conditions similar to the environment it occupies in nature are provided will a unique lichen, with its distinct (often beautiful) morphology, arise. Contamination by other microorganisms is difficult to avoid. It’s a slow process and may take two years to grow a lichen thallus 6 or 8 millimeters across. When this resynthesis is accomplished, much can be learned about lichens, including specificity of symbionts, unique chemical compounds, taxonomy, and evolution. Professor Vernon Ahmadjian covers the subject in his book The Lichen Symbiosis, published in 1993. For me this emergence of complexity and beauty also demonstrates something of the singular magic of lichens.
price increase! We’ve held on for as long as we could... But for the first time in nine years, we need to raise our prices to keep pace with rising costs. So we want to give you, our loyal readers, the chance to continue enjoying Bay Nature at 2007 prices! Between now and June 10th, lock in savings for the only magazine dedicated to exploring the natural world of the Bay Area. Prices go up with the July 2016 issue.
Current Price (now!) 1 year: $21.95 2 years: $39.95 3 years : $53.95 (BEST DEAL!) New Price (after 6/10/16) 1 year: $25.95 2 years: $45.95 3 years : $62.95
Visit BayNature.org/HoldOn april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
5
6
Future vision for the Richmond shoreline with restored marsh and beach; prepared by the Live Edge Adaptation Project (LEAP).
ear to the ground
Nate Kauffman : Landscape Architect/Founder of LEAP : n8kauffman.com
n e w s f r o m t h e c o m m u n i t y a n d t h e n at u r a l w o r l d
Measure AA For a Clean and Healthy Bay
The San Francisco Bay could see huge advances in ecological restoration if voters approve a first-of-its-kind ballot measure in June. Residents of the Bay Area’s nine counties will be asked to pass a $12-per-year parcel tax to raise $500 million toward wetlands restoration and other Bay shoreline improvements over the next 20 years in what would be a historic influx in funding for the Bay. Perhaps most surprising is the widespread support for Measure AA among business, local government, and environmental groups—each of whom see the benefits of a healthy Bay in the face of the combined pressures of sea level rise, climate change, and urbanization. “We’ve been working to get to this point for more than a decade,” says David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay, the nonprofit environmental group that is spearheading the funding initiative. “I think because we’ve taken the time to build a broad coalition of supporters, there is an understanding of the benefits this measure will bring and the wisdom of doing it this way.” Lewis calls Measure AA a “game changer” in long-term efforts to restore about 35,000 acres of publicly owned tidal and subtidal habitat along the Bay. b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
Funding currently comes from a hodgepodge of state and federal sources that are inconsistent and amount to only a few million dollars a year, Lewis says. This measure would directly guarantee
$25 million a year and also facilitate access to additional state and federal funding through matching grants. In 2008, environmental groups convinced the California legislature to create the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority for the express purpose of establishing a special district that had the power to institute a tax and dispense the monies for restoration work. Since then, the Restoration Authority has been studying different tax options and evaluating which could win popular support. The $12-per-year parcel tax on all property owners in the nine-county Bay Area will require, as all tax measures do, the approval of two-thirds of the voters. Little direct opposition to the measure has surfaced, but supporters acknowledge that 67 percent of the vote is a high bar to jump over. Among the institutional supporters is the Bay Area Council, a business group that represents 300 of the largest (continued on page 47)
WE’VE CHANGED THE MAP
OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY! Sears Point Wetland Restoration
sonomalandtrust.org
ALL ABOARD! wildflower viewing on the Scenic Limited April 2 - 24
Springtime in Solano County means wildflowers and April is the time to see them! Enjoy the colorful hills on an 11 mile round trip ride on our historic train.
Advanced tickets available online at http://wrmsceniclimited.eventbrite.com
MOUNT UMUNHUM Awe-inspiring, extrAordinAry, And unlike Anything else in the BAy AreA
COMING FALL 2016
www.openspace.org april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
7
8
opening shot
Purple Storm Snails
The purple snail Janthina umbilicata, sometimes called the purple storm snail, is an unusual visitor to Northern California. Most of the time these marine snails drift on the surface of warm tropical seas, hanging upside-down from a raft of small bubbles. The snail makes its own raft one bubble at a time. By extending its foot to the surface and curving it into a concave shape, it creates an air pocket that is then pulled underwater, making a bubble. The snail coats the bubble with mucus and adds it to the raft. This year, the brightly-colored snails seem to have drifted north following warm El Niño waters, then been blown ashore on North Coast beaches by strong storm winds. The snail pictured here was found alive in early March at Bodega Head by Bodega Marine Lab research coordinator Jackie Sones and BML marine biologist Eric Sanford, who brought it back to Sanford’s lab. Once in a lab tank, the
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
snail created a new bubble raft, and then feasted on a gelatinous by-the-wind sailor (Velella velella) that the scientists offered it. The purple storm snail is one of five species in the Janthina genus and was given its scientific name in 1840 by the French naturalist Alcide d’Orbigny, who collected it in Cuba. (Charles Darwin considered him a competitor, complaining in a letter to his Cambridge mentor, “I am very selfishly afraid he will get the cream of all the good things before me.”) Since purple snails are such a rare occurrence on our coast, Sones and Sanford want to know where else they might have landed. You can upload photos and observations to the citizen science app iNaturalist—which has never had an observation of any species of Janthina north of San Diego—or visit Sones’s blog at bodegahead. blogspot.com.
jason jaacks, jasonjaacks.com
by alison hawkes
signs of the season
Mad As a March Hare
lashing out their forelegs in frenzied blows, like boxers in a ring. Then they’re off running again. That old English idiom, circa the 16th century, “mad as a March hare,” pretty well describes their springtime escapades. But why do they behave so seemingly foolishly? Contrary to popular belief, the jousters aren’t two males (jacks) competing with each other. Rather, it’s the ovulating jills (females) fighting off multiple suitors (up to 10 at a time!) and waiting for the most persistent and fit fellows to win them over. Scientists suspect that the testosterone-induced chase in fact has a rational purpose: It most likely plays an important role in triggering ovulation in the female. Hares (and many other species) only ovulate after copulation or some other stimulation, in this case wild leaping and running. While studies of the European brown hare have found that these skirmishes are more often seen in the springtime, owing to the shorter grass and lengthening days, they can happen at any time during the hare’s long breeding season. In the Bay Area, that spans from the end of January through August. The only hare found in the Bay Area is the black-tailed jackrabbit. Despite the name, it is not a rabbit but a close relative in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes the mountain-dwelling pika). Lepus californicus is common to many open patches in Bay Area wildlands, but the black-tailed is acclimated in particular to arid areas, such as sagebrush habitats and desert scrubland; its long ears act as thermoregulators. It’s been found that the warmer the climate, the longer their ears. Those long cupped ears pivot as the
Hank Christensen, hankchristensen.com (3)
“The March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad—at least not so mad as it was in March.” –Alice in Wonderland. ¶ Hares—those long-eared, longlegged exaggerations of the rabbit—must be the laughingstock of the springtime meadow. So deft and reclusive much of the year, they seem to have lost all sense come March and April. Chasing each other across grassy terrain, a pair of hares will spin around to face off,
A female and male black-tailed jackrabbit spar near the Bay at Redwood Shores.
hare tracks sound with its finely tuned hearing, its best protection against umpteen predators, ranging from owls and hawks to coyotes and bobcats. Black-taileds are such an essential source of sustenance within their ecosystems, one study found that when their population plummeted, coyote predation on lambs spiked. No wonder hares give birth to 14 leverets on average annually. Meals for many, hares are also notorious eaters in agricultural fields.
When hare numbers shot up, as they used to, in five- to 10-year boom-andbust cycles during the early days of western agriculture, farmers would gather for so-called “bunny bashes” to round up jackrabbits and club them to death. A sad story, but someone did this measurement: 149 black-taileds can eat as much forage as one cow. According to Janet Rachlow, a University of Idaho ecologist, such major population swings haven’t occurred since the early 1980s, probably due to large-scale landscape changes. But hares’ numbers are still healthy, and Rachlow does see them when she’s out researching their petite cousin, the pygmy rabbit. “They jump out of the sagebrush and scare the hell out of me. They’re terrifying,” Rachlow says, though not to demean them. Here’s one key difference between hares and rabbits. Though all lagomorphs are the very essence of a prey species, rabbits dive into burrows when threatened, while hares hunker down in place until a predator gets close and only then spring to action. They use their long limbs and agile bodies to flee at a speed of 45 miles per hour for a mile or more. They swerve and zigzag and flash their ears and tails to confound a pursuer. They go from “mad” to decidedly wily. There’s a long riff on the theme of the trickster hare. Bugs Bunny was clearly a hare, according to an expert resource on lagomorphs, Rabbits: The Animal Answer Guide; in fact, Bugs first appeared in a 1940 film called A Wild Hare. So was the Trix cereal rabbit, judging by its appearance, as well as the fabled and clever Br’er Rabbit, a hare that originated in West African stories. Their trickster reputation “makes sense because they are nature’s most perfect food—and yet they get away,” says Mary Pounder, who leads the lagomorph foster care team for WildCare, a San Rafael–based animal rescue group. “Their ability to evade predators is pretty amazing, and they have so many things at their disposal to help.” Thanks to all those adaptations black-tailed jackrabbits can get away with their wild spring antics, and we can have the pleasure of watching them. april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
9
10
Horizontal Levee Project at Oro Loma/Castro Valley Treatment Facility
SAN MATEO COUNTY PARKS FOUNDATION
Oro Loma
Sanitary District
Thank you for your engineering excellence and contributions to the project success! ESA Carlos Diaz – Project Manager Mark Lindley – Project Engineer
congratulates
BAY NATURE on 15 years of excellent service to the community!
Whitley Burchett and Associates (Civil Sub-consultant) Kevin O’Toole Danny Yang
www.supportparks.org Inspiring people to care for, learn about and enjoy our parks.
Cal Engineering and Geology Mark Myers Save the Bay Donna Ball – Project Manager Jessie Olson – Nursery Manager San Francisco Estuary Partnership Jennifer Krebs
©2
016
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
Goo
gle
by nathanael johnson
of a personal nature
When my daughter, Josephine, was one year old, she had vanishingly pale eyebrows and hair that had grown into stylish jags. When she smiled, her eyes turned from thoughtful to impish, her cheeks dimpled, and she exposed the top four of her six teeth. But she also had a few unforgivable flaws. For one thing, she’d ask me to name everything she saw. Her favorite word by far was “that,” usually uttered in a tone both interrogative and imperative. “That?” she would ask/command, extending an imperious finger. “That’s a tree,” I would say. “That!” “Still a tree.” “That.” “Yet another tree.” It was one of those awful bargains you find yourself striking as a parent: If you agree not to scream, I will allow you to suck the life out of me with this horrible and stultifying game. And so I added a rule to complicate it—I would give the same answer only once per outing. The second time Josephine inquired about a tree, I would have to be more specific. “Trunk,” I would say, or leaves, a branch, a twig, flower. And it was in this way that I noticed for the first time—though I’d walked by this tree hundreds of times— that it had tiny yellow flowers growing from the center of each cluster of leaves. I picked a few and later saw that I had come away with about 15 flowers, each one at a slightly different stage of maturity, revealing the progression of their development in my palm. The next day I put Josephine in the carrier a little early so we could make a one-block detour to the bookstore. There, I bought a used copy of The Trees of San Francisco. My flowers had come, the book told me, from Tristaniopsis laurina, one of the most common street trees in the city. To pass a tree and simply register it as a “tree” is to never really see it. To
pass a tree and simply register it as T. laurina isn’t much better—worse if I memorized the name to inflict Latinate pedantry upon my friends. But knowing a name can also be a first step up a staircase to significance. “Tristaniopsis (“–opsis” means likeness) laurina” came from the fact that it looked like a laurel tree. I liked this: It was the grittier, tougher Australian version of the Grecian laurel, this one woven into wreaths to crown rugby players and crocodile hunters. My sudden fascination with the lives of trees wasn’t a random result of Josephine’s “That” game. There was a reason I’d bought a book about trees rather than a book on garage doors or telephone poles, which my daughter inquired about just as often. As a kid, I’d known all the trees that grew around my home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and this had given me access to a world otherwise invisible: When I saw a gray pine—scraggy branches, curving trunk, and dull, gray-green needles—I knew the earth beneath my feet was laced with serpentinite rock, with very little water. It meant I was at the lower, hotter edge of the Sierra’s forests. Being able to decipher a bit of the language of trees made my life richer. It allowed me to see the world a little more sharply. It made me feel a little more confident, a little more at home—a little more rooted. I wanted Josephine to experience this same sense of connectedness. And so, when she pointed into the branches and I had nothing more interesting to say than “That’s a tree,” it pained me. Had I really joined the boring ranks of adults who could see nothing more than that? When I started trying to learn about the natural world around me, I discovered that it’s hard to find good guides to the natural history of urban environments.
Valerie C. Hamill (vhamill.com)
Wild Stories of an Unseen City
Until recently, people just haven’t been as interested in urban ecosystems. The typical city’s combination of trees from all over the world seems haphazard, and illegitimate: not really nature. In recent years, however, scientists have begun to see the romance in the vibrant messes humans have created. And because urban wildlife is sparsely studied, it is fertile ground for discovery. A few years ago UC Berkeley researchers found a new species of mushroom without even leaving campus. There’s a long list of similar examples. Though I could find dozens of lovingly compiled guidebooks on the wildlife of the Sierra Nevada, the topics of most of the books I found on the wildlife of San Francisco tilted toward convenience: A tree’s roots and fruits were presented only in terms of their intrusiveness and messiness. If I really wanted to teach Josephine more than just names, I realized, I’d have to spend some time in the back stacks of research libraries. I started fairly slowly, just trying to figure out where to find the information I wanted. I learned the region’s trees bit by bit. As I did, I began to see variety where before I had seen uniformity. A week later, when Josephine said “That?” and pointed at a T. laurina, I could at least tell her its name. I stepped close to the branches. The leaves trailed against Jo’s reaching hand. I pulled down a branch for inspection: There were none of the yellow flowers we had seen before. In their place were dense clusters of fat green fruit. “Look at this, Josephine,” I said. And for once, she didn’t simply shout “That!” again. Instead, she grabbed the branch, fingered the little green pods, and murmured, “Whoa.” Adapted from Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails, & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness by Nathanael Johnson, published by Rodale Books in spring 2016. april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
11
12
by ted trautman
Andrea Laue, sparebeauty.com
conser vation in ac tion
Oro Loma: Can Wastewater Save the Bay from Sea Level Rise? “Everything we’re doing here is illegal, infeasible, and unfundable,” Jeremy Lowe tells me with a rakish grin, as we watch a couple dozen volunteers, including several small children in galoshes, planting grasses in the mud. They’re working on an experimental levee near the Bay’s edge in San Lorenzo, just west of Hayward, innocently enough, and Lowe soon confesses that he and his colleagues aren’t outlaws after all. But this prototype levee, situated a half-mile from the Bay, is so innovative that building it on the shoreline is prohibited, even though it could help mitigate a looming environmental crisis: the rising sea levels brought on by global climate change. Most levees are basically just walls separating water and land. (Indeed, the word levee comes from the French verb lever, “to raise.”) In contrast, we’re standing on a relatively rare horizontal levee, very wide and almost flat, dropping just five feet in elevation as one walks its 150-foot width. This small prototype b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
stretches 700 feet along the “shoreline” (in this case, a trench), while a grown-up one might span as much as 14 miles. Lowe, a geomorphologist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute and one of the project’s chief architects, compares it to a layer cake: Underneath the loam we’re standing on is a layer of sand and wood chips where microbes break down nitrogen-containing waste, and beneath that a stratum of dense clay and a hardpan that keeps the water used in this experiment from seeping into the Bay. But since this layer cake sits on land owned by the Oro Loma Sanitary District, next door to its wastewater treatment plant and downwind of its aromas, I wish we’d talk about something other than food. Bay water levels could rise by as much as three feet by 2050 and more than five feet by 2100—putting up to 270,000 Bay Area residents in flood zones, along with 1,800 miles of road, 15 power plants, 10 wastewater treatment plants, and all of the Bay Area’s major airports, predicts the National Research Council. Rather
A rainbow frames Save the Bay’s volunteers as they plant natives (raised on-site) in the gentle slope of the experimental “horizontal levee” at the Oro Loma wastewater treatment facility in San Lorenzo.
than attempting to hold back all this water behind taller and taller walls, a horizontal levee like Oro Loma’s uses the natural infrastructure of wetlands to absorb that water and the force of waves. For that reason, Peter Baye, an independent coastal vegetation ecologist and another mastermind behind this experiment, told me that he prefers the term “wetland levee.” (The Oro Loma site is also sometimes called a habitat levee.) Whatever you call it, a horizontal levee is actually two levees in one: a wetland zone sloping gradually into the Bay, and a conventional vertical levee between that wetland and civilization. This interplay between old and new levees reinforces Baye’s frequent warning that wetland levees are not a panacea, but a tool to help the existing levee infrastructure handle the Bay’s water levels. Rather than replacing vertical levees, horizontal levees supplement them. But before this potentially gamechanging barrier can be constructed, its proponents must overcome a significant legal barrier. This is what Lowe means by an “illegal” project: building wetlands on the edge of the Bay can mean filling portions of it with soil if infrastructure already abuts the shoreline. “If someone started doing that right now,” Lowe explains, the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), a regional watchdog agency, “would be saying, ‘Wait a minute! You can’t do that! That’s what we were set up to stop people from doing.’” Indeed, BCDC was formed in 1965 as a direct response to the imminent threat of cities filling in vast tracts of the Bay for development. Since then, it has been a centurion standing watch to prevent reckless developers from impinging on the Bay. Ironically, it’s now impeding environmentalists and scientists. It will take some bureaucratic wrangling to square contemporary environmental science and unforeseen climate challenges with some arguably well-intentioned but
ESA-PWA, based on graphic by Hargreaves Associates for the City of San Jose; courtesy of The Bay Institute.
