I’m always amazed at how many San Franciscans are aboard and who have never been on the waters of the Sanctuary, much less out to the islands.  The trips start with some trepidation about the weather, the wind and waves and the 27-mile transit to the islands.  The nervousness fades as we immediately see several small harbor porpoises before we even cross beneath the Golden Gate. There are more of these shy cetaceans than I have ever seen, and local researcher Bill Keener of Golden Gate Cetacean Research confirms that the small dolphins have returned to the San Francisco Bay after an absence of approximately 65 years.  Their recent foraging in the bay may be an indicator of the health of the ecosystem.

Clearing Point Bonita, we enter the shipping channel and begin our search for whales, but it is the pelagic seabirds that first greet us.  We are currently experiencing a changing of the guard in the transition between seasons. The productive ecosystem off the coast of California has three oceanographic seasons: upwelling season in the spring and early summer; relaxation in the late summer and fall; the storm season in winter.

During the upwelling season (March-July), strong northwest winds and the south flowing California current combine with the earth's rotation to drive surface waters away from the shore. These surface waters are replaced by an upwelling of nutrient-rich deeper water from offshore. The nutrients become available for surface dwelling phytoplankton (microscopic marine algae). Phytoplankton form the foundation of this oceanic food web and the combination of nutrients and increased sunlight in spring initiates a bloom of life that radiates up the food web from small shrimp called krill to the great whales. An abundance of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and young fish are food for animals at higher levels of the marine food web. During the summer months endangered blue, humpback and other species of whales visit our National Marine Sanctuaries of Monterey, the Gulf of the Farallones and the Cordell Bank to feed on this abundance of krill. Here's a video from a summer trip.

Now, the season is in the relaxation mode, and the calm seas and sunny skies help relax the passengers as we watch pelagic and double-crested cormorants, arctic terns and marbled murrelets wing past. The islands are in sight, but no whales so far.  With less food, the humpback whales are making their exit as the California gray whales enter our waters in their annual migration from the feeding grounds near Alaska to the warm lagoons of Baja California Mexico where they calve. The gray whale is a success story.  Hunted to extinction in the Atlantic, and with a few hundred individuals in the eastern Pacific, protections afforded under the Marine Mammal Protection Act has allowed this population to increase to well over 20,000.

Mid-channel, we are alerted by another vessel, The Salty Lady, that they are onto humpback whales.  Captain Jimmy turns back towards the mainland and we see four humpback whales slowly swimming south.  After a half hour, we head back to the islands and soon sea a California gray whale engaging in what looks like feeding near the south side of the Island. Nearby are two shark-watching boats and I wonder if the divers inside the cage witness the whale.

Out near the continental shelf, we are joined by over one hundred Pacific white-sided dolphins and among them northern right whale dolphins.  The large pod of dolphins swim alongside us, surfing the bow wave as they head north past Middle Rock and north Farallon Islands towards Point Reyes and the Cordell Bank.

Just as the great whales migrate, so too do the great white sharks which visit the islands during this season to feed.  As we discuss sharks on our way back to San Francisco, I reflect that like the whales. We can protect them in our sanctuary, but we can't protect them as they transit the open sea in their great migrations.

Like the whales, sharks need protection locally and internationally and require shark sanctuaries, protection from fisheries on the high seas and at home, and shark finning banned worldwide.  Perhaps one of the most important things we can do is to protect sharks that are reproducing and to protect nurseries like the southern California bight for white sharks and the San Francisco Bay for sevengill sharks, soupfin sharks and the smaller hound sharks that pup there.  Through our  Shark Steward program with The Turtle Island Restoration Network, we are now developing a San Francisco Shark Sanctuary to protect local sharks reproducing in the bay so that sharks will continue to swim the waters of California.

The first time I visited Guadalupe Island-aka The Island of the great white shark-was under sail in the early nineteen eighties. A rugged and desert island one hundred fifty miles off the coast of Baja California, the island itself was then only inhabited by goats and a fish camp. The deepwater anchorage provided little shelter from the swell and above water the island felt remote and spooky. But beneath the surface I experienced a rich marine ecosystem from abalone to giant kelp to Guadalupe Fur Seals. During that voyage we didn’t experience a white shark, but on a recent last trip aboard a Mexican ecotourism boat we experienced five in one dive. Like the Farrallon Islands off San Francisco, Guadalupe is as an aggregation site for white sharks.