living levee
Loma levee truly distinctive: the water flowing through it is treated wastewater. Wastewater, which remains rich in nitrogen even after treatment, routinely causes harmful algae blooms in the Bay and elsewhere. But in the 1970s, the wastewater community adopted a new slogan: “the solution to pollution is dilution,” encapsulating an effort to divide and conquer wastewater’s nutrient load by diluting it deep underwater before it could contribute to algae blooms on the Bay’s surface. This strategy is still largely in place today. Deepwater discharging, Peter Baye tells me, was embraced “before we had any understanding of how estuaries and floodplain wetlands denitrified nutrient loads. We just didn’t know how it worked.” Oro Loma’s wetland levee is a potential alternative to the deepwater discharge model and would represent, if not a return to the Bay’s “natural” state, then at least a step in that direction. Running nutrient-rich water through a wetland levee and its absorbent sedges and rushes would prevent many of those nutrients from entering the Bay in the first place. Conveniently, man-made wetlands like the Oro Loma levee are improved by treated wastewater just as much as that wastewater is improved by the wetlands. Ecologists can dump soil and plant the right grasses all they want, but for wetlands to be wet they need water, which no longer flows naturally to where it’s needed in urban spaces like San Lorenzo. One can pump the water in, of course, but thanks to the drought, water is in short supply. But Baye, Lowe, and their colleagues noticed a huge supply of water going completely unused—10
A conceptual sketch of a horizontal levee on the Bay
Levee Grassland Tidal Marsh Tidal Mud Flat
Andrea Laue, sparebeauty.com
now outdated regulations; to that end, BCDC policy is currently under revision with horizontal levees in mind. In the meantime, the Oro Loma experiment’s purpose is to test whether a habitat levee is as useful as its supporters hope and to document its value to convince potential allies. The horizontal levee already has the support of Save the Bay, the organization formed in 1962 to halt the filling of the Bay. And not just on paper—most of the two dozen volunteers kneeling in the mud on a Saturday morning were recruited by the nonprofit, and habitat restoration director Donna Ball is on site as well, singing the project’s praises. “All we need to do is grow 70,000 plants,” she says, sighing theatrically, though she’s clearly eager for the challenge. One plant at a time, the volunteers approach that target. Amy Ritchie, who works on an unrelated project at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, says she’s volunteered in part to support her colleagues. Also, she’s here to fight climate change with her bare hands. “It’s hard to have worry with no outlet. To know that the sea is rising, but with nothing you can do about it,” she says. “That’s why it’s nice to have things like this, that give you a way to address the problem yourself.” Ritchie and the other volunteers are planting a variety of native plants—Baltic rush, iris-leaf rush, field sedge, and creeping wild rye. Bryan Derr, a Save the Bay trainer on hand to answer volunteers’ questions, explains that these water-loving rhizomatous species reproduce via their roots. They are excellent nitrogen absorbers, crucial in this man-made wetland because of a feature that makes the Oro
Even geomorphologist Jeremy Lowe gets into the act of planting natives in the experimental “horizontal levee” he helped design.
million gallons of treated wastewater, getting dumped uselessly into the Bay every single day. In other words, Oro Loma’s horizontal levee looks like a win-win. Or rather, a win-win-win-win: improved water quality in the Bay, productive use of wastewater, habitat for a variety of birds and mice, and flood protection in the face of a rising sea. And even better, its funding is folded into the wastewater treatment fees that support the sanitary district. But scaling up such sea level rise mitigation projects will depend on additional sources of funding, such as the Measure AA parcel tax that comes before Bay Area voters on June 7. The measure will fund the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority to support projects such as Oro Loma for 20 years. While sea level rise is not the only problem the levee addresses, it’s probably the most urgent—which has helped this project move along faster than it otherwise might have. “People don’t understand,” Lowe says, “their house might not be in the lowlying area, but the wastewater facility is. And the power station, and the highway, and their airport is. So everybody in the Bay Area, all nine counties, has an interest in what happens on the shoreline. Because if we start having these big floods, you’re not going to go to work. You’re not even going to be turning your lights on.”
Shallow Bay
april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
13
14
Jim Rose, Tuleyome
o onn t h te ht rea i l t r a i l
be r rye ssa sn ow m o u n ta i n
The Stebbins Cold Canyon loop trail traverses the open
northern california’s new national monument by John Hart | Map illustrations by Obi Kauffman i t wa s a f i e ry b i rt h . On July 10, 2016, President Obama proclaimed the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument along a hundred miles of rugged Inner Coast Range ridges spanning seven counties—Napa, Solano, Yolo, Lake, Colusa, Glenn, and Mendocino. Within a month, large parts of the new area were engulfed in the flames of the Wragg, Rocky, and Jerusalem fires. In their different ways, these events drew eyes b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
north to a landscape that, for many Bay Area residents, seems farther off than the High Sierra, and stranger. Sacramento Valley dwellers have a clearer view. In Davis or Woodland, Winters or Williams, the land in question forms the western skyline: a long, dark rampart extending northwest from Vacaville on Interstate 80 to the broad-shouldered mass of Snow Mountain above Clear Lake, the first of many greater summits on the
hillside and is expected to reopen to the public in mid-May 2016 after closure due to damage from the Wragg Fire the previous summer.
way to Oregon. The southern third of that skyline is the narrow highland called Blue Ridge. This innermost crest of the Coast Range stays above 2,000 feet for 40 miles, broken only where two big east-running streams, Putah Creek and Cache Creek, cut jagged notches through it. When Blue Ridge peters out, the band of high ground continues northwest, changing names as it gains elevation: Cache Creek Ridge, Walker Ridge, Pacific Ridge, and finally Snow Mountain. Decades ago, friends from Davis lured me to this country, so close yet seemingly so out of reach. I beat my way through clawing buckbrush chaparral to
somewhat resembles a long, lumpy Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument Boundary
Berryessa Peak 3,057’
Tra ilh ead
Lak eB er
e idg yR ck Ro
Be rr
g ea r
Ce Wil dar R dli ou fe A
Pu
10 miles
C reek
8 12
ge n
o any Co l d C R ts an s a Ple
id
Hi gh w a
y
ta h
Christmas stocking. Its toe is on Highway 128, at the gap where Putah Creek, flowing out of Lake Berryessa, cuts the Rocky Ridge wall. Paths climbing southward from 128 overlook arms of the lake on one side and wild little Cold Canyon, a University of California botanical preserve, on the other. This is a well-watered spot for the Inner Coast Ranges, supporting a mixture of inland and coastal species (you might even find a banana slug). When I visited a year ago, the area had the bristly lushness of an oak and brush community that had not burned for a hundred years. Last summer’s Wragg Fire, though, pushed a reset button. When the trails reopen in mid-May 2016, you can expect to see a lot of black trunks—and a memorable explosion of “fire-follower” wildflowers. “We don’t know even what’s in the seed bank there,”
april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
tr ail
t h e m o n u m e n t ’s o u t l i n e
th e
cold canyon & berryessa
says botanist Glen Holstein of the California Native Plant Society. Continue west on 128 and turn north on the Berryessa-Knoxville Road. Soon Lake Berryessa opens to the right. The “Berryessa” in the monument name doesn’t refer to this reservoir, though, but rather to the striking summit you see across it, the high point of Blue Ridge: 3,057-foot Berryessa Peak. The views from up there must be views indeed. Until very recently, you couldn’t see them. Fifteen square miles of BLM land around this peak were inaccessible to the public, sealed off behind ranch gates. “That’s the closest BLM land to me, and I can’t get to it!” fumed Davis hiker Andrew Fulks, now president of the regional nonprofit conservation organization Tuleyome. Tuleyome applauded in 2005 when a big ranch east of the peak was placed under conservation easement, but the access problem remained. For the solution, keep driving. Crossing a last northern arm of the lake, enter the hidden valley of Eticuera Creek. Seven miles from the bridge, at milepost 20, look for an inconspicuously signed trailhead on the right. At almost 15 miles round trip, with 3,500 feet of elevation change, the Berryessa Peak Trail is no stroll. It starts deceptively, climbing gently on grassy old roads among blue oaks. Then it spurts up a steep nose to a stile marking the edge of private land. Here a plaque acknowledges ranchers John and Judy Ahmann, who in 2007 donated the easement that opens the way to the peak. Fulks and his Tuleyome colleagues spent three years building the trail. Inscribed rather lightly on the mountain flank, the new route works its way southward among oaks, across scree, under sandstone cliff bands of the Great Valley Sequence, and through brush fields of scrub oak and chamise. Except for the vivid blue sheet of the lake, the westward view looks aboriginal. Mount St. Helena and the Mayacamas range fill the horizon. Nearer at hand rises the plateau called the Cedar Roughs, public land that is both a designated wilderness and now a disjunct unit of the national monument. Reaching the ridgeline, you
on
geologist Eldridge Moores. The sprawling new monument is not that easy to grasp. Someday a trail running the length of the reserve may dramatize its unity. Pending that, let’s imagine a rather adventurous south-tonorth road trip that avoids the parallel highways, U.S. 101 and Interstate 5, and follows the spine of the area as closely as possible.
Rd. ville a nox ess ry essa-K y hs
then-pathless high points on Blue Ridge; I took snowshoes to the summit plateau of Snow Mountain, climbing in the process from low-growing valley scrub to subalpine forest. I breathed the special air of places that are not only hard to get to but almost unknown. Back then these were orphan landscapes. Managers of Mendocino National Forest, in charge of Snow Mountain, wanted to build a logging road over the summit. The Bureau of Land Management, which administered scattered public-land parcels along Blue Ridge, was under pressure from the Reagan White House to sell off the acreage outright. These lands seemed to merit no special care. But the people who thought differently—a few at first, very many today—never stopped pushing for recognition. Now it is here. In a warming world, conservation biologists tell us, we have to protect habitat connections running from south to north and from lower ground to higher. This monument safeguards one such corridor: a third of a million acres of public lands linking the fringes of the Bay Area metropolises to the Pacific Northwest forests and rising from 200 feet above sea level on Putah Creek to 7,056 at Snow Mountain East. Scientists of another sort prize this stretch of the Coast Ranges as a rare geologic exhibit, exposing the contents of an ancient oceanic trench or subduction zone. Thirty million years ago along this line, the ocean floor was warping downward under the westwarddriving North American landmass. In the abyss, rock masses accumulated from the seafloor (now exposed as the Franciscan formation) along with sediments spilling off the continent to the east (known as the Great Valley Sequence) and still other material torn from deeper layers of the crust (serpentinite and peridotite). When the dance of the tectonic plates shifted into its present phase, the contents of the trench were uplifted and reshuffled to make new mountains. “The kind of boundary that exists underwater everyplace in the Ring of Fire is visible here in a clearer way than practically anywhere else,” says
15
th e
lies just south of Spanish Ridge, as rain begins to fall.
5 miles
t
Looking down a section of Cache Creek’s North Fork, which
Ray House Road Be rry ess Kn a-K Wi oxvi no ldl lle xv ife ill e A Rd . Et Berr yessa ic Sno w Mo un tai nN at’ lM on um en
Mine
ek Cre ra ue
the Eticuera Creek valley, you seem to have slipped back a century. For 10 miles the road is one lane wide; instead of bridging streams, it fords them. These oak-strewn meadows suggest the word “pastoral,” but the cows in fact are gone, removed in recent years to let the trees regenerate. (Notice the planted oak saplings in protective wire cages.) Though inside the federal monument boundaries, this landscape is managed by the state and the University of California, for reasons worth telling. In 1980, at the head of this valley, the Homestake Mining Company struck gold. This largest find in California since the 1800s was named the McLaughlin Deposit, after Donald McLaughlin, a Homestake executive who was also a professor at UC Berkeley—and the husband of Sylvia McLaughlin, coleader in the fight to halt the filling of
gan Morley Rd. Val
idge eR Blu
d r iv i n g o n n o rt h in the slot of
substrate here is serpentine, old mantle rock churned up in the oceanic trench. Serpentine serves up a spartan mineral menu, good for adapted endemic species like the serpentine sunflower, bad for the weedy exotics so prevalent on friendlier soils. To the botanist, serpentine “barrens” are opulent gardens. As the mine played out at century’s end, Krauss carried through a bold plan to repurpose Homestake’s domain. Most of it is now the 7,000acre Don and Sylvia McLaughlin Natural Reserve, affiliated with UC Davis. Near the Napa–Lake County line, you’ll pass a utilitarian building that houses scientists like Catherine Koehler, resident co-director. When I stopped by, the doctor was in, seeming to vibrate with enthusiasm for this extraordinary place. I challenge her a little: Does the area really stand out so much in a state that constitutes one big “biodiversity hot spot”? “Yes,” she says. “There are even hotter spots, and this is one of them.” Not content with saving the Homestake acreage, Krauss and Koehler helped pull together a consortium of public agencies and private owners called the Berryessa–Blue Ridge Partnership. Lacking any formal powers, it enjoyed the best of connections. State money flowed, and in 2000 the rest of the Eticuera Creek valley, purchased from willing sellers, became the Knoxville State Wildlife Area. Several large conservation easements along adjoining Blue Ridge also date to this time. With the rise of the monument campaign, led by Tuleyome, some of the energy seems to have gone out of this partnership. Krauss is a little grumpy about that. “But,” he acknowledges, “the branding of the area is valuable.”
Lake
ate St rea
tr ail
eticuera creek
Clear
San Francisco Bay. It’s tempting to see Sylvia’s hand in what happened next. The company hired Santa Rosa–based environmental specialist (and McLaughlin family friend) Ray Krauss to co-manage its operations, laboring to limit bad effects and offset them with good ones, like the cleanup of leaky old mercury mines. He did his job so well that even the Sierra Club declared itself satisfied. But Krauss had his eye on the other treasure contained in this land. You can see it, paradoxically, in the hardscrabble look of the region the road now enters: the reddish soil, the patchy underbrush, the widely spaced gray pines. The
cache creek
o u r t o u r r e s u m e s at the point
Jim Rose, Tuleyome
on 16
gain grand new views as far north as Mount Lassen but lose some of the out-there feeling: The peak you sweated for has a crown of communication towers. Trail extensions into more primitive parts are planned.
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
where Highway 20 crosses the North Fork of Cache Creek. Here is the start of the Redbud Trail and the entry to the Cache Creek Wilderness. On its way east from its source at Clear Lake, Cache Creek cuts through ridge after
m
a
n
M1
Ri
dg
e
o n Ridge
Wilderness (BLM/USFS)
rk Fo
k
SSA B E R RY E
For
7056'
7038'
N
ce Ri
Dirt Road (inquire locally)
Snow Mtn
M10
301
East Park Reservoir
M5
Valley Bear
yh Rdous e
il l e R d
Kno xv
EY
Be rrye ssa -
VA L L
Monticello Dam
505
Yolo County
Winters
Yountville to Napa
121
h
128
ta
Pu
r ve
10 Kilometers
Esparto to Woodland (monument headquarters)
Ri
10 Miles
Creek
128 29
e
12
Berryessa Peak ge ky Rid Roc
Cedar Roughs Wilderness
16
ENT MONUM
St Helena
Knoxville State Wildlife Area
essa Berry ke La
pa
Santa Rosa
Guinda
Valley
eek Cr
Na
to snow mountain
Capay
ah
Cach
NAL
C
Na
Bl u e R i d g e
TIO
pa
ty
n ou
Eticuera Creek
NA
ty
Colu sa C ount Yolo y Coun ty Rumsey
Ra
Rd
ke
La
Mt St Helena
Co
Calistoga
Ben Pease, peasepress.com
Valley Rd
Bear
f
Put
0
SACRAMENTO
e R i dge
ek
McLaughlin Natural Reserve
29
0
d
Co r ta n
Cre
nty
Reif
29
un
N
sR
N nV alley R d
Middletown
101
Williams
Cache Creek Wilderness
175
128
20
y
Cou
unt
a
M or ga
Co
m
ke
La
no
c
Ca
Lower Lake
ite
AI
Walker idg e Rd R
ey
Clearlake
he
Maxwell
5
20
53
So
A
e
ll Va
e
ntelope Valley
ch
Ca
T UN ey M O Vall
ng
h
dg
303
Indian Valley Reservoir
Lo
ig H
Ri
-S
k
r Fo
OW
Cr ee
to Willows
ell
e
k
Lucerne Lakeport Cl ea 20 r La ke Kelseyville
xw
Valley Indian Rd odoga le-L
th
SN
dg
L e e s v il
Ri
or
N
B a r t l e t t Mt n
303
Glen n Co unty Colu sa C ount y
Ma
i
fic
Mt Konocti
BLM-led walk, I hoped for a glimpse of the bald eagles that patrol the stream, but settled for scoping a white-breasted nuthatch and a western bluebird striving to ingest an enormous grub. Descending past one of those erosive palisades, the trail comes to the creek and a crossing that, depending on flow and sure-footedness, may call for rock-hopping, wading, or turning back. (During the February dry spell, I hopped.) Beyond, the Redbud Trail winds on into the depths of the wilderness. The trail network is sparse and loops hard to come by; for longer trips or backpacks, car shuttles between trailheads will serve you best.
Stonyford
Creek M10
Stony
c Pa
Creek
Upper Lake
Nice
175
Other Public Lands
Snow Mountain Wilderness
M3
301C ford
29
UC Natural Reserve
M3
er s
18 N0 2
301
to Ukiah
n o rt h o f h i g h way 2 0 , the land bulks up to new elevations. Coniferous forests appear and thicken. Roads are all gravel, with four-wheel drive advised and sometimes essential. Even where cell phones work, online guidance is iffy; the Mendocino National Forest map is the basic tool. The map on page 18 shows one scenic way of threading the maze to
An d
CA Dept of Fish & Wildlife
M3
tr ail
M6
rd
Hull Mtn
Glen n Co unty
River
a Bo
Men docin o Lake
US Bureau of Land Management ek Cold Cre
th e
Mendocino National Forest
nty Cou nty
River
20
on
Cou
Lake Pillsbury
Eel
Berryessa-Snow Mountain National Monument
Eel
Yuki Wilderness
Midd l e
Mendocino National Forest
ridge, carving crumbling palisades in soft clays derived from volcanic ash. Stark landforms frame the Redbud Trail, but geology is upstaged this season by fire ecology. It’s a world of green and black: charred oak boles and singed manzanita trunks rising from a vivid floor of new grasses and forbs. As you climb a modest ridge, hornetcolored markers warn of soft spots where plastic culverts have melted out beneath the trail: step wide. As you start to descend, take a spur path right for an almost aerial view of the main Cache Creek canyon. On a recent
Creek
Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve
april–june 2016
Solano County 80
to Fairfield
b ay n at u r e
17
tr ail
Ro
Summ it Sprin 17 N gs Trailhead 06
a
d
Ro
ad
M 10 Goat Mountain 6,121’
th
Ba
rtle
d tt S p rin gs R
w
Ca ch e Be Cr rry eek ess a Sn o
M5 oad
or
R dge Ri ic cif Pa
N
ain nt ou M
ent num Mo t’l Na
Indi a Sprin n Reser gs voir
5 miles
way 20 High
compass-round of views: over the Eel River country to the west, the Stony Brook drainage to the east, and north along the spine of the Coast Ranges toward the Trinity Alps. A continuous Bigfoot Trail may someday lead that way. To the northeast, Mount Shasta floats ethereally. Near the final ascent you walk through b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
Chris Tarp
th e
W Snow East Snow Mountain 7,056’ ild e r n Mo e ss u n t a in
Walker Ridge Rd.
on 18
Snow Mountain. Snow Mountain, geologists say, is a peak reborn. The rock of which it is built first erupted in an undersea volcano, or seamount. During the long eons of subduction, this summit tipped into the offshore trench and was scraped off, so to speak, onto the base of the overriding continent. Now modern faulting has raised these stones again. None of this is obvious as you sign the register at the Snow Mountain Wilderness boundary and start the four-mile walk to the peak, now sweating on sunny slopes, now cooling off in groves of Douglas fir and lacy white fir. A little higher, look for the tall, stiff-needled Shasta red fir, here at the southern limit of its coastal range. Meadowy openings hint at old lakes, and the nested leaves of corn lily remind you of higher ranges. The trees thin out near the broad twin summits, opening the latest
A view north from the saddle between Snow Mountain West and Snow Mountain East in June.
a silvery grove of recently fire-killed firs. Oddly beautiful, they raise a troubling question: How will these elegant forests, established in a cooler time, fare in the coming warmer world? Forest fires, like brushfires, are nothing new or ecologically deplorable, but they seem to be different, more virulent, in recent years. The monument will appropriately be a focus of wildfire research. The new Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument is a hybrid thing. Despite its name, it is meant to be a multiple-use area, not a traditional park. Along with hiking, rafting, and communing with nature, its backers explicitly endorse hunting, mountain biking, off-road vehicle play, grazing, and logging. Like the earlier Blue Ridge– Berryessa Partnership, they are trying to avoid the split into ideological teams. Wilderness areas aside, there can be no question of “purity.” Nor does the new monument really disturb existing management. The BLM lands are still to be run from the office in Ukiah; Mendocino National Forest remains intact. (A new monument manager will report to both.) Private and state and university acres enclosed within the boundary are affected not at all. It seems a fair question, then: What is this monument for? The one-word answer is recognition. The status raises the profile of what have been seen as Cinderella lands. It lets new publics in on hidden treasures.
And it will—it is hoped—loosen purse strings. Though monument status comes with no budget, the relabeled area may have a better crack at limited environmental funds. Beyond that, all the specifics—trail extensions, possible land acquisitions, fire management, geological interpretation, even the location of a visitor center—must wait on a planning process that is just taking form. This will be the full production, with drafts and revisions, comment periods and hearings and environmental impact statements. During the long campaign for the monument, advocates were at pains to assure some wary citizens that traditional uses would not be curtailed. The opponents voiced fears that the planning process, once begun, could lead in directions they did not like. They had a point. New doors are opening. Nobody knows quite what lies on the other side. What will the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument be? In the end, it’s up to us. John Hart of San Rafael, author of fifteen books
in the environmental field, is currently tackling Bay and Delta issues for several publications. cold canyon wildflower hike Saturday, May 7, 10:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.
Join Bay Nature and Tuleyome for an exclusive 4.75-mile hike in the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve, which has been closed since the Wragg Fire in August 2015. A moderately difficult hike, space is limited, and registration required. Sign up at baynature.org/field.
Lake County Land Trust
Celebrating
10 YEARS Enter Marine Life Studies Boat Raffle WIN OUR 19-FOOT DONZI F-19 CENTER CONSOLE BOAT COMPLETE WITH TRAILER AND OTHER FEATURES
Buy your ticket for $100 each by June 30th at 5pm for July 9th drawing at 7:30pm. Need not be present to win. Email raffle@marinelifestudies.org to receive order form or call (831) 901-3833 to purchase tickets.
Dedicated to preserving Lake County’s natural resources through education, cooperation, and preservation
The Lake County Land Trust protects important land and water resources on behalf of present and future generations. Join us as we work to sustain our county's cultural, historic, scenic, and environmental integrity.
www.lakecountylandtrust.org (707) 262 - 0707
CONTACT US FOR VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
MarineLifeStudies.org • WhaleEntanglementTeam.org
Leading Bay Area Conservation for 54 years
egret.org april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
19
20
3
Dan Hill
peninsula
Joaquin Miller Oakland City Park It is a very fine thing that on Skyline Boulevard in Oakland you can step off an AC Transit bus and cross the street right into a redwood forest. This 500-acre city park draped down the wooded hillside is an underappreciated pendant to the beloved necklace of regional parks that forms the East Bay greenbelt, and it equals them in offering a wide variety of natural experiences. On any nice day the main trails will be active with joggers and bicyclists, but in the maze of side paths solitude can often be found. Sequoia Bayview Trail follows a contoured course north, at first in tangled oak, pine, madrone, and bay under arrow-straight redwoods on slopes so steep that trees rooted 30 feet below are almost in reach. It repeatedly ducks into dark ravines where only slivers of sunlight reach the ground, then bends back to cross open serpentine promontories grown with sage, coyote bush, monkey flower, and purple needlegrass, with fine views of Oakland, the Bay, and San Francisco over the forested slopes below. Loop hikes of any size can be planned, but many trails are not well maintained (I had to turn back about 1.5 miles out on Sequoia Bayview). details: The easiest parking is inside the main park entrance at Sanborn and Joaquin Miller roads, where possible routes include Sunset Trail along Palo Seco Creek. Restrooms and picnic facilities are provided. If the Woodminster Cascade, a magnificent WPA-erected fountain at the western edge of the park, is running it’s worth a visit. —Ann Sieck
south bay
Dan Hill
2
east bay
Dan Hill
1
e s e wthhe e r e . .t. r a i l oln
Pulgas Ridge Open Space Preserve Seen on the map, this park holds out little promise, only 366 acres, pinched between Redwood City and Highway 280. But we enjoyed a charming 4-mile trek around the north perimeter through varied woodlands, chaparral, and sandstone outcrops, with many varieties of wildflower crowding a well-maintained path wide enough to provide safety from ticks and poison oak. Our counterclockwise loop started via Cordilleras Trail, on an odd grassy half-mile outside the preserve, then took Dusky-footed Woodrat Trail up a shady ravine, where moss grows down the embankments and ferns cluster under tall oaks, laurel, buckeye, and madrone. Indian warrior, shooting stars, and hound’s-tongue border the trail in early spring. After half a mile it climbs in easy switchbacks into the sunlight, rocky terrain, and chaparral. To the south lie the unbroken forest and near and distant ridges of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Tall manzanitas arch across the trail, chamise and yerba santa scent the air, and though the terraced backyards of large homes in San Carlos step down a nearby 1 hillside, and at one point fleets of speeding cars are just over 2 the sagebrush-clad sandstone ridgetop, the crowded world they come from seems far away. detai ls: There’s a 17.5acre off-leash dog area a half mile from the entrance, and (mostly onleash) dogs are frequent elsewhere on the trails. Horses and bikes are not permitted; a few benches and a toilet are provided. —Ann Sieck
1
2
Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve The only road access with parking to the steep grass-clad hilltops of this 1,676-acre Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority preserve northeast of San Jose is almost at its highest point. On most days, grand views here begin at the trailhead on Sierra Road, but we started down Kestrel Trail in dense fog that made its steep sidesloped switchbacks seem to hang over gray space. The breeze freshened as we took Sierra Vista Trail across the hillside and out to the Boccardo Loop lookout, and brilliant sun finally burned through the mist to reveal the nearby high ridges, Mount Hamilton and, looking north, even Mount Diablo, though to the west the expanse of San Jose, the Bay, and San Francisco were still swathed in cottonwool. Soon spooky skeins of mist came back up ravines grown with buckeye, oak, and willow trees to curl around us and hide the sun again. Magnificent views are more usual than ghostly weather at Sierra Vista, and on hot days there’s little shade along its section (over 15 miles) of the Bay Area Ridge Trail. Where the rocky spine of the coast range shows on the rounded hilltops, wildflowers include buttercups, blue-eyed grass, blue dicks, 3 fiddlenecks, and lupine. Ground squirrels are everywhere, digging homes for burrowing owls and furnishing breakfast for other raptors, including northern harriers and red-tailed hawks. Golden eagles nest here. details: The “gentle” route, Aquila Trail, is single track, and Kestrel Trail is a hairy place to take a wheelchair. No toilet, and no dogs permitted. —Ann Sieck 3
d i s c o v e r m a n y m o r e t r a i l s at b ay n at u r e . o r g /t r a i l f i n d e r b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
Impart
Make a special gift today –
your values,
will, trust, land donation – that
Grow your legacy.
will preserve your regional parks and protect open space for future generations! Call 510-544-2212 to learn more, and sign up to attend one of our free estate
www.regionalparks foundation.org/ plannedgiving
Photo: Robin Mayoff
planning seminars.
Round Valley Regional Preserve • Brentwood april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
21
22
by Blake Edgar
m u d l ov e r s
“This is the second most disgusting thing I’ve ever done,”
Simon declares while struggling to traverse shoe-sucking mud during low tide. Wearing a T-shirt sporting a vibrant crab that proclaims “I’m Crabby,” the red-headed third-grader has joined two dozen classmates from Oakland’s Glenview School on a winter afternoon at Crab Cove in Alameda to explore the exposed mudflat and see what lives here. After clambering over rocks coated with slick sea lettuce, the students soon discover that the silt, clay, and sand of the mudflat also make for some slippery footing. Complaints ripple through the group about cold water seeping into shoes and feet sinking deeper in the muck. But before long—thanks to the enthusiasm for the creatures underfoot expressed by East Bay Regional Park District naturalist Susan Ramos—the young explorers ignore their discomfort and begin peeking beneath rocks, shouting out their discoveries. “I’m your friend,” Simon tells a mud-green crab he’s uncovered. Out on the mudflat, it can be a short distance from disgust to delight. Such is the conundrum of a mudflat. It takes patient attention—and some imagination—to realize all that’s going on in the seemingly placid habitat. The mudflat at Crab Cove is b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
crammed full with life, but much of the action takes place out of sight. At low tide, animals seek shelter beneath the surface of the mud. High tide brings sharks, rays, and other fish closer to shore in search of food. One clue to the density of life within the mud is visible in the scores of shorebirds and waterbirds—coots, cormorants, curlews, egrets, sandpipers, and pelicans—congregating on the mudflat and adjacent breakwater. When the Bay water recedes, a visitor needs to step and scan carefully to see evidence of other residents. What’s more, Crab Cove’s designation as a marine reserve in 1980—the first reserve for a California estuary—prohibits humans from probing down into the mud. There’s no collecting, either, although careful handling is encouraged. On the state’s behalf, the East Bay Regional Park District operates Crab Cove Visitor Center and adjacent Robert W. Crown Memorial State Beach, part of the longest beach on San (above) Small green shore crabs are abundant at Crab Cove; (right, clockwise from top) Teddy and Charlie Frank wade into cove waters; an unidentified worm on the damp rocks; a young leopard shark is examined before the kids release it back into the Bay at Crab Cove; a snowy egret snacks on a ghost shrimp; a lined shore crab blows bilious bubbles to ward off predators.
Sally Rae Kimmel, flickr.com/photos/sallyraekimmel
Get dirty is the first rule at Crab Cove. Second is discover crabs and curlews in the Bay’s oozy silt. Third, bring a change of shoes.
exploring the east bay regional parks
James Frank, EBRPD supervising naturalist (2); Sally Rae Kimmel, flickr.com/photos/sallyraekimmel; Rick Lewis (2)
This story is part of a series exploring the natural and cultural history and resources of the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD). The series is sponsored by the district, which manages 119,000 acres of public open space in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
23
24
Francisco Bay. Some 1.5 million people use the park annually, mostly to picnic or stroll along the beach or, in the warmer months, play in the gentle surf. But with all the nature happening here, park naturalists present nearly 450 programs a year about the Bay environment for students and families, including birding walks, aquarium feedings, and low-tide excursions onto the mudflat. In 2015, more than 7,200 students from 269 classrooms participated in field trips.
From a show of hands, half of Miss Anderson’s Glenview
third-graders have visited Crab Cove before. Naturalist Ramos orients the students and their chaperones with an enlarged satellite photograph of San Francisco Bay. She asks someone to name the water body. “Pacific Ocean,” calls out a student, which Ramos replies is half right. She adds that they are standing on the shore of an estuary, or a place where salt water and freshwater converge. That meeting and mixing of waters enables more biodiversity to occur offshore here. For younger visitors, a Crab Cove field trip begins with an imaginary dive. It has to be a shallow one, given the Bay’s average depth of 12 feet. Ramos gets everyone to mime pulling on a wet suit, mask, and flippers, then hoisting an air tank onto their shoulders and a weight belt around the waist. The students file into the Old Wharf Classroom, decorated with barrels and crates like a dock from a bygone era. They mimic the sounds of a chugging boat engine and a splashing anchor, then close their eyes and count to ten while Ramos unveils a 3-D diorama depicting examples of life above and below the Bay’s surface. A chorus of “Whoa!” rises from the tween crowd—an encouraging response to a static, silent museum display. In the diorama a marbled godwit and western sandpiper patrol the shoreline. An airborne northern pintail prepares to land beside a bufflehead duck.
Perched on a wharf piling, a double-crested cormorant peers for fish. Underwater, a leopard shark cruises toward the viewer, and a striped bass pursues a school of jacksmelt. A bat ray descends toward a cluster of bivalves. The prominent pincers of a lined shore crab protrude from a crevice. Before swapping this indoor classroom for the outdoor one, Ramos wants to talk about food chains, which she defines as “a whole progression of who eats who and what eats what.” To demonstrate, she calls up kids from the crowd to don funny hats and play parts in the Bay’s food chain. A girl in a floppy fishing hat represents the base of the chain: nutrients, sunlight, and water. Two boys sport green and blue hard hats to signify phytoplankton and zooplankton. A black baseball cap adorned with a trio of plush, sparkly fish represents smelt, and another hard hat topped with a large plush fish is the predatory striped bass. The final link is us—people who catch fish from the Bay. Ramos starts the students thinking about the consequences for the entire food chain when one of the links breaks from some disturbance. What if a chemical spill, for instance, clogs the gills of jacksmelt until they suffocate? Their prey the zooplankton could multiply so much that they overeat phytoplankton. One change can cascade throughout the ecosystem, she emphasizes.
Lesson imparted, it’s time to hit the mud. Ramos reminds
her charges, “Every time you see a hole, that’s an animal’s front door.” The mudflat is pocked everywhere, it seems, with holes of
(right, clockwise from top) EBRPD naturalist Susan Ramos holds a green shore crab for closer examination; a long-billed curlew extracts a morsel Beach; a ghost shrimp begins to dig a burrow; their small holes and mounds pock the mudflats.