Last week I joined four Italian photographers, three Japanese and six Americans on a Mexican Shark watching vessel to enter cages and experience what it is like to be in the water with a great white shark.

All trained SCUBA divers, I was surprised at how little my fellow passengers- all educated and experienced divers- knew about sharks, threats to sharks and shark conservation. During our five days aboard I was able to raise awareness via video and shorts talks peppered by the real action in the water. Seeing a white shark swim is like nothing else and the sharks made a clear impression on us all.

We can look at the statistics. For example, millions of sharks are killed each year for their fins. Countless millions of others harks are killed as bycatch in longline fishery. As many as ninety percent of some pelagic sharks are now missing from the ocean, and one third of these are on the IUCN Red List and threatened with extinction. Great white sharks are one of the few species internationally protected with trade restrictions, yet white shark fins are coveted and the Pacific population hovers around 1000 individuals.

Yet sharks get a bad rap. My colleague at the California Academy of Sciences, Dr. John McCosker points out that in the last one hundred years, there have been round 100 white shark attacks in our State waters, with a 10% fatality. The odds of getting killed (if you even enter the water) are greater by simply crossing the street.

How many people actually ever get to see a white shark?

Statistics pale when watching a white shark swim. You are left with the feeling that these sharks belong and we are the interlopers. Unless we reconsider our views on sharks, white sharks could easily go extinct in our lifetimes. But tourists like these might hold the hope. Click, click, the shutters fire as sharks swim past an arm’s reach. Click click fire the synapses as the mind wonders at the size and power of this amazingly adapted beast.

Risks

Interacting with wildlife, especially top predators can be thrilling, but can it also be dangerous.
Wildlife tourism has been long established in the terrestrial environment, but not without problems. Animals and tourists have been killed through negligence and greed. Eventually, guidelines have been established in many regions to protect both the tourists and the wildlife such as tigers and elephants from harm. Many have strict rules like the tours lead through SEEtheWILD. Profits raised through the tourism are directed towards enforcement or conservation but just as important, local jobs are created. Some of these jobs go to the very people who once harvested or poached the animals after protective laws were established. In Baja, Grey Whale Expeditions lead by the American Cetacean Society or events lead by local naturalists of the Ocean Conservation Society allow people an enjoyable first hand experience and provides a valuable economic influx to areas without other options outside of fishing.
Last year I accompanied a sea turtle operation lead through SEE Turtles tagging and tracking sea turtles in Baja. The tourists benefit from hands on experience and learn about the ecology of the animals.

The guides benefit by employment. The turtle populations benefit by more eyes and hearts looking out for their population. Scientists benefit through more data provided by the citizen scientists.

More Valuable Alive the Dead

Like the terrestrial analogue, shark watching operations have experienced a few glitches along the way. These include an over saturation of operations in South Africa leading to overuse of chum and feed impacting the local ecology, altering the shark’s behavior, impacts of sharks with cages and boats and allegations of increased shark attacks. Some non-cage operations in the Bahamas have lead to the accidental death of photographers by Tiger sharks. This has lead to serious restrictions/elimination of chumming and shark/object interactions. However, through government and self regulation my experience at the Farallones and Guadalupe Island is that operators are cleaning up their acts and working for shark conservation. Increasingly via first- hand experience people are observing the beauty and power of sharks, and understanding their importance through shark and shark cage diving. Today, white shark watching occurs off the Farallon Islands under permit by the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary requiring trained naturalists and using strict best watching practices. Many countries like Palau and the Bahamas are banning not only shark finning, but all shark fishing and are benefiting form shark tourism. Sharks are worth more alive than dead. A recent study on the economics of shark tourism suggests one reef shark may bring up to two million dollars in its lifetime through tourism.
On my recent trip to Guadalupe Island, the crew was entirely Mexican and their families helped with activities like provisioning and the vessel preparation. We also helped a local shark scientist Mauricio Hoyos who is engaged in research on the island, and the cage operators contribute to his non profit Tiburon Blanco. Our international team of divers were as amazed by the beauty of the sharks as they were incredulous of the travesty sharks are experiencing worldwide. Each walked away with increased respect both for the majesty of the shark and also for the need to protect them. In our home waters, white sharks are returning to the Sanctuary after migrating thousands of miles and tourists are starting to head west to visit them. We call it Sharktober and all month Sea Stewards and partners will be celebrating sharks and all wildlife. More on learning about and celebrating the shark can be found at Sea Stewards.