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
Sally Rae Kimmel, flickr.com/photos/sallyraekimmel/ (2); Rick Lewis; ron wolf
from the mud at neighboring Crown
Sally Rae Kimmel, flickr.com/photos/sallyraekimmel
denizens of the bay’s shoreline
Migrating shorebirds refuel in the Bay
A leopard shark hunts crab and starfish
Crab scavenge and clean the Bay
all sizes—clues that critters underfoot are hiding, eating, maybe mating. Most abundant are tiny circular holes left after a clam retracts its siphon—often a fringed white tube that resembles an anemone. It’s used to draw in or expel water that the clam filters for detritus to eat. Another common feature on the otherwise flat mudscape, a conical, miniature mound with a hole in the middle, signals a branching burrow belonging to the bay ghost shrimp (Neotrypaea californiensis). Dug with the aid of an oversize claw (called a cheliped, which can make up a quarter of a shrimp’s total weight) pushing sand out into piles around the entrance, the burrow shelters the shrimp’s otherwise defenseless pale pink body. Ghost shrimp subsist as detritivores, sifting through sandy mud for bits of organic matter and plankton. An undisturbed ghost shrimp may live up to ten years, but the gracefully curved beak of a long-billed curlew, a large shorebird that forages at Crab Cove, seems precisely designed to pluck concealed crustaceans from the mud. Slender strands of mud that look an awful lot like a forkful of spaghetti (especially if you’re in third grade) pile up outside the home of a lugworm (Arenicola brasiliensis), a relative of earthworms and leeches. About the length and width of an index finger, the lugworm dwells head-down in a J- or L-shaped burrow. It sucks up sand and mud using a sticky proboscis to extract organic nutrients and deposits processed sand outside the burrow. Those coiled strands: lugworm poop (or, more delicately, mud castings). Like earthworms in terrestrial soil, lugworms move large amounts of organic matter throughout the mud by bioturbation, the mixing of sediment by burrowing or other animal activity. Several students squat around another sign of the lugworm’s presence: a translucent egg sac the size of a flattened tennis ball. Tethered to the burrow below by a gelatinous thread, the orb jiggles like Jell-O. A female lugworm releases eggs within the burrow, possibly triggered by traces of lugworm sperm in the water. Once fertilized, the eggs become enshrouded by the sac and extruded to the mud surface. Larvae hatch a few days later and
Eelgrass shelters young creatures The Crab Cove Visitor Center’s 3-D diorama of life on the mudflats introduces thousands of schoolkids every year to Bay ecology.
begin a brief free-swimming phase before excavating new burrows. The largest animal moving mud around may be the bat ray (Myliobatis californica). With wing-like pectoral fins that can stretch more than five feet across, the ray swims shoreward at high tide. Sensing the presence of clams or other invertebrates buried in the mud, it descends to hover just above the substrate. Then the ray rapidly flaps its fins up and down, moving the upper layers of mud until the prey is exposed. The first half of the bat ray’s genus name means “grinder” in Greek, and this fish possesses powerful plate-like teeth on the underside of its body for crushing clams and other shelled creatures. The bat ray’s effective excavation technique leaves a shallow divot in the mud several feet in diameter that remains when the tide ebbs. An array of mollusks small and large also awaits a careful observer. Lentil-size flecks of white scattered atop the mud’s surface are the shells of gem clams (Gemma gemma), an exotic species devoured by busy sandpipers foraging the bayward edge of exposed mud. At the other end of the size spectrum is an Atlantic immigrant, the channeled whelk (Busycon canaliculatum), the Bay’s biggest snail. These whelks have long been East Coast delicacies in Chinese and Italian cuisine and may have been brought here in the 1940s for human consumption. Still, Crab Cove is one of few spots in the Bay where channeled whelks can be found with some luck. (Both a conch-like mature whelk the size of a human hand and a twisted whelk egg case of many strung-together discs turned up during a low tide evening mudflat outing last fall.) Much more likely to be spotted is another molluscan import from the Atlantic, the oyster drill (Urosalpinx cinerea), with its elegant whorled shell. Probably introduced to the Bay when native oyster fisheries thrived here in the late 19th century, the oyster drill deploys a corrosive secretion and its strong, sandpaper-like tongue to penetrate the shell of an oyster, mussel, or barnacle before pushing its proboscis through the hole it’s april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
25
26
rick lewis
modified into intimidating pincers—suspended created and consuming the shell’s contents. from the carapace enable a crab’s distinctive No need for shucking. Abandoned oyster sideways gait, with the leading legs pulling and drill shells get reused regularly as hermit crab the opposite side pushing the body. (Young homes. students who participate in Crab Cove’s Notice a recurring theme? Much of the Bay’s “Creatures of the Bay” school program get to mudflat fauna has arrived from elsewhere— often after hitching a ride aboard ships. In a watch a classmate metamorphose into a crab, corner of Crab Cove’s visitor center stands a with the help of a naturalist dispensing the glass case beneath a neon sign declaring body parts of an elaborate costume: a red vest A family enjoys the sunset and mudflats at Crown “Aliens.” Spookily lit specimen jars filling several with gills along the sides, a maroon tunic for Beach, a short walk south of Crab Cove. shelves sample some of the rogue’s gallery of the exoskeleton, arm-length sleeves ending in foreign fish and invertebrates that have been inadvertently intropadded pincers, legs Velcroed to each side of the carapace, plus an duced from the Atlantic Ocean, Asia, or the South Pacific. abdomen and cap with extendable eyestalks.) San Francisco Bay and the Delta have earned the dubious Multiple species of crab coexist at Crab Cove. By far the distinction of being the world’s most invaded estuary. At least 234 most common are the green shore crabs that blend in remarkably species of exotic plants and animals now reside in the estuary, and well against the mud. Mostly herbivorous, they consume the the total number is likely higher. “We find new invaders all the abundant alga called sea lettuce (Ulva lactuca) that drapes time,” says Andrew Cohen, director of the Center for Research shoreline rocks in vibrant green but also filter feed for plankton on Aquatic Bioinvasions (aka CRAB) in Richmond. Recently, and detritus or set out to scavenge for whatever they can find. marine species from Southern California have followed warmer Other native species found in the intertidal rocky shore habitat El Niño waters northward, including a kind of blenny fish that include seaweed-eating lined shore crabs (Pachygrapsus crassipes) Cohen found under a rock while he and his son explored the and larger mollusk-munching red rock crabs (Cancer productus). shoreline at Crown Beach. No one knows how much impact Because it’s protected from the wind and waves, Crab Cove invasive species have on native ones throughout the Bay, but their also serves as a nursery for our delectable Dungeness crab abundant presence has undeniably altered the aquatic ecology. (Cancer magister). Each winter, a female Dungeness releases up to 2 million eggs in nearshore water. Hatchlings go through several molts and metamorphoses during their planktonic first year before moving out as juvenile crabs into deeper, saltier San Recognizing that her audience’s attention span has receded Francisco Bay. There they attempt to evade all the fish species like the tide, Ramos guides the group toward the rocky shore that would consume them by remaining buried in mud until and better opportunities for finding Crab Cove’s eponymous mature enough to head out to sea for mating. crustaceans. She’s instructed the students to carefully overturn The Glenview School group retreats from the rising tide and rocks, examine beneath them, and then replace them gently. concludes its field trip with a whirlwind tour of the aquariums Encouraging everyone to try touching a crab, she describes and interactive exhibits at the visitor center. More crabs can be proper handling technique: Keep the crab nestled within cupped seen there, including live European green crabs (Carcinus maenas), palms and close to the ground in case it escapes, in order to introduced to San Francisco Bay around 1989, and preserved avoid damage to the carapace from a fall. Chinese mitten crabs (Eirocheir sinensis), another recent intruder that Students jostle shoulder-to-shoulder around Ramos to see a begins life in brackish water and moves upstream into the Delta. native green shore crab (Hemigrapsus oregonensis), about two inches The exhibits are informative but still no substitute for seizing the across, lying belly-up in her hands. “It’s a female, and she has slippery opportunity of a firsthand look at the muddy domain next eggs,” explains the naturalist, pointing out the sand-size specks door. Crab Cove is a rare place, for the easy access to one of the Bay along the curving edge of the crab’s abdomen. Even without Area’s least-known habitats and for protecting its mud-bound being clued in by eggs, it’s easy to determine a crab’s sex from its multitudes. Be sure to consult a tide table before visiting, and abdomen and to become an expert on crab sexing before leaving remember to bring rubber boots or a change of shoes and socks. the mudflat: Males have a narrow triangular abdomen, like a fan Blake Edgar is a Certified California Naturalist and a former editor for that’s been snapped closed, whereas females have a broader abdoUniversity of California Press and for California Wild magazine. This is his men resembling a fully extended fan. first article for Bay Nature. Crabs have kept the same basic design for millions of years. Head and thorax are fused and encased in a protective keratin discover the critters of crab cove carapace. A crab molts several times per year; a split forms Saturday, May 14, 1:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. between the carapace and abdomen, and the crab wriggles Join Bay Nature and EBRPD naturalist Susan Ramos for an afternoon backward out of the old shell, or exoskeleton, and waits for its of exploration at low tide at Crab Cove. This will be an easy-going, new armor to harden. Molting may also allow a crab to regrow a slightly muddy adventure; kids welcome. missing limb. Four pairs of segmented legs—a fifth pair has been Space is limited, registration required. Sign up at baynature.org/field b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
Protecting and Stewarding Popeloutchom To learn more visit www.amahmutsun.org/land-trust
The Amah Mutsun Land Trust, established with organizational support from Sempervirens Fund, enables the living descendants of Mutsun and Awaswas speaking people of the Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista areas to fulfill their obligation to Creator to protect, steward, and re-connect with the lands, waters, and all living things of Popeloutchom, their homeland.
• Wetland Permitting • Wetland Jurisdictional Delineations • Biological Assessments • Conservation and Mitigation Banks • GIS Mapping and Geospatial Analysis • Alternatives Analysis Contact: Robert Perrera • rperrera@h-bgroup.com • 415.385.4106 828 Mission Ave, San Rafael, CA 94901 • h-bgroup.com april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
27
28
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
by Mary Ellen Hannibal
D i s cov e r i n g Q u i ro s t e In late October 1769, a group of bedraggled Spanish soldiers arrived overland in the territory of the Quiroste Indians on the San Mateo coast. Motivated by news of the encroaching Russian fur trade, the King of Spain had directed Captain Gaspar de Portola to head north from his base in Baja California to secure a base for colonization of the California coast. Portola’s specific charge was to find Monterey Bay, sighted from sea some 150 years earlier by Sebastian Vizcaino. However, Monterey Harbor seemed too small to fit Vizcaino’s grandiose description, so Portola kept heading north. By the time he reached the Whitehouse Creek watershed, about a mile inland from the coast at Año Nuevo Point, Portola and his men were exhausted and running low on supplies. Expedition diarist Padre Juan Crespi wrote: “Here we stopped close to a large village of very well-behaved good heathens, who greeted us with loud cheers and rejoiced greatly at our coming.” He further documented a “very large grass-roofed house, round like a half-orange,” and large enough to contain the (left, clockwise from top) A view west from Quiroste Valley to Año Nuevo Point includes the scrub-dominated slope in the foreground and the grassland prairie—site of a recent controlled burn—behind. The land may have looked more like prairie when Gaspar de Portola arrived in 1769, represented here by an unknown 20th-century artist; archaeological dig at Quiroste village site; Amah Mutsun Native Stewardship Corps member Gabriel Pineida hauls hemlock from the Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve.
whole village. There, the men were fed and given native tobacco. The Quiroste people restored Portola’s flagging troops—a magnanimous gesture and highly consequential in California history. Led by Indian guides, Portola and his men continued up the coast and, a few days later, “discovered” San Francisco Bay from a ridge above present-day Pacifica. “The Spaniards were lost, at the end of their rope,” California State Parks archaeologist Mark Hylkema told me. “The Quiroste head man could have turned them away. Instead he decided to host them.” Within a few years, the Spaniards began to establish missions along the coast, disrupting an Indian way of life that had evolved with the California landscape for thousands of years. As a long-time archaeologist specializing in the California coast, Hylkema was interested in locating the remains of what Crespi called Casa Grande, the large roundhouse structure where the Quiroste hosted the Spaniards. Working from the expedition diaries, Hylkema knew the site must be near Año Nuevo Point. He listened to stories of local tribal people, studied the landscape, and scrutinized historical documents, motivated, as he put it, because “this is where pre-history met history.” First he searched along the Gazos Creek watershed in Pescadero. “But I realized the landscape there couldn’t have supported such a big building. It’s too wooded and there isn’t enough even ground.” Hylkema eventually located several sites on the valley floor of nearby Whitehouse Creek that april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
illustration above: Edward Willie
(clockwise from top): Sally Rae Kimmel; Courtesy of Shaping San Francisco; Mark Hylkema; © 2015 Richard Morgenstein
The Amah Mutsun and the Recovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge
29
30
A P e o p l e W i t h o u t La n d
Tall and gently authoritative, Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band Valentin Lopez has more than once reminded me that today’s California Indians live in two worlds. After working for the state of California for 28 years, including five years as commander for recruitment and testing for the California Highway Patrol, today Lopez is “retired” and focused on Amah Mutsun affairs. His right eye drifts, as if keeping tabs on another dimension. “In 2005 tribal elders came to a tribal council meeting and said, ‘We have to get back to caring for the land. Creator never rescinded our obligation to do that.’” Lopez chuckled. “Can you imagine, these people with minimum-wage jobs—if they have them at all—and who don’t own any land themselves, saying we have to steward it? Now, where were we going to do that?” Lopez added that saying no to tribal elders was not an option. His dilemma was that the Amah Mutsun have no officially sanctioned tribal territory upon which to exercise their responsibility to Creator. This is both an existential
Courtesy of Dr. Ruben G. Mendoza
Three Mutsun women near Hollister, ca. 1900
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
© Richard Morgenstein 2015
evidenced historical Indian presence, so he zeroed in there. With the help of students from Cabrillo College, in 2003 Hylkema radiocarbon-dated building material and plant remains, which showed that one of the major sites in the valley matching Crespi’s landscape descriptions had been occupied at the time of Spanish colonization. The archaeologists concluded they had located the remains of the historic village; subsequently, the site and its environs were protected as part of a 225-acre Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve within Año Nuevo State Park. Next, Hylkema turned to Chuck Striplen, then a UC Berkeley doctoral candidate and a member of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, for help exploring the site. While there are no known living descendants of the Quiroste people, the Amah Mutsun trace their lineage to historical polities in the area. Striplen, now an environmental scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute and a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, assembled a multi-disciplinary team, including UC Berkeley archaeologist and California Indian scholar Kent Lightfoot, to begin the on-site investigation. The ongoing collaborative research at Quiroste includes the Amah Mutsun, researchers in disciplines such as ethnobotany and fire ecology, and state agency professionals.
Amah Mutsun Tribal Chair Valentin Lopez
quandary and a practical problem. Identity may be a birthright, but for Native Californians it is also established through observances and actions on behalf of the natural world. “The Amah Mutsun and other coastal Indians were impacted particularly hard by colonialism,” Kent Lightfoot explained to me. In the Mexican period, the missions were closed by new colonial masters, and so-called Mission Indians were sent to work on large ranchos, even farther removed from their original land base. Today’s Amah Mutsun Tribal Band is composed of approximately 600 people who are direct descendants of several Mutsun-speaking tribal groups dispersed to the San Juan Bautista and Santa Cruz missions. Because they have been separated from their ancestral lands for so long, and their treaty with the federal government never ratified, the Amah Mutsun are not recognized as a sovereign tribe by the United States. Nonetheless, Lopez took the injunction from Amah Mutsun elders seriously and set about looking for ways to reinstate tribal stewardship of the land. When Hylkema and Striplen invited the tribe to participate at the Quiroste site, Lopez saw an opportunity. A La n d s c ap e d e p r i v e d o f f i r e
On a sunny, clear July morning in 2015 I joined members of the Amah Mutsun Native Stewardship Corps and the research team from UC Berkeley at Quiroste. The corps consists of younger tribal members who are learning their heritage by doing, which in this particular case meant removing invasive plants from the valley floor. To the untrained eye the landscape looks as Portola might have found it, lush, green, and wild. But this is misleading. Ironically, one of the ways we know something about the pre-contact California landscape is from the expedition journal fastidiously kept by Padre Crespi. Crespi carefully inventoried the elements of the natural world he saw: plentiful bears, redwood forests that seemed to go on forever, fields carpeted with wildflowers, and numerous wildfires burning along the coast. But after the Spaniards arrived they prohibited native burning. No longer cultivated by tribal people’s use of controlled fires, the populations of native plants and wildlife were vastly reduced. Here at Quiroste, woody vegetation, including
april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
31
32
© 2015 Richard Morgenstein
native coyote bush and Douglas fir, encroached on native grassland species like purple needlegrass. Grazing and farming further converted the species composition here, with invasive plants arriving either inadvertently with imported livestock or through intentional introduction as browse. Both native and nonnative species are included in the mosaic of Quiroste Valley today. As UC Berkeley archaeologist and Quiroste team member Rob Cuthrell told me, “Grasslands are now only a minor part of the landscape. We want to bring back the open coastal prairies that were described in the earliest historical documents.” Restoring a native landscape is not entirely possible but it represents a goal to move toward. Even this definition is complex. We tend to think of today’s native plants as having evolved and grown in an area without human intervention. One of the central assertions of the findings at Quiroste turns this assumption on its head: California’s “native” ecosystems had in fact been actively managed by the native people for a very long period of time. L e s s o n s f ro m U n d e rg ro u n d
In her landmark 2005 book Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources, cultural historian and ethnoecologist Kat Anderson describes how California Indians used an array of sophisticated ecosystemengineering techniques to manage their environment in order to sustainably provide for the survival needs of their clans and tribes. Along with burning, they pruned, coppiced, sowed, and weeded to intervene in the life cycle of plants and animals and to direct their growth and reproduction. Anderson’s work is largely based on oral histories, ethnographic sources, and historical records. The Quiroste collaborative is building on her b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
Amah Mutsun Native Stewardship Corps member Abran Lopez chops down nonnative hemlock at Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve to allow for return of native plants such as coast tarplant.
research to quantify scientifically assertions about what is frequently referred to as “traditional ecological knowledge.” “We have done three summers of excavations at Quiroste Valley,” Cuthrell told me. “Our purpose was to investigate the resources people were using and how they were using them.” The team used noninvasive geophysical techniques—including magnetometry, ground-penetrating radar, and electrical resistivity—to look into the soil without disturbing potential ancestral remains. “We created a three-dimensional model of what is underground,” Cuthrell explained. “You can slice out a profile of an area and estimate, for example, how far a pit goes down.” The team used a technique called flotation to collect small plant and animal remains. Lighter materials in a soil sample, like burned seeds, wood charcoal, and fish scales, float up and are collected in a chiffon screen, leaving behind denser bone and stone remnants. Significantly, the work at Quiroste has unearthed multiple strands of evidence of indigenous burning practices to manage species composition and abundance. Archaeobotanical research shows a high proportion of woody plants—particularly redwood and California lilac (Ceanothus)—compatible with low-intensity landscape fire. Lightning strike fire is relatively uncommon on the California coast so the evidence points instead to frequent human-instigated burning. High proportions of grasslandassociated food-plant remains are a further indication of intentional burning to prevent encroachment by shrubs and trees, and contrast with the scrub and Douglas fir woodlands that characterize the valley today. Archaeofaunal data shows small mammal populations consistent with open grasslands that
T h e y W e r e N ot Fa r m e r s
The Quiroste findings are of historical significance. As Kent Lightfoot and Otis Parrish put it in California Indians and Their Environment (2009): “They are not farmers.” California Indians don’t fit into the typical paradigm whereby prehistorical hunter-gatherers evolve to become agrarian producers. California Indians evolved a complex food economy without cultivating domestic crops. For example, Indian pyro-techniques did not sever the ties between the species they cultivated and the landscapes those species grew in. The people availed themselves of the adaptive capacities of wild plants and animals. Using a complex system of low-intensity staggered burns, they provoked new growth of plants for food, medicine, and material goods, including baskets, tule boats, and houses. They maintained different patches of land at different stages of succession. Newly burned fields attracted specialist bird species; freshly sprouted fields drew deer and other prey animals within striking distance. Shrubby growth appearing a year or so after a burn was home to small mammals that were hunted and trapped. Mature forests were kept healthy with low-intensity burning of duff and other natural debris. California Indians, in effect, molded the native species and landscapes to sustainably provide for all living things, including food and fiber for people. Chuck Striplen gave me a specific example of how California Indians’ traditional management of resources worked on willows. “Willows were harvested for all kinds of reasons,” he said. “Some were managed to cultivate very thick stems for housing. Thick, strong sticks with wide distances between the nodes would be cultivated for basketry.” Managing willows for different purposes led to creation of diverse habitat for species. “The act of clipping exposes inner plant tissue to a whole host of insects that are then fed on by birds. This goes on for
hundreds and thousands of years, until you’ve created a habitat that is more a reflection of culture than it is of the plant itself. Because if those plants were just allowed to live and die on their own, they would go through big boom and bust cycles and not necessarily support a stable cascade of wildlife and plant species associated with them.” This is the context behind the Amah Mutsun elders’ injunction to care for the landscape. Particularly in the face of climate change, it is more important than ever to understand how to restore the landscape to support native species. As Striplen told me, “We have this gaping chasm in our understanding of form and function in historical ecosystems. It makes sense to look back in time, to understand how ecosystems worked, in order to better understand how they are going to change. And to also understand how we might adapt and mitigate around those changes.” b ac k to t h e La n d
Could fire once again be introduced to this landscape and used to restore both its native diversity and its ability to sustain human existence? The answer isn’t simple. It turns out that a fair amount of work must be done before controlled burning can take place. Members of the Amah Mutsun Stewardship Corps were in the midst of their second summer of this work at Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve when I visited the site in July to see the transformation of the landscape first-hand. Prior to commencing the workday, Chairman Lopez led tribal members into a shielded green space to smudge the site by burning dried sage. Prayers offered, the team members started their work. Whooshing machetes opened up new spaces of sky as towering stalks of poison hemlock were felled. The hemlock has been crowding out a potentially healthy population of coast tarplant (Madia sativa) , a member of the sunflower family with Controlled burn at Pinnacles National Park in December 2011 by Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, UCSC Arboretum, and National Park Service to promote native deergrass restoration.
april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
Rick Flores; illustration: Edward Willie
would have been sustained by fire. And wind-borne charcoal particles found in wetland sediments provide direct evidence of landscape fires. Fire wasn’t just used to encourage grasslands. Cuthrell hypothesizes that Native Californians also burned in conifer forests to promote growth of desirable understory species, such as hazelnut, which is rare at the site today. Left to its own devices, hazelnut may fruit only sporadically and sparsely, and “we suspect that some form of management would have been needed to make it abundant and productive enough to show up in the archaeological assemblage as much as it does in our sampling.” Taken together, the data points to a conservative conclusion that burning was practiced on this landscape for at least 1,000 years prior to Spanish colonization. And that fire regime had a significant impact on “the structure, diversity, and vitality of local terrestrial communities,” according to Lightfoot (California Archaeology, December 2013).
33
34
R e s t o r i n g F i r e , T ru s t, a n d t h e La n d
The Amah Mutsun’s work at the Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve has been a jumping-off point for a range of partnerships aimed at restoring the tribe’s connections with its traditional practices. These include work with Pinnacles National Park, the University of California at Santa Cruz Arboretum, and the nonprofit Pie Ranch in Pescadero. (Read about these innovative stewardship partnerships in “New Paradigms for Stewardship” at baynature.org/extra.) Five years ago the Amah Mutsun took another big step toward reclaiming their role as environmental stewards by entering into an historic agreement with the Sempervirens Fund, the nation’s oldest conservation organization. Sempervirens was founded in 1900 to halt the destruction of the magnificent redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains. “We were used to working with other natural resource management groups to protect ecological functioning here,” Reed Holderman, executive director emeritus of Sempervirens, told me. “But we didn’t really Eleanor Castro, Tribal Chair Val Lopez, and Pie Ranch co-founder Nancy Vail prepare the
Sally Rae Kimmel, flickr.com/photos/sallyraekimmel
ground for planting of native grasses in the Amah Mutsun Native Garden at Pie Ranch.
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
Sally Rae Kimmel, flickr.com/photos/sallyraekimmel
Edward Willie
ethnobotanical significance for the Amah Mutsun. Tribal members would like to manage the tarplant as their ancestors did, most particularly for the seeds, which were roasted, crushed, and mixed into pinole, a porridge-like staple of coastal California tribal diets. There is still tarplant at the site, but with hemlock prevalent, there is a danger of collecting the toxic hemlock seeds along with the tarplant. The long-term plan is to revive the practice of burning the landscape here to restore a diverse suite of plants used by California Indians, including hazelnut, red maids, California lilac, and white root sedge (a basketry material) as well as purple needlegrass, California oatgrass, blue wild rye, and native barley. But Cuthrell says that burning now could perversely increase the number of invasives rather than knocking them back. “So we’re pulling out 20,000 hemlock plants,” he told me, “and we’ll do that year after year until we eradicate the seed bank.” As Lopez explained, “It took generations for this land to come unraveled and it will take seven generations to heal it. We don’t expect to get this done immediately but we must fulfill our obligation to Creator.”
UC Berkeley archaeologist Rob Cuthrell dug up this soaproot plant from Quiroste Valley to replant at the Amah Mutsun Native Garden on Pie Ranch.
think about the cultural resources inherent in the landscape,” until Lopez and Amah Mutsun tribal members brought Quiroste to their attention. Organizations like Sempervirens have traditionally focused on acquiring land, but not on managing it once it is protected. “We desperately need to figure out how to take care of the land,” Holderman told me, “and the Amah Mutsun are poised to do it.” Attempts at collaboration between tribal people and conservation groups have often been fraught and unproductive. But, Holderman recounted, “We spent three days in lockdown, asking ourselves how we could do things better,” and eventually the idea of an Amah Mutsun Land Trust emerged as a way to empower Mutsun authority on ancestral land despite the lack of federal sovereignty. “These people had everything taken from them,” says Holderman. “And yet they are restoring themselves and the land. This is an amazing story.” The Memorandum of Agreement between Sempervirens and the Amah Mutsun includes provisions for descendant communities to access, manage, and restore the landscape, and Sempervirens pledges to work cooperatively with the tribe to develop educational programs to help the public understand the history and current-day situation of the land and the people. Subsequent to the formation of the land trust, Sempervirens and the American Land Trust helped transfer into Mutsun hands a 90-acre easement on the Costanoa Lodge property just west of the Quiroste Preserve in the Whitehouse Creek watershed. As an easement, of course, the land is not “owned” by the Mutsun, but as Lopez said, “We don’t need to own the land to steward it,” and on this property they will be able to reinstitute tribal practices more directly than they are able to through partnerships. In 2015, Sempervirens asked the Amah Mutsun to participate in planning for a burn in San Vicente Redwoods, a tract of second-growth redwood forest west of Boulder Creek. “When we purchased these 8,500 acres with the Peninsula Open Space Trust in 2011, it was the largest parcel of private property in the Santa Cruz Mountains,” Laura McLendon told me. McLendon is Director of Land Conservation at Sempervirens. It was obvious to McLendon that fire would have to be part of the prescription for restoration of this heavily logged property. “It’s a landscape that’s hungry for fire,” she said. “Some of the plants there need fire to germinate or grow more robustly.” The area includes stands of oaks that may have been
Courtesy of Amah Mutsun Tribal Band; Courtesy of Bianca Vasquez
k e e p e r s o f t h e l a n g ua g e a n d l i f e ways When California became a state in 1850, the persecution of Native Californians intensified, in some places to the point of genocide, and many tribal people suppressed their identities simply to survive. Successive waves of displacement resulted in a significant loss of cultural knowledge for the Amah Mutsun, among others. As tribal people work to recover the practices of their ancestors, one significant source of information is the legacy of Ascencion Solorsano, the last fluent Mutsun speaker, born in 1855. “When she was about seven years old Ascension had a near-death experience,” Valentin Lopez told me. “She recovered and was recognized as a traditional healer.” Through the early 1900s, Solorsano revitalized Mutsun tribal identity and as an herbal healer ran a virtual hospital in her home. As a young woman she had had a dream that a strange man would come to her door and she should let him in. “In 1929, Ascencion was dying of pancreatic cancer, and John Peabody Harrington came to the door,” Lopez said. Harrington was a Smithsonian Institution ethnologist and linguist working to record the languages of California Indians before many of their last practitioners died. Solorsano recognized him as the stranger in her dream and let him in, spending much of her last months alive with him. The term “tireless” cannot do justice to Harrington’s efforts. He left more than one million pages of notes on California languages to
historically cultivated by Native Californians. “We went to Val Lopez and Rob Cuthrell and asked for their help in how to approach this,” she said. The resulting plan to burn 20 acres was thwarted by weather conditions in late 2015, but has been rescheduled for late fall 2016. “When we conduct a successful burn and quantify the benefits,” she told me, “we’ll help establish that this is an effective management tool.” In his expedition journal from Portola’s 1769 voyage, Padre Juan Crespi duly documented mind-boggling fields of wildflowers, not realizing that the expedition he accompanied would lead to the demise of these blooms. Fire ecologist Richard Minnich, a professor at UC Riverside, told me that we could restore great beauty as well as better ecological functioning by reinstating fire practices on the land. “The wildflowers Crespi saw are still there,” he said. “They are waiting for fire to revive their seed banks.” Ultimately the science plus the history plus the traditional ecological knowledge uncovered at Quiroste will cohere when the Amah Mutsun can burn the Find more online! Hear Ascension Solorsano tell a story in
Mutsun. Read about the traditional uses of native plants and Amah Mutsun stewardship partnerships. baynature.org/extra.
the Smithsonian; 67,500 of those pages document the languages and lifeways of Mutsun, Rumsen, and other Bay Area Native peoples. Harrington’s notes, written in a combination of English, Spanish, and native languages, are no easy road map, and years of work by academic researchers have already gone in to transcribing them. As that work continues today, tribal members who know or are learning the Mutsun language are helping translate the Mutsun sections. In the process they are learning tribal wisdom from Solorsano. Bianca Vasquez is a Mutsun tribal member in her mid-20s involved in the restoration work at Quiroste. She is interested not only in learning the Mutsun language, but in absorbing the botanical wisdom and practices Solorsano entrusted to Harrington. Vasquez told me she gets a sense of Solorsano’s personality from the notes, finding her “strong and serious. I have an image in my head of her cooking and sweeping while she’s talking to Harrington.” Vasquez finds the translation work powerful on deep levels. “I feel privileged to be part of it. I feel really connected to the tribe. I was raised by my grandfather, who was native but not able to live it proudly like he should have. I’m bringing it back for him.” Vasquez has been teaching her infant son numbers in both English and Mutsun. “Every morning I tell him, ‘I love you,’ in our language: ‘muySin-ka mes’ [pronounced “mooy-sheen-kaa-mess”]”.
landscape again. “Creator never rescinded our obligation to the Creation,” Valentin Lopez reminded me. He seemed to look off into the distance, and there was fire in his eyes. Mary Ellen Hannibal is an award-winning environmental journalist and author of The Spine of the Continent (2012). Her new book, Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction, will be published in August 2016. Thanks to Sempervirens Fund, Christensen Fund and Kalliopeia Foundation for their financial support, and to Lindsie Bear (Heyday) and Beverly Ortiz (East Bay Regional Park District) for their assistance. forum: restoring our relations with mother earth
Join the Amah Mutsun Land Trust, Sempervirens Fund, and Bay Nature at a program to learn more about traditional ecological knowledge and the work of the land trust. Mary Ellen Hannibal and Valentin Lopez will speak. Thursday, April 14, 6 p.m. at the David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley. More information at amahmutsun.org/land-trust
april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
35
36
w i t h j o h n m u i r l aws
w
riters, naturalists, and scientists in all disciplines use journals to preserve what they have seen, done, and thought in the course of their work. As a naturalist, educator, and artist, I have found that my journal is the most important tool I carry into the field with me; it is even more necessary than my binoculars. Sketching and writing as you explore is the most effective thing you can do to launch yourself in the process of discovery. Observing and journaling will slow you down and make you stop, sit down, look, and look again. How often do we take the time to be still, quiet, and attentive? Engaging in this process helps you organize your thoughts, piece together answers, and ask richer questions. Once you slow down and look long
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
enough to record observations in your journal, mysteries will unfold before you. At the core of all science are insatiable curiosity and deep observation, qualities that lead to the best kind of learning: learning motivated by your intrinsic wonder and hunger to understand. I draw and work in my nature journal for three reasons: to see, to remember, and to stimulate curiosity. These abilities will be reinforced for you, too, every time you sit down to journal—and you don’t have to be good at drawing. The benefit of journaling is not limited to what you produce on the page; it is, rather, found in your experience and how you think along the way.
deepening observation In any moment, it is possible to learn about your surroundings through observation. It is also easy to walk through the world caught up in your own thoughts and worries, looking without truly seeing. The difference between these two experiences is conscious, focused attention. Inspired by Kerry Ruef ’s Private Eye Project, I use three prompts—“I notice,” “I wonder,” and “It reminds me of ”—as the foundation of my practice because they lead to conscious attention.
i notice
Examine whatever you are looking at. Start by saying your observations out loud. Do not filter anything out: If you see it, say it. Look at structure, behavior, color, interactions. Change your perspective: look up close or far away and see what else you can observe. Pay attention to what surprises you. This gives you insight into ways that the world is different than you had thought.
• i n o t i c e
Start with objective observations. Note how this study incorporates scale (most of it is drawn life-size, and enlargements are noted) and multiple views of the seedpod structure.
• i w o n d e r
Keep track of your questions on the page as they come to you.
• i t r e m i n d s m e o f
Let your imagination and associative memory make connections.
i wonder
After observing your object, start to come up with questions about it and say those out loud, too. There is no need to worry about answering the questions yet. Just get them all out there.
it reminds me of
Last, say out loud everything that your object reminds you of. Say anything that comes to mind: the object may have jarred your memory, reminding you of an experience you’ve had or a piece of information you already know. Try looking at individual parts of the object, then back up and examine it as a whole.
38
projects When you walk outside with your journal, pick a project to focus your awareness. It will give you new lenses through which to look at the world. Use it as an invitation to inquiry and to launch your discoveries in nature.
make a collection
Pick a subject that interests you and collect examples that describe its range of variation in your journal. • c o l l e c t Collection of orange stains on
the chests of ducks. It may not be significant but was observed just before an outbreak of avian cholera in the pond. Was it related?
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
ob s e rv e c h a ng e s ov e r t i m e
Find an interesting subject and follow its progression over a period of minutes, hours, days, or weeks. Record the changes that you observe, make note of when they occur, and wonder about what might have caused the changes.
make a map
Make a map view of a landform feature or part of the landscape. You can create a map of a large area or of a small feature. This process will lead you to look at the geography of a place and it might reveal patterns you would otherwise overlook. • how to draw
When I put pencil to paper, I block in the basic shape of the subject with light, loose lines. These will not be the lines that form the shape on my final drawing. Instead, in an uncommitted framework, they show the posture, proportions, angles, and basic shapes that make up the subject. When I am ready, I can emphasize the lines that most accurately represent what I see.
• g u i d e l i n e s
Draw over the guidelines to create volume, texture, and detail. Then focus on a small area, knowing that it will fit proportionally into the framework.
tips Journal selection is a very personal choice. That said, I use the Canson Basic Sketchbook for most of my work. It is inexpensive and the texture of the 65-pound paper is perfect for pencil and light washes. Everyone’s favorite supplies are different. Some of the tools that I reach for most often in the field are non-photo-blue pencil; mechanical, water-soluble, and colored pencils; watercolor pencils; kneaded eraser; and rolled-paper blending tool.