Let sharks live.

A PG&E SmartMeter on a Bay Area home. (Photo: Lauren Sommer)

Smart meters have arrived for many Californians. More than 11 million have been installed by electric utilities in the state, with PG&E leading the way. The new meters digitally track a household's energy use. So, for the first time, we can see our daily and even hourly data online (with a one-day lag before it's posted).

Studies have shown that consumers reduce their energy use when they have access to this information. But as PG&E and other utilities have discovered, raw energy data doesn't mean much to most of us (including me in this week's QUEST story).

A number of clean tech start-ups and major corporations are jumping into this space, trying to bridge the gap between hardware (meter) and well, "soft"-ware (consumers).

Getting busy people to change their behavior is no simple task. So I spoke to two companies that have worked with PG&E and other utilities on this problem. Both Opower and Silver Springs Networks have designed the web portals that consumers see when they log into their utility accounts. They're designed not just to make us understand, but to inspire us to use less energy in our daily lives. I asked Dan Yates of Opower and Eric Dresselhuys of Silver Spring Networks what lessons they've learned.

Lesson 1: Keep Up with the Joneses

You might think that saving the planet would be enough of a reason to guilt us into energy conservation. But it turns out that our competitive streak is a bigger motivator.

The companies' websites show customers how their energy use compares to similar houses in their neighborhood. Don't worry – they're not publishing exactly how much electricity the Smiths use down the street. But the companies say knowing how you compare to others is a powerful motivation.

"It's not shame," says Yates of Opower. "It is really just recognizing an addressable opportunity to reduce usage. If I have a $250 utility bill, I don't really know how much I can save. But as soon as I know that a similar home in my neighborhood is paying $150, suddenly I feel like I have an addressable gap of $100 that I want to pay attention."

It's called "normative comparison" in the behavioral science world. And Dresselhuys agrees. "People don't like to lose. People start to wonder why they use so much more than their neighbor does and they start to dig into it."

Opower is rolling out new social features later this year that allow customers to compare themselves to friends on Facebook. "It puts the information in a context that's relevant to people. We've seen the power of the neighbor comparison and we're taking it to the next level with the friend comparison," says Yates.

Lesson 2: Provide Concrete Advice

Once you get people's attention, they need specific recommendations to take action on – and those recommendations need to be doable, say Yates. "People don't want data, they want insights."

"I always joke that my mom is my litmus test. And I know that she would never spend a minute looking at raw energy data. But what she would love to find out is that her freezer is very energy intensive and it would be worth it to buy a new one," he says.

Opower is working with PG&E to roll out a new web portal to customers by the end of the year. Using smart meter data, they can analyze a household's energy use and break it into four categories: heating, cooling, base load (like refrigerator and DVR) and everything else (like lighting and TV watching).

Heating and cooling makes up half of a home's energy use on average. Yates says reducing your heating and cooling load is one of the easiest ways to save energy and reduce your bill.

Lesson 3: Get Information Out There

"The average customer isn't getting up in the morning and checking their energy use data," says Yates. Emails, text messages and plain old snail mail are crucial for getting customers to pay attention.

Eric Dresselhuys says mobile devices, including iPhone apps, are making it much easier. "You can get a text if your electricity usage is getting high. Or the utility can send a message on peak days when they need customers to conserve energy," he says.

Letting customers know what their bill will be is also a good way to get their attention. "Today, getting your utility bill is like shopping for groceries all month long and never seeing a bill until the end of the month," he says.

Lesson 4: Set a Goal

Remember those gold stars in elementary school? It turns out we still like to be rewarded when we achieve something.

"What we see is that getting people to go after a goal, even 5%, has a big impact," says Yates. When they track a customer's progress towards a goal, Yates says it helps them save energy, no matter the size of the goal. "It's applicable even if you're at the very bottom of the pile and use a ton of energy," he says.