*
Excerpted from The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws published by Heyday in spring 2016. heydaybooks.com
april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
39
40
Meet Our Local Heroes E nv ironmental E ducation Award:
Allen Fish
burly, bearded, biologist, birder—there are a lot of alliterative ways of describing Allen Fish. Here’s another: bubbly. He’s just so effervescent, a magnum of champagne charged with delight, ready to overflow with stories about hawks and falcons, about ecosystems and people. More than should be possible for a biologist in sensible clothing, he twinkles and fizzes. No one is more surprised about this than Fish. “I had never seen myself as a volunteer coordinator or even as liking people,” he says. And yet for the last 30 years, he has been, professionally speaking, as much a people person as a bird person. As director of the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, Fish oversees a staff of
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
three and wrangles some 300 volunteers, citizen scientists who spend a staggering 50,000 hours a year watching the skies and counting raptors migrating over the Marin Headlands every fall. (Does Fish speak admiringly of the volunteers? He does, constantly. But there are space constraints. If you are a volunteer and do not see your name here, it is not Fish’s fault.) When he is not praising volunteers, Fish is in a classroom telling children about the wonder of raptors. And when he is not doing that, Fish cheerfully meets a reporter and a photographer out of season on top of Hawk Hill. In clear air under a steel-wool sky, Fish gestures toward a column of sunlight hitting the Golden Gate Bridge; the towers are 200 feet shorter than the hill on which we stand. So how did Allen Fish end up with a job that has, with the possible exception of being an astronaut, the best view? “I did everything my dad told me not to do,” Fish says. “I grew up in the South Bay down near Redwood City and had family who were hunters and fisherman and native plant botanists—but no one got paid to do it. I forgot to read the small print. I went to UC Davis to do environmental law. But birds were a lot more interesting than people, so I got a degree in zoology. It was 1985. The Park Service had just been experimenting with bringing in volunteers to learn how to trap and band birds of prey, and I was invited to come in and be the first paid director and coordinator of this program.” But what kept him in the job, Fish says, was the dedication of the volunteers in all sorts of weather, the way they’d bring their kids back year after year. As an example, he points to a concrete platform, part of the military emplacement that used to be on Hawk Hill. On this platform, a volunteer had stuck strips of colored tape the length of the
Andrea Laue, sparebeauty.com
Bay Nature’s Local Hero Awards are awarded annually to three individuals selected by the board and staff of Bay Nature Institute for their outstanding work on behalf of the natural world of the San Francisco Bay Area. The 2016 awards were presented to the people who appear on the following pages at Bay Nature’s annual Local Hero Awards dinner on Sunday, March 20.
and learning about birds. The record of that count, made by the volunteers on Hawk Hill, is something Fish sees as a legacy to pass down to future scientists. “It’s a huge privilege to have gotten to stay in one place for 30 years and watch the changing natural cycles and be able to measure the raptor migration. I have no doubt that in 100 years, the hawk counts that we’re doing here will be critical information for understanding bird changes but also climate changes and wildlife response to climate.” That future data, though, will only be useful if there’s a next generation of biologists to use it and a public that cares about conservation. Fish says he thinks about this a lot as he speaks to civic groups, classrooms of schoolchildren, and his own kids. “I feel like the missing piece is—‘environmental education’ sounds so boring; maybe if we called it environmental ecstasy,” Fish says. “It’s funny, both my kids, we’d go on car trips and I’d give them 25 cents for every bird they could name and now they’re just like, ‘God, Dad, shut the heck up.’ And I’ve learned to shut up because I don’t want them to rebel against it, but I have this secret hope that one day they’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, those days when we’d sit up on the platform and Dad would give us a jelly bean for every bird we spotted, that was pretty fun.’” — by Brendan Buhler
Conser vation Action Award:
Andrea Mackenzie
Andrea Laue, sparebeauty.com
wingspans of birds that might be spotted from here. “Somewhere along the line I realized that environmental education was happening here at a really deep level,” Fish says. “Instead of me bringing you here and saying, ‘Here’s the raptor migration’ and giving you an hour-long talk, you would come up here and spend eight hours a day for ten days during the migration season actually doing the work yourself. “Many of us talk about birds of prey as the gateway drug to bird-watching because people get excited about hawks in a way that’s harder with songbirds and woodpeckers—some woodpeckers, anyway. And a lot of people think of bird-watching as the gateway drug to environmental thinking. If you’re out there looking at birds and thinking birds are important, at some point you’re going to stop and wonder, what do birds need?” People are fascinated by raptors, Fish says; it’s as if the birds fill a hole deep in their brains. “Think back a few million years. We’re in early hominid form. What does a flock of vultures mean? It means that there’s probably a good, big carcass around and that we, as easily as the vultures, could go and partake of that food. Let’s say there’s two or three eagles in the sky… just the fact that they’re there means there’s prey available for those eagles to survive. That would mean to you or me that ‘hey, there’s ground squirrels to trap.’ I’m a big believer that we still have those primitive senses, however much we think we’re past them; evolution is pretty darn slow.” The most important view from Hawk Hill is to the north over the crenulated landscape stretching toward Mount Tam. There, Fish says, is where you’ll see raptors as they migrate southward in the fall and maybe stop for a little snack, but, he asks, how does a raptor read the landscape when looking for lunch? Well, in the 1990s, Finnish researchers figured out that some raptors can see in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. “I don’t know if you have puppies or kittens, but in order to see where they’ve peed in your house you go buy a black light and you look for stains. Suddenly, these biologists show us that raptors can see in the ultraviolet light range. It says, ‘Wow, they’re not just looking for mice—they’re looking for mouse urine,’” Fish says. “It says to them that there’s lots of prey here: ‘Come over and hang out and stay a week.’ That’s so cool. We get so locked into our own sensory abilities. Raptors see a whole different world.” Of course, on Hawk Hill, Fish and his volunteers are not only counting birds, they’re also trapping them, banding them, and sometimes attaching radio transceivers to them, all in the hope of tracking raptor migration along the West Coast. They say you never forget your first time, and for Fish that came before he was ten. “I had a deep bond with a great horned owl at the old Coyote Point Museum, which is now called CuriOdyssey. There used to be a great horned owl there named—sorry—Hooter,” Fish says. “I still, to this day, have somewhere in my collection of stuff a picture I snapped of Hooter in 1967, when I was six-or-so years old. And Hooter was my love, my first affection.” That affection set him up for a life of watching, counting,
it’s mid-afternoon on a blustery day and, taking advantage of a break in the rains, Andrea Mackenzie meets me for a hike at the Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve, a half-mile south of the San Jose city border. Just off busy Highway 101, a small, bumpy road heads west past farm fields until it abruptly ends at the hilly, oak-studded preserve. Mackenzie rolls up in a silver C-Max hybrid, gets out and, april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
41
42
Andrea Laue, sparebeauty.com
waving hello, walks over to a fallen sign and rights it, then re-secures the yellow caution tape cordoning off an equestrian lot that needs some work. She also notices work that needs doing on the trails that fork out from the parking lot. Mackenzie, the general manager of the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, won’t be doing the manual labor, but she seems perfectly capable of it. Plucky and compact, with short, dark hair and an even smile, she’s as comfortable in her hiking boots as she is in a suit, and she even admits during our conversation that despite all her collaborations over the years, at her core she’s a “do-it-myselfer.” As we strike out into the hills, she explains why the open space authority’s newest preserve, the result of a decade-long effort, is so special. Coyote Valley is a natural bridge between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range, and it provides a boundary to sprawling San Jose. I get the feeling that she could pretty much be anywhere and find an open space cause. It’s that much in her DNA. Santa Clara is the latest stopover in a 25-year career with Bay Area parks and open space agencies, where she’s been a thought leader in policy arenas ranging from tax funding measures to innovative legal agreements with landowners. The result has been tens of thousands of acres of newly preserved open space. As the general manager of Sonoma County’s open space district, Mackenzie expanded the portfolio of preserved lands by 50,000 acres. A native Angeleno, she grew up on the edge of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area with plenty of exposure to nature. Nowadays, she lives in San Jose with her partner, Jenni Martin, and daughter, Kiana, 13, as well as their dog, Zeke. I ask her how she got started in open space work. “Well, it’s funny. When I was growing up all I wanted was to be a National Park ranger. I applied to work in big national parks like Glacier and Yellowstone but never got the call. When I finally got a chance to work as a ranger it was on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.” “Not your dream spot, huh?” I say. “Well, I didn’t think so at first, but something magical happened. I started working in one of the largest urban national park systems in the United States, in the middle of a world-class city. You could really see how important nature was both to the residents and visitors. So, in some ways that was the start of it.” It was one of her early mentors, Bob Walker, an activist and photographer for the East Bay Regional Park District, who inspired Mackenzie to breathe in the incalculable value of undeveloped lands. At the time a young planner for the park b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
(above) Mackenzie walks through Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve. (opposite page) Student volunteers plant natives along Putah Creek.
district, Mackenzie turned her attention to the likes of Morgan Territory in Livermore. As we cross through a cattle gate, I’m reminded that places like Coyote Valley have many uses beyond preserving space for the wild. “Our mission, first and foremost, is protection of natural resources,” she reassures. “When you buy a property like this, it could already have been in agricultural use, so what is the context that the property is in? Is there room to have some traditional agricultural uses without harming biodiversity? In fact, we have an active grazing program here. So, we look at agricultural uses as tools to manage the natural resources on a property: fire prevention, fire management, and invasive species control.” As we hike uphill, a view opens up of the green meadow below. The oaks are still skeletal, though, waiting for the lengthening light of spring. It’s a classic California landscape, but one that leaders in the open space acquisition world such as Mackenzie spend less time in than they’d like. Desk work and meetings chew up much of their days. “That’s part of the gig, right?” she says. She concedes she’s most comfortable when her “boots are in the dirt,” and she spends time off relishing her favorite spots— Crissy Field, Mount Tam, Morgan Territory, Rancho Cañada del Oro—and taking backpacking trips with old friends to the eastern side of the Sierras. Her guilty pleasures: chocolate and consuming “mass quantities of national political news.” On the clock, she clearly enjoys taking on the “big picture.“ “What I do best is thinking about how it all fits together,” she says. “I look at a landscape and say, ‘Who’s this benefiting? Whom do we need to bring to the table to protect this place? What resources do we need?’ As the land base shrinks in the Bay Area… we need to convince more and more people who aren’t necessarily trained in conservation about why places like Coyote Valley matter.” “Broadening the tent” and advancing conservation’s popular appeal is one of her trademark skills. “Even though I have a
passion for open space because it’s really priceless,” she says, “you also have to think about open space for the economic benefits it provides, to offer a competing view of the land to somebody who wants to develop it.” In 2014 she helped launch the first-ever economic valuation of undeveloped lands in Santa Clara County and found they offered $386 billion in services, such as groundwater recharge, flood control, and recreation. She took that argument to the voters later in the year to pass Measure Q , a ballot initiative providing $120 million in open space funding for the county through a parcel tax. The outcome was heartening. “People don’t know that the majority of our votes came from the residents of San Jose and actually in the poorest neighborhoods. It’s a statement of an aspirational desire for open space and healthy communities. We have thousands of residents in this
valley, many of them children, who will never get to Yosemite or Lake Tahoe or even the Santa Cruz shoreline—but they might get to Coyote Valley, and they might see a bobcat or a golden eagle.” We wind past a stand of fragrant bay laurels, and I ask her what her biggest challenge is. “It’s pushing the rock uphill,” she says. “It’s incremental successes…it’s getting decision makers and the public to understand the importance of open space, that it’s essential infrastructure for our communities, like schools and roads and bridges… But I feel so fortunate that I have a career that’s my passion,” she reflects. “The decisions we make over the next decade will have huge ramifications for the planet and the next generation. So we need bold thinking, we need innovative thinking, we need outside-the-box thinking. We like to say in our office, ‘Go big or go home.’” — by Alison Hawkes
Youth E ngagement Award:
years. Moed’s high cheekbones, clear almond eyes, and ears that jut out below his kippah cap reflect his youth, but in word, deed, and thought, this 21-year-old has an understanding of the natural world and how to engage others in its protection that bespeaks maturity beyond his years. We have just descended a set of steps, leading to a creek bank, that Moed tells me were constructed by a group of volunteers he organized last summer during his internship with the reserve. In the past, he says, the reserve, the UC Davis Putah Creek Council, and the Solano County Water Agency worked on separate projects here. But for this one, Moed brought together interns and volunteers from all three organizations, and they (continued on page 44) completed the stairway in an hour.
Naftali Moed
Andrea Laue, sparebeauty.com (2)
a large ripple moving upstream in Putah Creek stops Naftali Moed mid-sentence. Moed, a senior at UC Davis majoring in environmental policy analysis and planning, wants to identify the cause of the wake. “Might be an otter,” he says. “We have otters and beavers and muskrats.” On a damp December day, Moed is giving me a tour of the UC Davis Putah Creek Riparian Reserve, a 640-acre section of creek, riparian woodland, public trail, and adjacent grasslands where he has been organizing restoration projects for several
april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
43
44
It wasn’t Moed’s first time organizing a stewardship project. “One of the things that Judaism emphasizes that resonates with me is tikkun olam, which translates roughly to ‘repairing the world,’” he says. “Given my interest in nature and love for spending time outside, this is how I engage in that.” He’s been at it for years. As a student at Oceana High School in Pacifica he volunteered and interned with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and helped start a school garden after several volunteer trips to Pie Ranch in Pescadero. “I love having a physical connection to land. I learn a lot in the classroom, but I learn the most out here where I can watch things unfold,” he says. When Moed first came to UC Davis three years ago, the bank on which we’re standing was as barren as a beach. Wild rice cutgrass had tried to take hold but was trampled by people and dogs. It was unfortunate, because cutgrass is fantastic cover and habitat for salmon, a biologist told Moed. “One of [the] main drivers behind restoration on this creek is to get the salmon back,” Moed says. “Over the past 30 years that [UC Davis fish biologist] Peter Moyle has been tracking it, [the creek] has averaged 15 to 30 chinook a year. Last year we had over
200. This year, I think the latest number is 500 individuals in the run, which is an amazing success. The stuff that I’ve worked on has certainly helped, but it’s really Peter Moyle and all these folks who have been doing this work for years. Now the salmon are coming back.” Moed, as a sophomore, asked the biologist if a stand of alders might serve as a low-cost barrier to minimize the foot traffic and give the cutgrass a chance to grow. The answer was yes, and Moed swung into action. To get the alders planted, Moed engaged Wild Campus, a conservation group he had joined in his freshman year and for which he served as vice president and president in subsequent years. He mobilized about 50 volunteers to plant 20 alders donated by the Putah Creek Council. Half of those trees have survived and are now 20 feet tall. As Moed and I admire a healthy swath of cutgrass at the water’s edge, he explains that his moms (he was raised by two lesbian mothers) encouraged him to spend time outside. “I remember going hiking and camping when I was little, and the summer camps I went to . . .” That’s when he pauses to watch the ripple. We both expect to see an otter’s head pop up, but instead we
“Nothing is sustainable in the long run if you don’t bring in different people and groups.”
THE BRILLIANT NEW GUIDE FROM NATURALIST AND ARTIST
JOHN MUIR LAWS
Your Local Solution to the Drought Visit our spacious nursery yard, where we offer a large selection of native plant species, pottery and planting supplies
BAY NATURE READERS
Visit www.heydaybooks.com and use discount code LAWS30 for 30% off any Laws book or guide
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
10 Cargo Way San Francisco, CA 94124 (415) 287-6755 www.baynatives.com
let them spawn in peace. “In outreach and engagement,” he says, “you send emails, talk to a bunch of random people, meet people you otherwise wouldn’t meet and share stuff with them, and then try to bring those people together to get the greatest amount done. It’s also a positive outcome to bring 20 people out here for a walk. Even if nothing physical has been accomplished, hopefully there are 20 fewer people who will set things on fire, tear up the trails with an ATV, hunt illegally, or disturb the spawning salmon. “I hate the idea of a silver bullet solution, because there generally isn’t one,” he says, stopping to remove several large branches blocking the trail. “It’s like climate change. If you base your understanding of climate change on what’s reported in mainstream news, the narrative would be ‘huge problem, no solution.’” But if you take the time to look at things, you’ll see that there’s a huge array of many different problems and a huge array of infinitely small solutions.” After graduating this year, Moed plans to work, possibly with land trusts, before heading to graduate school. At the end of the gravel road, we say good-bye, and he mounts his bike for the ride back to campus. — by Aleta George
Nothing added... Nothing missing
Photo ©David Harper
Find more online! Check out photos from Bay Nature’s Local Hero Awards dinner. Visit baynature.org/extra.
Ferruginous Hawk, DARK MORPH
see a fin. “It’s a chinook salmon,” he says. “It’s huge!” I say, guessing it to be about 30 inches long. We watch the fish swimming upstream until it’s out of sight and set out after it. “There wasn’t one experience or one person that set me on this path,” he continues. “It was a combination of everyone and everything,” he says. “It’s sort of like the alders. Wild Campus got the people out there, and Putah Creek Council donated the trees. Nothing is sustainable in the long run if you don’t bring in different people and groups.” “I could probably have planted four times as many trees,” Moed says. “But I thought it would be a lot more valuable to bring more people into the work and help raise the level of awareness of the creek by talking to people. I never turn down the opportunity to talk to somebody… You might talk to someone and get them to volunteer, and then they switch majors, and six years later you read about them as the new director for the conservancy. That’s the mentality I have.” At our last stop on the creek we see more salmon. A battered old fish with fissures on its back and several smaller ones swim in the pool. Two hundred feet downstream, two salmon are flapping their bodies to create a redd (gravel nest) and seem to be spawning. I am tempted to get a closer look, but Moed artfully steers me back to the main trail to
“Moons have phases; hawks have morphs.”
-WS Clark, author, Peterson Guide to Hawks
GOLD
®
COME VOLUNTEER! with Golden Gate Raptor Observatory (and learn your morphs!)
Vegan friendly & gluten free!
VOLUNTEER INFO MEETINGS
Share a glass of award-winning wine from America’s first organic winery. Or give a gift of Organic Wine Club membership!
May 4th, 5th, and 7th: Ft. Mason, San Francisco Count or band hawks one day every two weeks August through December. Training provided. Must be able to walk on steep gravelly hills. Details: (415) 331-0730 or www.ggro.org
Always family-owned & operated Since 1980
F R E Y V I N E YA R D S 800.760.3739 FreyWine.com/near-you
The Golden Gate Raptor Observatory is a program of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in cooperation with the National Park Service.
april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
45
“I am glad I will not be young in a future without wilderness.”
- Aldo Leopold
You live in an amazing place. Help us protect it for you, wildlife & future generations!
Lyngso Vegetable Blend, Nursery Mix, Potting Mix, Organic Essential Soil Landscape Mix, Light Weight Roof Top Mixes, Bio Swale Mixes, Diestel Structured Compost OMRI, Garden Compost OMRI, Arbor Mulch, Fir Bark, Mocha Chip, Ground Redwood Bark, Actively Aerated Compost Tea, Mycorrhizal Fungi, Down to Earth & Dr Earth Organic Fertilizers, Eco Nutrients Fish & Seaweed Liquid Fertilizer 345 Shoreway Road, San Carlos Mon – Sat: 7 to 5, Sun: 8 to 4
www.lyngsogarden.com 650.364.1730
We’ve moved! Visit us at 345 Shoreway Road, San Carlos
TriValleyConservancy.org
HAVE YOU SEEN ME?
Beryl Anderson
BayNature_AprJunAd.indd 1
46
ros e u q a V s Lo ir!
1/27/2016 4:04:31 PM
Reservo
Fishing • Boating • Hiking • Interpretive Center Los Vaqueros Marina 9990 Los Vaqueros Road, Byron, CA Open 7 days a week, dawn to dusk 925-371-2628
John Muir Interpretive Center
Report your sighting. Let’s save burrowing owls!
19 Walnut Blvd., Brentwood, CA Saturdays and Sundays 9:00 am–4:00 pm 925-240-2440
Tom STienSTra, ouTdoorS, San FranciSco chronicle.
For the latest activity schedule, email osymonds@ccwater.com. For more information, visit www.ccwater.com/losvaqueros/ or call
urbanbird.org b ay n at u r e
“ Los Vaqueros has become the Bay Area’s No. 1 fishing lake … with a rich aquatic food chain and high fish populations.”
april–june 2016
925-688-8010
Find us on Facebook at “Los Vaqueros Reservoir.”
th e grou n d
much as five feet in California by the end of the century, erasing nearly all of the Bay’s tidal wetlands if nothing is done soon to make them more resilient. Restoration managers want to develop a suite of transition habitats from subtidal areas to upland slopes that would allow wetlands to migrate inland. (This issue’s “Oro Loma: Can Wastewater Save the Bay from Sea Level Rise?” on page 12 outlines one such project.) “You’re not going to put [the Bay] back to the way it was historically,” Huning says. “But you’re going to see some designs that mimic natural systems even if they don’t replicate them.” And that calls for some new ways of planning wetlands—and enough funding to implement them. [Alison Hawkes]
to
and as long as we restore sooner rather than later we will have that buffer in place,” says Beth Huning, the coordinator for the San Francisco Bay Joint Venture, an advisory group for the Restoration Authority. If Bay Area voters pass the ballot measure, they could expect to see progress on a list of nearly 100 projects from Sonoma in the north, east into Suisun Bay, and south to Alviso. In addition to wetlands restoration, the money could be used to fund clean water projects and pollution prevention programs, as well as improve public access to the Bay shore. Huning says among the first “ready-to-go” projects is the expansion of the South Bay salt ponds project, already the largest wetland restoration on the West Coast, into new areas. And in the North Bay, work could start on the Bel Marin Keys wetlands in Novato using dredged sediment to raise the elevation of the shoreline and construct a levee to stem flooding. Sea levels are expected to rise by as
ear
employers in the Bay Area. Last spring, the council released a report showing that the cost of an extreme storm along the San Francisco Bay would include at least $10.4 billion in damages to buildings and infrastructure and closures in air and road transportation. “Which puts it on par with the Loma Prieta earthquake,” says Bay Area Council policy director Adrian Covert. “We’ve done a lot to prepare for an earthquake but not for flooding.” Bay Area businesses are concerned that this region could someday see a storm equivalent to Hurricane Sandy or Katrina, with the impact exacerbated by rising sea level. Healthier and more expansive wetlands along the Bay could alleviate the impacts of storm surges. An acre of wetland can, like a sponge, hold hundreds of thousands of gallons of water that would otherwise threaten shoreline communities. “Wetlands are a good natural buffer to extreme storms and sea level rise, (continued from page 6)
Is That a Drone in My Park?
The Bay Area may be the hub of the world’s burgeoning drone industry, but finding a spot to fly one these days is—thankfully for wildlife and parkgoers—getting harder. (continued on page 48)
The Perfect Place to Log off, Unplug, and Discover the Pace of Nature
Costanoa Lodge and Camp
Green Certified Lodging • RV and Camping Endless hiking and biking trails On-site Spa • Cascade Restaurant Open 7 days a week For reservations call 877-262-7848 • www.costanoa.com 2001 Rossi Road at Hwy 1 • Pescadero, CA 94060 25 minutes north of Santa Cruz off Highway 1
Weekday Special
1 night in a Family Bungalow, Lighthouse Bungalow, or Pine Village Bungalow, 1 bundle of firewood, a deck of Costanoa playing cards, 2 glow sticks, and a S'mores kit with all of the makings for the perfect S'mores! Family Bungalow- $168 Pine Village Bungalow- $102 Sunday-Thursday only. Valid through June 30th 2016
april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
47
to th e grou n d
Bike Rental Packages
SPIN
Gabriel Garcia Marengo
ear 48
A growing number of parks and open space agencies are developing policies to address the use of drones, with many opting to ban or restrict recreational drones because of the dangers they pose to wildlife and public safety, not to mention being a public nuisance. The latest agency to nix “unmanned aerial vehicles” is the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, which developed the policy late last year for its 16,000 acres of preserves. SCVOSA manages lands in the heart of gadgetloving Silicon Valley, but general manager Andrea Mackenzie says that is all the more reason to keep drones out (although you can obtain a permit to fly one under certain circumstances). “People come to [our preserves] for a respite from the fast-paced lives they lead in Silicon Valley,” Mackenzie says. “So to introduce certain types of technology into that environment can be a problem.” The authority had been considering a no-drone policy for some time but was (continued from page 47)
spurred on by two separate incidents last summer in which solo female hikers at Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve near San Jose were followed at close range by drones. “This was creepy,” says SCVOSA field operations supervisor Derek Neumann, “and wasn’t something we wanted out on our preserves.” Neumann says he never did find out more details, nor does he know if the incidents were related. Currently, recreational drones can travel at a range of a half mile, making it difficult for park officials to find the operators and enforce the law. The East Bay Regional Park District, where drones fall under its
California Native Grasses, Wild�lowers, Forbs & Wetland Species
Pepperwood is a leader in advancing the health of Northern California’s land, water and wildlife. We offer environmental education programs for all ages. Hikes | Lectures | Classes www.pepperwoodpreserve.org (707) 591-9310
WilliamsGeoAdventures
Dolo-Slovo Rocks!
Geology Field Trip • June 21-30, 2016 Julian Alps | Lake Bled | Škocjan Caves Trieste | Carso (Karst) | Dolomites
709 Main Street St. Helena, California
@CLIFFAMILY CLIFFAMILY.COM
Wine Tasting, Wines by the Glass Espresso Drinks
SIP
Wholesale Seed to the Restoration & Revegetation Industries
California North Coast Geology Field Trip • Sep.16-18, 2016
Dine from the Clif Family Bruschetteria Food Truck
SAVOR b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
www.pcseed.com
Special Collections Available info@pcseed.com
Bodega Head | Mammoth Rock | Fort Ross Anchor Bay | Bowling Ball Beach | Pt Arena
Group & Private Geology Field Trips Thomas R. Williams, P.G. (707) 953-6979
www.geology-adventures.com
NIA
BO
T NI
U
N t
Y BE RKELE
University of California
spring plant sale
MEMBERS
Friday, April 29 5:00 – 7:30 pm
PUBLIC
Saturday, April 30 10 am – 2 pm
Salvia sonomanensis
grou n d
2016
acknowledge that the devices could revolutionize ecology and save the scientists observing wildlife from dying in aviation crashes, a notable killer of wildlife biologists in the field. But scientific use by experts and officials is a far cry from public recreational use. In 2014, the National Park Service became one of the first park agencies to ban drones. There have been several high-profile problems in national parks, including drone crashes in Yellowstone, one into a geologically sensitive hot spring. Locally, two Marin County men, part of a commercial aerial photography crew, were cited and fined for flying a remote-controlled helicopter with a six-foot wingspan around Alcatraz Island, flushing shorebirds from their nests and swooping low over a tourist ferry dock. Alcatraz appears to be popular among drone users. Just in the last year two drones crashed over Alcatraz, one into a tree over a heavily used path and another over the parade grounds closed at the time to protect nesting (continued on page 50)
th e
BOTANICAL GARDEN
510-643-2755 | botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 200 Centennial Drive | Berkeley, CA 94720
long-standing general ban against off-road motorized devices, has seen a steady uptick in reports of drones in the last few years but has yet to issue a citation, “apparently because it’s impossible to find the drone operators,” says EBRPD spokeswoman Carolyn Jones. She does hear from drone operators, though. “I’ve gotten a lot of calls from mad drone owners. People say we don’t have the right to have a law like that, when actually we do,” Jones says. California State Parks is in the midst of developing a statewide policy on recreational drones and in the meantime has given its park superintendents latitude to restrict their use if the situation warrants it. Recreational drones are so new, in fact, that there hasn’t been a lot of published research on their effects on wildlife, although one study released last year showed that even the heart rate of a hibernating black bear rose when a drone approached. Opponents of recreational drones
to
a
E
N
IV
CAL GARD
ERSITY o f
C
FOR
ear
LI
A
A
DRIVE SMART BAY AREA
Better for Your Budget, Better for the Air! Watch an informative cartoon at:
511.org/DriveSmartBayArea Private waterfront cottages overlooking Tomales Bay. The perfect place from which to do everything, or to do nothing at all. For Information & Reservations dancingcoyotebeach.com (415) 669-7200
Save 50%
on a Smart Driving Assistant
Dancing Coyote Beach Guest Cottages
Brought to you by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
49
ear to th e grou n d 50
birds, says Alexandra Picavet, a spokeswoman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Mostly, though, people are testing out their devices on popular national park beaches like Crissy Field, Fort Mason, and Baker Beach, she says. “I think most people don’t know they are on federal land. They literally crossed the road and didn’t know they couldn’t fly a drone,” she says. “We’re really working to educate people.” A lack of awareness can be a problem even in places where drones are permitted, such as many city parks. It can be hard to know whether a bird is in a tree, says Cindy Margulis, executive director of Golden Gate Audubon. She says raptors tend to see drones as rivals or predators and attack the things, wasting energy or potentially getting injured. Smaller birds might leave the nest, making their young vulnerable to predators or temperature extremes. Or a bird might change position, revealing its location to a predator like a crow, says (continued from page 49)
Margulis. “I understand why people are so interested in doing this, the fact that you can launch a camera on these things,” she says. “I get the temptation of it but I’m particularly worried about it during spring nesting season.” With park police stretched thin, the public can help be the eyes and ears for the parks. If you see someone disturbing wildlife, take pictures and call 1-888-3342258, a confidential 24-hour hotline answered by state fish and wildlife officials. “Put that number on speed dial,” Margulis says. [Alison Hawkes] Campsites Opening on Private Land in the Bay Area
Want to go camping close to the Bay Area, but all the parks are booked? There is, as they say, a website for that. HipCamp, a company founded in 2013 to improve the reservation process for public parks nationwide, is now facilitating camping on private land—opening up more than 200 new places in California for overnight outdoor trips, HipCamp
Support California sea otter research and conservation programs. Make a tax-deductible donation on line 410 of your state income tax return, or ask your tax preparer to do it. Learn more at www.wildlife.ca.gov/Tax-Donation or www.seaotters.org.
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
th e grou n d
Juliana Linder
to
new places to stay, while ranchers, farmers and land trusts looking for financial help to hold on to their land make extra money. The landowners list the property with HipCamp and control their own pricing and availability; it’s more or less VRBO for outdoor camping. “All these different landowners have this desire to share their land with the community and also make some revenue and offset the cost of owning the land,” Ravasio says. HipCamp requires that landowners supply a toilet. Aside from that, the
listed sites vary widely in activities, accommodations, and amenities. “This really is about empowering local people to access nature, all around them,” Ravasio says. The idea to start adding private lands to HipCamp came from a landowner in Big Sur who thought additional revenue from campers could help him stave off development. “He was trying to figure out how to hold on to his land,” Ravasio recalls. “Property taxes were enough [that] he was having a hard time, and he didn’t want to subdivide it because he knows the animals that live on the land, and he thought camping could be a way to keep the land the way it is.” Ravasio describes supporting private land stewardship as the “next frontier” for conservation. “You’ve got people who want to get into nature, and you’ve got people who own land,” she notes. “It seems like we can help those people meet each other and create something really powerful for the world.” [Eric Simons]
ear
founder Alyssa Ravasio says. Areas nearby that a longtime resident might have learned to consider not campable due to the absence of public parks—or just the impossibility of getting reservations at the few existing sites—are now available. You can stay in a tepee with a 270-degree ocean view on a horse ranch overlooking the Pigeon Point Lighthouse in Pescadero. Pitch your tent in a vineyard in Napa or in an olive grove on a farm near Lake Berryessa. Or take a group to a secluded redwood grove on Salmon Creek in Sonoma. Or sleep in a yurt on a private farm on the Garcia River near Point Arena, upstream from the new Stornetta Public Lands California Coastal National Monument. The theory, Ravasio says, is that connecting campers and private landowners is win-win: campers find
Support California Wildlife Officers Buy a 2016 Warden Stamp today. Just $5! SUPPORT CALIFORNIA WILDLIFE OFFICERS
ww w.w ildlif e.ca.gov
2016
Funds support CDFW’s K-9 program and provide equipment and training to help our Wardens stop wildlife crimes and protect endangered species.
www.wildlife.ca.gov/Warden-Stamp april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
51
52
m a r k e t p l a c e
The Store for Nature Lovers Come visit us!