Lesson 5: Tell People When They Do Well but Don't Overdo it

Say you're super energy efficient, turning off lights and power strips in your house with unrelenting dedication. If your utility tells you that you're head and shoulders above everyone else, chances are you'll stop trying so hard. "This was a concerning outcome of earlier studies we did," says Yates.

"It's been seen in other scenarios. There was an anti-drinking campaign called ‘two beers is enough' at college campuses. There were non-drinkers who started thinking ‘if the campus is telling me two is enough, maybe I should drink more beer," he says.

"We've designed our reports so everyone has a goal in front of them," says Yates. It's always good to reward people for doing a good job, but Yates says they stay away from telling people if they're achieving way above expectations.

Lesson 6: The Smart Grid is Probably Smarter without Consumers

Home automation, as its known, is almost a holy grail for utilities. If technology can take care of energy conservation, then customers don't have do remember to do it.

The idea is that on peak days, when the utility needs to conserve energy, it can send a message to a customer's smart meter. The meter is connected to the thermostat over a Home Area Network, so the thermostat adjusts itself by a few degrees to conserve electricity. Customers can opt-out anytime.

Both the carrot and stick in this case comes in the form of a varied pricing plan. During hot afternoons or so-called "peak events," electricity would be more expensive. So the customer has the potential to save money by shifting their energy use later in the evening when power is cheaper.

Dresselhuys says they saw the potential of this in a pilot with Oklahoma Gas & Electric customers. "The more automation in the home, the higher the level of savings. Using that home automation about doubles the amount of money they can save," he says.

A "smart" demonstration home set up by Southern California Edison. (Photo: Lauren Sommer)

California's electric utilities have installed more than 11 million smart meters in homes and businesses around the state. Which means for the first time, customers can see how much electricity they're using every hour, instead of once-a-month when the bill comes.

Consumers use less energy, studies have shown, when they can see that real-time data. But getting customers to pay attention in the first place may be the biggest hurdle.

Digital smart meters provide a stream of energy use data, which industry analysts say has the potential to remake our homes. That's evident just outside of Los Angeles, where Southern California Edison has set up a "smart" demonstration home.

"Above us we have photovoltaic solar panels to the left used for generating electricity and a solar thermal water heating system," says Cynthia Miller as she leads a tour of the "Smart Energy Experience."

"You might notice that we have some nice appliances," she says, pointing to the kitchen. The house is a green gadget-lovers dream. There's an electric car in the garage, LED lights, and a "smart" washing machine that communicates with the dryer.

"They're able to talk to each other so the washer can tell the dryer what its washing and the dryer can determine the optimal heat setting for that particular load of laundry," Miller says.

There's also a small screen in the kitchen that shows how much power the house is using at any given moment. Miller demonstrates what happens when you turn the toaster on. "And we'll see a jump here… and there we go. The jump happened and it's 1.7 kilowatts at 41 cents per hour."

The real intelligence of this house is its ability to communicate with the electric grid through its Home Area Network. So on a hot summer day, when SCE is cranking out power, the utility could send a message to your house that kicks your home into conservation mode.

"You notice my lights have dimmed, the ceiling fan turned on, the shades are coming down," says Miller. The thermostat turns up to 73 degrees and the air-conditioning shuts off. SCE would offer this as a voluntary program with financial incentives to sweeten the deal.

"You know, what we anticipate is the awareness is really going to drive a change in behavior for our customers because this information is compelling," says Miller.

Swimming in a Sea of Data

Of course, our homes today aren't quite as advanced. That's evident every time I log into my PG&E SmartMeter account.

My home energy use on PG&E's website.

My account shows charts of my home's daily and hourly energy use. But, for the average consumer like me, it doesn't tell me a lot. I see a few spikes in the chart where clearly my husband and I used more electricity, but what caused it? Neither of us could figure it out.

"For most people, including for me, that really is not very useful information," says Jim Sweeney, director of the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at Stanford University.

Studies have shown that consumers reduce their energy use by as much as 10 percent when they have smart meter data like mine. Sweeney says they also studied that with a group of Google employees.

"The results have been very disappointing. In the first month, there was a significant reduction of energy use, but by end of three or four months, they were back to the same amount. This becomes an interesting toy or gimmick for people at first, but then they get tired of doing it and they revert right back to the old behavior patterns," Sweeney says.