792 Blossom Hill Rd. Los Gatos, CA 95032 (corner of Los Gatos Blvd)
408.358.9453 losgatosbirdwatcher.com American Robin © Brooke Miller
AVOCET RESEARCH ASSOCIATES wildlife biology Threatened and Endangered Species Habitat Assessment Wetland Monitoring
please see our website
www.mrsdalloways.com College Ave, Berkeley
.. SUN 12-5PM / M–W 10AM-6PM / TH–SAT 10AM-8PM
Birdfeeding Supplies & Binoculars Off Hwy 101 in Novato (415) 893-0500 wbu.com/marin
LIVE OAK LANDSCAPE Construction & Design
USFWS TE 786728-4 CDFW #801092-04
Neil Collier • Lic. 593492 LiveOakLandscaping.com Berkeley • (510) 527-9445
P.O. Box 839, Point Reyes Station, CA 95956 415-663-8032 avocetra@gmail.com
California Flora Nursery
Listening to Gaia
excursions with Claire Peaslee embodiment • nature lore laughter • reverence • renewal day journeys • small groups connection with the living world
Growing California Natives since 1981
Just North of Santa Rosa at Somers & D St, Fulton
coastliveoak@gmail.com www.listening-to-gaia.net
707-528-8813 CalFloraNursery.com
Specializing in California Native Plants and Habitat Restoration Services
The Watershed Nursery
601 A Canal Blvd., Pt. Richmond www.thewatershednursery.com
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
suppo rt f or bay natur e The Bay Nature Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes exploration and stewardship of the natural world of the San Francisco Bay Area. Through tax-deductible contributions, the Friends of Bay Nature support this independent voice for local nature and conservation. The Friends listed below are individuals whose donations were received between December 4, 2015 and March 4, 2016. Donors of $500 or more become members of the Publisher’s Circle and receive invitations to special events and outings. Friends of Bay Nature Karen Larson $5,000 + Anonymous Christopher & Kathryn Dann Bart & Nancy Westcott $2,500–4,999 Anonymous Paul Epstein & Jennifer Traub Tracy Grubbs & Richard Taylor Jane & Richard Peattie $1,000–2,499 Daniel Alegria Gertrude Allen Marice Ashe & Larry Orman Louis Berlot & Joyce Cutler Nina Brooks Jon Christensen Meg Conkey & Les Rowntree Thomas Debley Catherine Fox Bruce & Leslianne Lee Hartsough Hufty Foundation Louis Jaffe & Kitty Whitman Virginia Loeb Frances & John Raeside Sue Rosenthal John Waterbury $500 – 999 Anonymous (2) Valerie Barth & Peter Wiley Avis Boutell & Alice Miller Loretta Brooks & Chuck Heimstadt Phyllis Browning Helen Cagampang Kathleen Cahill & Anthony Chorosevic Hortensia Chang & John Nelson George & Sheri Clyde Thomas Crane & Deidre Harrison Carol Donohoe Lorraine Grace Rita Haberlin Karen & Robert Jachens Carolyn Johnson & Rick Theis Dorothy Kakimoto Jerry & Lola Kent Kimberly & Matthew Krummel Doug Lipton Barbara Moulton David Porter Sara Sanderson & Eric Weaver Bob & Brenda Schildgen Virginia Slaughter Max Stoaks Christopher & Livia Stone David Wimpfheimer $250 – 499 Anonymous Jeannette Alexich & Bruce Harris Carlene & Stephen Abbors Julie Barney Mary Burns Kate & Peter Daly Nona Dennis Herbert & Jane Dwight Barbara Ertter Cheryl & Tom Fields-Tyler Linda Gass & Rob Steiner Elizabeth Fishel & Bob Houghteling Eric Jaye & Jeannene Przyblyski Paul Jones Michael & Philip Landon
Teresa O’Neill David Loeb Patti Papeleux & Michael David Parks & Maggie Sharp Vasey Don & Mary Savant Claire Peaslee Scott Van Tyle Penny Pollock Rosendo Pont $100 – 249 Merna Richardson & Larry Anonymous (5) Wright Craig Anderson & Lee Amy Risch Hackeling Lennie Roberts Alan & Helen Appleford Wayne Rodoni Scott Atthowe & Patricia Loria Rolander Thomas Anaya Rose & Gary Stroud Clara & Joseph Barbaccia Jeanne-Marie Rosenmeier Peter Barnes Daniele Rossdeutscher Magnus Bennedsen Erika Rowntree (in honor of James Blickenstaff Les Rowntree) Richard Boswell & Karen Pat Sandoval Musalo Peter Schmale Connie Bowencamp Clem & Sharie Shute Barbara & Robert Brandriff Warren Siegel Gil Caravantes Mindy Spatt (in honor of Brian Carr Beth Slatkin) Joanne Castro Maury & Susan Stern Minder Cheng & Wen Hsu Kathryn Strachota Brian & Jennifer Cilker Calvin Strobel Terry & Zeo Coddington Samuel Thoron Thomas Colton & Ellen John & Tik Thurston Simms William Toaspern Glenda Cook Mary Wachtel A. Crawford Cooley Patrick Waddell Sheryl Davenport Tanis Walters Connor Davis Rosemary Ward Lynden Davis David Weckler Bob Dodge Don Weden Linda Eastman & Philip Carolyn West Hanley Matthew Wilson & Lyle York Roberta Elias Mark Eliot & Kelly Moran $50 – 99 David Elliott Anonymous (8) Ron Erskine Cynthia Albro Elizabeth & Joseph Eto John Allen William Euske Peter Alley & Carolyn Evan Evans Strange Matthew & Susan Feldmeir Brenda Bailey Alf & Corty Fengler Bill Beahrs Stephen Foster Ralph Benson Gordon & Jutta Frankie Robert Berman Jeri & Tom Fraser Sandy Biagi & David Ogden Heather Furmidge Benjamin Bierman Peter Gleick & Nicki Norman Terry Blair & David Smith Janice Gonsalves Jorgen Blomberg Diane Guerin & Grant Norma Jean Bodey Spencer Ann & Winslow Briggs Eugenie & Walter Halland China Brotsky Dolores Hansen Leif Brown Kay & Michael Harris David & Pamela Bullen Darla Hillard & Rodney Eugenia & Peter Caldwell Jackson Brenda Carter Jan Hintermeister William Cash Breta & Bruce Holgers Claire Chow Geoff Holton & Margaret Michael Closson Norman Fred & Joan Collignon Ofelia Hsieh David Couch & Nancy James Huang Halloran Frank & Theresa Huzel Peter Craig John Igoe Sylvia Darr Peter Ingram & Yvette Pirie Gary Deeter Susan Jacobson Roberta Delgado (in memory Kathy Kahn of Mark Spaulding) Jonathan Karpf & Kathy Dale Della Rosa Zaretsky Karen DeMello Adam Keats Deirdre Duhan Jane & Thomas Kelly Irene Ehret Kathy & William Korbholz Wendy Eliot & Michael Darlene Lamont Fitzgibbon Mary Lang & Barbara Anne & Mason Flemming Thompson Mark & Nancy Franich Philip Maldari Alicechandra Fritz (in honor Peter Mayer of Les Rowntree) Nancy McKown Rachael Gershenson Tina Meinig Lorrie Gervin Edgar Mendelsohn Elisabeth Gleason Louise Millikan Daniel Greene Jeanie Minor Elizabeth & Wade Greene Bill & Nancy Newmeyer Gwendolyn Halpin Gary & Robin Nosti Linda Hanes
Bay Nature Funders are foundations, agencies, and institutions that have provided grant or sponsorship funding of $500 or more for general support over the past 12 months. Event Sponsors provided support for the Local Hero Awards Dinner on March 20, 2016. To learn more about how you can support Bay Nature, contact Associate Director Judith Katz at (510) 528-8550 x105 or judith@baynature. org. You can also donate directly online at baynature.org/donate. Thank you for your continuing interest and support. Charles Haseltine Joe & Julie Heath Nancy Hendrickson Frederick & Leelane Hines Peitsa Hirvonen Ionut Hristodorescu Annette Huddle & Gina Solomon Donald & Virginia Humphreys Eric Jaeger William Junor Judith Katz Arvind Kumar Victoria Langenheim & Kevin Schmidt Maureen & Shannon Loughney Suzanne Maddux Karen & Steve Maskel Jane McKean John Michels Jennie Mollica Arlee & Dragana Monson Kathryn Muhs Clare Murphy Marianne Nannestad Susan Ohanian Sharon Ordeman James & Marcia Parker Nadine Peterson & Mike Tuciarone Carole Plum Donna Preece Tom Robinson Alma & Michael Rogers Helen Romero Shannon Rosenberg Steven Ruley Julie & Ralph Schardt Victoria Schlesinger Barbara Scott Eleanor Segal & Charles Six Cindy Shamban & Marge Sussman Doug Siden Patricia Smith Terri Sonada & Sarah Wright Amy Southwick Gail Splaver Susan Stanley Anita Stewart Robert Theis Douglas Vaughan Randy Vogel Linda Wagner Theresa Walterskirchen Susan Werner (in honor of Dick Lerner) Barbara & Tom Wysham
Anthony & Margaret Czajkowski Cynthia David Anne Dillon Dietlinde & John Elliott Ron Felzer Arleen Feng Bob Flasher & Deborah Kendall Leigh Fonseca Ross Francis & Kathryn Kellerman Kathy Gervais Lorrie Gervin Gretchen & Walter Gillfillan Tom Gough Hugh Graham Douglas Gray Karen Greig Barbara Hall Barbara & Earl Hamlin Mikaela & Rowan Hammond Holland Susan Hampton Janet Heimholz Faye & Tom Hendricks David Hibbard Melissa Hippard Anastasia & Randall Hobbet Egon Hoyer & Annette McCoubrey-Hoyer Eliot Hudson Karen Jernstedt Karen Jolliffe Anna Keim Doris Ketcham Leena & Vivek Khanzode Nanette & Russell King Hildegard Kural Beverly & James Lane Andrea Lopinto Lynn Lozier Dennis Ludlow Jerry & Judy Merrill Elaine Michaud & Charlie Stott Elissa Miller Laura & Phillip Miller Carol Moll Madeline Morrow & James Rumbaugh Nicole Murphy Sheldon Nelson Niall O’Donnell Michael Ortega Wendy Parfrey David Perlman Ellen Peterson Andrea Pflaumer Patrick Phelan MaryJudith Pollack Kurt & Nancy Rademacher $25 – 49 Mary Lou Ramsey Anonymous (6) Sandra Rosenzweig Andrew Aldrich Kent Ruppert George & Stephanie Cindy Russell & David Almeida Smernoff Linda & Robert Alwitt Bob Rutemoeller Mark Anderson & Kim Bruce Schine Stryker Lisa Schmidt Jean Arndt Ken Schneider Keith Bancroft Elizabeth Shabel Darlene Beal Judy Shattuck Marcia Beck Richard Silbert John & Susan Bennett Michael Stocker John Beviacqua Beth Bonora & Michael Laine Theresa Titus Jack Tolvanen Theresa Bradshaw Jeanne & Peter Ron Brown Tymestra Caryl Carr Frank & Lynn Ubhaus Mary Chapman Mark Valentine Carol Cohen Mary Valentine Anna & Douglas Cook David & Marvalee Wake Geri Cooper Pauline Yeckley Gerald Corsi JoAnn & Matthew Sue Cossins Zlatunich Laurie Craise Richard Cuneo
Funders
craigslist Charitable Fund Dean Witter Foundation Dorothy & Jonathan Rintels Charitable Foundation Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Jewish Communal Fund JiJi Foundation March Conservation Fund Schwemm Family Foundation Society of Environmental Journalists
Event Sponsors
Institutions Clif Family Winery Commerce Printing East Bay Regional Parks District Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy Google Greenbelt Alliance Hafner Vineyards Martin Family Foundation Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District Pacific Gas & Electric Company Peninsula Open Space Trust Presidio Trust Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority Santa Clara Valley Water District Save The Redwoods League Sempervirens Fund San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Shute Mihaly and Weinberger LLC Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation & Open Space District Sonoma County Water Agency Stamen Design Trust for Public Land Union Bank Foundation Individuals Lee Ballance & Mary Selkirk Louis Berlot & Joyce Cutler Barbara L. Bessey Kim & Robert Carroll Christopher & Kathryn Dann Catherine Fox Marilyn & Nat Goldhaber Jorgen Hildebrandt Harriet & Robert Jakovina Jenni Martin & Andrea Mackenzie Mia Monroe Maryann Rainey Sara Sanderson & Eric Weaver Sam Schuchat Tim Tosta & Nancy Martin Bart & Nancy Westcott Special Thanks Lindsie Bear Kelly Chan Darcy Colwell Julieanne Ferguson Vincent Medina Tina Meinig Beverly Ortiz Molly Roy Paula Schlosser Niki Shapiro Lydia Shih-Day
april–june 2016
b ay n at u r e
53
54
Your All-Season Resort in the High Sierra
ask the naturalist m i c h a e l
Sorensen’s Hiking Fishing Wild�lowers Birding Country Cafe
Special Events
Mother’s Day Brunch Galaxy Slideshow & Starwatch First Day of Fishing Season
Hope Valley
Just south of Tahoe in the High Sierra 800.423.9949 • www.SorensensResort.com
b ay n at u r e
april–june 2016
q: With all the excitement about wolves returning to California, could you clarify whether they ever lived in the Bay Area’s nine counties? —Oliver a: Well, like you and many other readers, Oliver, I am thrilled that one of the most successful terrestrial predators is making a comeback into California. There have been gray wolves (Canis lupus) in Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho as long as anyone can remember (and historically throughout much of North America and Mexico). Those populations then expanded into Washington and Oregon during the last 25 years. Just after Christmas in 2011, a radio-collared gray wolf from southern Oregon entered Northern California. It was the first confirmed sighting in our state since 1924! And there is more good news. In August 2015, infrared camera traps in Northern California photographed several frolicking wolf pups. Hopefully, wolves are on their way to repopulating at least part of their original range. But where exactly is that original range? The Anthropological Studies Center (ASC) at Sonoma State University prepared an assessment of the distribution of the gray wolf prior to contact with Europeans. I draw heavily from their conclusions. They researched several lines of inquiry to determine if indeed there were wolves in the San Francisco Bay region. First: Is there any physical evidence that wolves were here, such as actual skeletons or perhaps fossil evidence of feeding (bones of prey animals gnawed by wolves)? It is certain that wolves lived in California. They entered North America from Asia via the Bering land bridge like many mammals. The La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles contain bones of at least 19 individual wolves. And locally at the Emeryville shell mounds anthropologists found bones from canids that first were described as being from wolves. However, other researchers have cast doubt on that analysis. They call for additional and different DNA
e l l i s analysis to confirm that these are indeed wolf bones and not from domestic dogs or coyotes. Second: Did the native people who lived here—the Ohlone, the Pomo, and the Coast Miwok—have specific names for wolves that distinguished them from coyotes, foxes, and even dogs? And did they have myths and oral traditions that included wolves? The Coast Miwok had no specific word for wolves in their language but the Ohlone and the Pomo did. But did they distinguish well between coyotes and wolves? And if wolves were widespread in San Francisco Bay, why didn’t the Coast Miwok mention them? In some other tribes in California there are no words for wolves (but more than a dozen do have words for wolf). Is this because they weren’t there, or did the anthropologists fail to ask careful questions that would tease out the difference, or were the words lost during mission times? To be sure, there are wolf legends from many tribes, but the stories could’ve easily been borrowed from other tribal groups. Third: Did the early European explorers or exploiters mention wolves, and could these visitors be relied upon to discriminate between coyotes and wolves? Russian explorer Otto von Kotzebue reported seeing two species of “wolves” in the San Francisco Bay Area when he was here in 1816. The presumption of later historians was that they were wolves and coyotes. But most early nonnative visitors simply lumped all the canids together. Upon the European invasion of California most wolves were quickly poisoned, shot, or trapped right out of existence. In fact there are only two wolf specimens in any natural history collections in California, and those are from the 1900s! So did packs of wolves once roam Point Reyes, the Valley of the Moon, or Russian Hill? We really cannot say with certainty one way or the other. But it sure would be nice to hear that evening song.
for love of the land
discover.
explore.
experience.
engage.
The Big Sur Land Trust brings people together to conserve, restore and care for our region’s treasured landscapes so that everyone can benefit from experiencing nature where they live.
create.
conserve.
Find out more at: www.bigsurlandtrust.org
STARRY NIGHTS Join astronomers from the San Jose Astronomical Society for a peaceful and cool evening out under the stars. Feel all your stress melt away as you gaze at the Milky Way! Docent astronomers bring telescopes and are happy to share their knowledge and view of the night sky. More info at openspaceauthority.org/activities Rancho Cañada del Oro Open Space Preserve April 30th, 2016 8:45 to 10:30 p.m. May 28th, 2016 9:15 to 10:30 p.m.
Photo by Bill Adams Bay Nature Ad - April_Final.indd 1
June 25th, 2016 9:30 to 10:30 p.m.
april–june 2016
2/2/2016 1:25:03 PM
b ay n at u r e
55
BayNature
NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE
1328 Sixth Street, #2 Berkeley, California 94710
1
PAID CPS
E AYUDAR A PROTEGER A IHSS DE TES EN EL FUTURO?
se en nuestra Campaña de “Saludable en Casa”
2484 Natomas Park Drive #101 Sacramento, CA 95833
Address Service Requested
LA VERSIÓN DE LA CONVENCIÓN
Noticias de CUHW
oletín
de
los
Trabajadores
Unidos
que
Cuidan
en
Cas a
DENTE
es y uidado en un mundo atrapados e, nuestra os a otros dor, usted manda que sted es un ed vive en u relación veedor de familiar, diferente. años y proveedor ar, pero sobre el ador de emas que endientes extraño. UHW, ha ya durante ención de gidos por a Loretta campaña ndado de dico y los dores. En un grupo sido los uecido sus plan para
de marcar un hasta aquí, de nuevo, rompiendo la burbuja del pasado, siempre avanzando acercándonos,
“CUHW está rompiendo todos los mitos al enfocarse en los miembros.” conforme continuamos construyendo el “Puente Hacia un Mejor Futuro” Estamos reventando la burbuja cuando nuestro Comité de Constitución sugiere un cambio que combine el espacio de nuestro Secretario Tesorero y que cree una nueva posición, Vicepresidente segundo. El
a nuestro personal político, y asegure de que se nos haya dañado o se haya los servicios de los individuos que abusado de nosotros mentalmente. viven y respiran la política durante este tiempo critico en la historia del cuidado •Merecemos el derecho de que del hogar a nivel Federal y Estatal. se nos pague bajo el esquema del CUHW, al salir de la burbuja, Seguro Social por una vida de trabajo emerge con nuevas ideas ahora que por un miembro de la familia. estamos en período electoral este agosto. Nuestras elecciones estatales •Merecemos vacaciones pagadas, incluirán dos semanas en las que merecemos el derecho de que se nos puede votar en línea o llamando trate con compasión y respeto por las a un número sin costo, usando su número de celular o un teléfono fijo. Una vez más nos salimos de nuestra burbuja, hemos lanzado un Programa de Voluntariado de Incentivos para ofrecer descuentos a nuestros miembros en los negocios al mostrar sus tarjetas del Sindicatolo cual representa un ganar-ganar para todos. Hemos establecido oficinas en más de 9 de nuestros condados. La mayoría de las oficinas tienen bancos de llamadas y capacidad de difusión de web y cuentan con grandes pantallas. Contamos con otra acción que es también otra burbuja que se rompe, y estas son las actualizaciones por email y mensajes dificultades que enfrentamos en nuestros de texto que alertan a los miembros de trabajos por una paga justa, beneficios los últimos acontecimientos de IHSS. médicos oportunidades de educación, To End the Age of Wyast e Yo personalmente quiero al igual que las otras fuerzas de trabajo. salirme de la burbuja en la que se considera la reforma de IHSS en ¡No solamente lo merecemos, California y sugiero que empecemos con
URBAN RE