No One Said Change Was Easy

Sweeney says using electricity in our homes is a lot like going grocery shopping in a store with no price tags. "There are flank steak and chuck steak and hamburger. But you've never seen a price tag ever in a grocery store. How good a shopper would you be with that little information?"

There are reasons to pay attention to energy, whether it's to reduce your carbon footprint or save money on your utility bill. But even though electricity may seem expensive, Sweeney says it's only a small part of the average household's income.

"We use 2.3 percent of our disposable personal income for electricity, natural gas and all other energy in the house. So if you have work hard to save that, you're probably not going to do it," he says.

Sweeney believes the key is to attach a price tag to the decisions we make the second we make them. So, if you turn up your air conditioning, the thermostat tells you how much more you're spending.

The technology to do that isn't far away. Today's smart meters already have the capability to talk to your house through a home area network. The California Public Utilities Commission also recently ruled that utilities must make customers' energy use data available to third-party companies that sell home energy management systems, if a customer purchases one.

But utilities have a long way to go to get customers to think this way. Only 20 percent of PG&E customers have set up online accounts. And according to one study, consumers interact with their utilities for only six minutes a year on average.

Clean Tech Companies Search for the Secret Recipe

"We have to get it right when we have those six minutes," says Dan Yates, CEO of Opower, a smart grid technology company that's trying to find the secret sauce of behavioral change. PG&E has hired Opower to redesign the website I was looking at. (Check out a preview here.)

"People don't want data, they want insights. So, I always joke that my mom is my litmus test. And I know that she would never spend a minute looking at raw energy data. But what she would love to find out is that her freezer is very energy intensive," he says.

Working with other utilities, Opower says their program has helped households cut their energy use by one to three percent and the change sticks. They do that by showing customers how their energy use compares to similar homes in their neighborhood. (More about what motivates us).

"It's not shame. It is really just recognizing an addressable opportunity to reduce usage. And then when you start to have people's attention, the key comes down to have relevant, targeting insights," says Yates.

Yates says for utilities that are used to dealing with hardware, working with behavioral science is a new challenge. But it's one with the potential to remake the way we consume energy. PG&E's redesigned SmartMeter website will be available by the end of the year.

Surfers do more than surf. The Surfrider Foundation, originally formed to protect a surf beach and beach access, has developed into an international organization involved in multiple programs ranging from wildlife protection to ocean policy. As a surfer and a long term member of the foundation, I have been involved in countless beach clean-ups. We routinely walk the beaches pulling plastic bags, bottles and cigarette butts. Over the years, we have picked up tons of trash. Some of the beach clean-ups are organized, and sometimes I just pick up trash before or after surfing. This Saturday, September 17, Surfrider will join thousands of Californians for the California Coastal Cleanup Day.

As awareness increases, we are seeing fewer large pieces, but we still find countless cigarette butts, bottle caps and water bottles. We need to do more than just clean up, we need to stop it at the source. Our foundation has developed a plastics campaign called, "Rise Above Plastics." We must stop the plastics before it hits the beach. It is easily done. A metal water bottle, reusable shopping bag and an ash tray would significantly reduce plastics in the environment.

Here's the "Rise Above Plastics Pledge":

There is a section of the Pacific Ocean twice the size of the continental United States called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Within it, 100 million tons of plastic swirl in a vortex of currents. There is so much plastic in the water that it outnumbers zooplankton by six to one!

This plastic ends up in the stomachs of marine birds and animals. In fact, one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals die globally each year due to ingestion of or entanglement in plastics.

Plastic is forever, with virtually every piece of petroleum-based plastic ever made still in existence. That's why it's so critical to our oceans and beaches that we dramatically reduce our use of plastics, especially single-use plastics, starting today.

You can make a difference for our world's oceans, waves and beaches — pledge to rise above plastics today.

I commit to do my part to rise above plastics and protect the world's oceans, waves and beaches from plastic pollution. I will do this by:

- Using reusable bottles for my water and other drinks. By using just one reusable bottle, I will keep 167 single-use plastic bottles from entering the environment.

- Using cloth bags for groceries and other purchases. For each reusable bag I use, I will save approximately 400 plastics from being used.

- Recycling the plastic bags and bottles I already have. For every thirteen plastic bags I don't use, I will save enough petroleum to drive a car one mile.

Work from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation indicates there is six times more plastic than phytoplankton (single-celled marine algae) per weight and fifty times more plastic than zooplankton (small crustaceans and larvae) in the North Pacific Gyre. Over half this plastic is plankton size: less than 60 mm or a quarter-inch in size. These tiny plants and animals are the base of the ocean food web, and animals consuming plankton from herring to whales are ingesting plastic.

Plastics are Forever

The plastic doesn’t go away, it just gets smaller. Approximately 70% of plastic sinks to the bottom where it sits like a time bomb waiting to be assimilated. The larger pieces float along until cast ashore or ingested by a marine animal. Plastics absorb organic pollutants like toxic sponges, concentrating the poisons and finding their way into the food chain from fish to humans. One study found fulmars, ocean-going birds that visit our waters, have over 30 pieces of plastic in their stomachs. A sea turtle found dead off Hawaii had over 1000 pieces of plastics in its intestines. Hundreds of thousands of seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals die from plastic ingestion each year. Americans generate 10.5 million tons of plastic waste a year but recycle only 1 or 2% of it. An estimated 14 billion pounds of trash – most of it plastic – is dumped in the world's oceans every year. Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1 million sea creatures every year.

This problem occurs in every ocean in the world. We are killing our wildlife and poisoning ourselves through a preventable problem. For hundreds of miles of ocean, patches of plastic cross our bow. A sailboat is like a small planet: we have limited food and water and we generate waste. On past Sea Stewards expeditions, we are careful to keep all plastic aboard, and minimize plastic wrapping and bags in our provisioning. No plastic goes into the ocean on our watch.

Make a Change, Clean it Up

We can reduce our waste using less, bringing your own bag to the grocer and using a metal water bottle.
Join us and hundreds of thousands of Californians on September 17, California Coastal Clean Up Day. You can participate at one of the regular clean ups organized by your local Surfrider Foundation or start your own. Plastics reduction and marine debris clean up is part of Sea Stewards Healthy Oceans Initiative.

Watch Plastic in the Pacific to learn more about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Before he takes the plunge, Mr. Austin spends months preparing to film in the wild by working with whale biologists who study specific populations of whales. Mr. Austin travels with these experts, to identify unique individual whales who posses the personality and sense of curiosity to be agreeable subjects. Austin returns to the whales day after day to build a sense of familiarity which will eventually allow them to feel comfortable enough to approach him on their own terms. Swimming with whales is intrinsically very dangerous if for no other reason than their enormous size. A single accidental flick from a pectoral fin or fluke could pummel a human swimmer. A threatened whale or a mother protecting her calf can be particularly dangerous. While whales have the potential to be destructive, it is much more likely that a whale disturbed by a human swimmer will simply swim away. For this reason Austin works hard to build the trust of his subjects.

Whales, like humans, are intelligent mammals that live within social structures. As such, whales have a kind of etiquette based on behavioral cues. To get close enough to photograph the whales Mr. Austin has to abide by a different species code of conduct. For example, Austin does not use SCUBA while visiting the whales because the bubbles produced by the equipment can be construed as a threat display between whales.

“Although we can’t communicate with whales verbally, you can communicate intention. And I do this by being very slow and predictable when I move. And I remain motionless most of the time, and I want to communicate to them that I’m interested in them, but I’m also respectful, and I’m just going be very passive and patient. Most of the time, they ignore me or swim away, and there’s just that, those few exceptional moments in the season where they decide to come up to me and spend a few moments”

It's within these few rare moments that Bryant Austin is able to create his stunning photographs. In fact, his entire collection to date represents interactions with only 9 particularly curious individual whales. As top predators, whales generally tend to demonstrate curiosity in exploring their environment. Some species like humpback whales tend to be more curious than other species, but even within a species individual whales will show different personality traits. Through his non-profit organization Marine Mammal Conservation Through the Arts, Mr. Austin works for months for the brief seconds and minutes when the whales come to inspect him.

“The camera I’m holding in a way is like the world’s eye, humanity’s eye, so we can make whales visible and hopefully change our perception and behavior towards them. So it’s ironic that this little 210-pound person really can be more powerful than this 40-ton whale.”

Brian Fisher collecting ants in the Madagascar canopy

Entomologist Brian Fisher is no stranger to QUEST fans. His work at the California Academy of Sciences collecting and cataloging ant species from all around the world has been featured in a QUEST Radio story, a QUEST TV show, an interactive map called “Ants of the Bay Area”, and a QUEST Educator Guide for science teachers. We’ve also had Brian participate on several outreach and publicity events with QUEST. Frankly, I think he’s probably getting a little tired of us.

But we’re not done with him yet! Like the ants that he so passionately studies, we here at QUEST are great recyclers. Back in June 2010, when I produced the TV story about Brian, he let us use some great video footage that he shot during his field work in Madagascar earlier in the year.

A few months ago, I had the idea to use more of that footage to pilot a new type of segment for QUEST TV called “Field Notes” in which we’ll cut together raw video footage shot by scientists in the field to document their work along with an audio interview with the scientist explaining what they're doing. As with much of QUEST this season, it’s a grand experiment. But I think this first Field Notes segment with Brian Fisher successfully proves the concept.

Brian Fisher collecting ants in Trinidad

The thing that first inspired the idea for Field Notes was reading Brian’s New York Times blog “Scientist at Work”. He’s blogging for the New York Times from Madagascar! How’s that for bringing science to life for the everyday science geek? One memorable post was when he dropped his backpack from a helicopter with all of his ant specimens, notes, money and car keys. Other posts include tales of flash floods, coup attempts and all kinds of crazy insects.

Some of the other scientific activities that Fisher's been involved with recently include his continuing study of the origin of ants of Madagascar by visiting islands in the Mozambique Channel. In April 2011, he took a ship from Reunion to visit the islands Europa, Bassas da India, Juan de Nova and Mayotte.

In addition, he started a green energy project in Madagascar which includes converting the Biodiversity Center that he built there to a green building and taking green energy experts to visit a village in the southwest of Madagascar to, in his words, "study how Bay Area know-how can help reduce deforestation, which is really just energy extraction – the cutting of trees for making charcoal."

Here are a couple of recent blogs about the project:

Matter Network
Green Tech Media

As science journalists, we’d be hard pressed to find a scientist who is a better ambassador for the excitement and adventure of the scientific process. I guess that’s why we here on QUEST keep “bugging” entomologist Brian Fisher.

Watch the QUEST TV story: Field Notes: Brian Fisher in Madagascar

37.7699 -122.467174

QUEST Science on the SPOT takes a close up look at the Peregrine Falcon.

We walk through the Nature Trail near the San Francisco Zoo’s Koret Animal Resource Center. Owls, vultures, hawks and falcons sit perched on a grassy rise, admiring the people who walk by admiring them. The Animal Resource Center, or A.R.C., is home to the zoo’s educational outreach animals. And outside, a teen volunteer is talking to a group of younger kids and their parents about the Great Horned owl.

The zoo’s youth volunteer programs are training local teens to handle live animals from the educational outreach program and in addition the volunteers help educate zoo visitors about the life history of these animals and the conservation threats they face in the wild. For many of these kids this is a first step to a lifetime of environmental stewardship and a new-found love of science.

Each year over 130 local youths go through the zoo’s volunteer programs. The programs are designed to teach kids about conservation but most importantly they train the volunteers to pass on that knowledge. “Teaching city children about nature and the importance of habitat health not only to wild areas but to themselves as well.” said one volunteer program alumni, “I’ll never forget the faces of awe on both children and adults as they got to see, touch and learn about animals such as opossums, chinchillas and ferrets. It felt great to be able to provide such an experience to the visitors of the Nature Trail.”

Jessa Barbelay, the zoo’s Education Department Supervisor, got her start here as a teen volunteer. “I had an appreciation for animals,” says Barbelay, “but I wasn’t very interested in science. But just the act of volunteering helped me break out of my shell and after being immersed in it, I realized that I really liked science and I liked sharing the information, which led me to a career in science education.”

Noelle Bidegainberry, the A.R.C. Intern and another former volunteer herself, takes us to meet one of the stars of the educational program, the San Francisco Zoo’s resident Peregrine Falcon, “Bella.” As we step into her aviary, Bella immediately becomes inquisitive, studying the new people who have entered her enclosure. For an animal that can claim to be the fastest in the world, I’m surprised at how calm and comfortable she is being handled. Bella is tasked with going out and representing her species as an ambassador bird. And one gets the sense that she is very good at her job.

It was not long ago that Peregrine Falcons were precariously perched at the edge of extinction. The widespread use of the pesticide DDT rippled up and down the food chain. For some raptors such as Bald Eagles and Peregrine Falcons, the results were nearly catastrophic. DDT in their systems led to these birds laying thin shelled eggs. The chicks could not survive to hatching and without new generations replenishing the species, population numbers crashed. The falcon became the one of the first animals placed on the endangered species list.

Once DDT was banned in the 1970s, conservationists and bird lovers worked diligently to help save the falcon. And the work continues. Through captive breeding programs and other conservation efforts Peregrine Falcon numbers have rebounded in California and throughout much of the United States. In one of the great environmental success stories, the Peregrine Falcon was taken off the endangered species list in 1999.

“The story of the Peregrine Falcon helps us illustrate how conservation can work and have a direct influence and positive results,” says Bidegainberry, “Bella does a great job as an ambassador bird. Our hope is that when people meet Bella and hear her story, they are inspired to take conservation into their own hands.”

Watch our video segment "Science on the SPOT – Falcons Up Close" below:

QUEST on KQED Public Media.

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Peregrine Falcon. Photo: Glenn Nevill at kqedquest.

This time of year, you may see birds of prey, with their wings outstretched, circling overhead. It is nesting season, and raptors will nest in trees, on cliffs and, in our urban environment, on the ledges of tall buildings. But the shared history of humans and raptors is far older than the concept of urban wildlife. Humans have been practicing falconry—caring for and hunting with raptors—for close to 4000 years. This week’s Science on the SPOT story, Peregrine Falcons Up Close, is about a falcon named Bella, a retired falconry bird who now lives at the San Francisco Zoo.

In falconry, a human cares for a bird of prey, and trains it to hunt. The bird hunts on behalf of the human. This relationship has created some controversy, but first, a bit more about how falconry works.

To learn more about the practice of falconry, I spoke to my friend Rikki Shackleford, an apprentice falconer. Rikki got interested in falconry when he was working at an environmental education school. The school was caring for a Red-tailed Hawk that had been hit by a car. Unsure of how to care for the bird, Rikki contacted a local falconer. Rikki got hooked.

Falconry is tightly regulated at both the state and federal level. To own a bird, you need a license, and you need to apprentice with an experienced falconer for two years. Once you’ve completed your apprenticeship, you can get a general license and own up to three birds, of almost any species. With a master license, you can own up to 5 birds. After you’ve had a master license for 7 years, you can own an eagle. The California Hawking Club and the North American Falconers Association have more information about the licensing and practice of falconry.

Red-tailed Hawk. Photo: Ron Wolf at kqedquest.

Rikki has a Red-tailed Hawk, named Nut, which he trapped in the wild last year. There are strict rules about how and when falconers can catch birds. Only passage birds—sexually immature birds less than a year old and on their first migration— can be caught. And falconers can only catch certain species. Many species, including endangered birds, are off-limits. However, falconers can get rare birds, like Peregrine Falcons, from captive breeding programs. Rikki intends to free Nut when she is three years old, when she’s old enough to breed. Because she was caught in the wild, and learned to hunt on her own before she hunted with Rikki, he can return her to the wild. Birds from captive breeding programs cannot be released. When captive-bred birds get old and can no longer hunt effectively, they can go back into captive breeding programs, or be cared for a by a zoo, like Bella.

Rikki flies Nut every day at a local park, and she hunts a few times a week. Each time Nut catches prey, she brings it back to Rikki. He rewards her with food—most of the time, prey that she has previously caught. The idea that the raptor is hunting for the human is controversial—anyone who is against hunting would probably be against falconry. And the concept that a wild animal is kept in captivity can definitely ruffle some feathers. Rikki counters these arguments: Nut would hunt without him, he says, and would probably hunt more often, because she can’t store the leftovers in the freezer. And Rikki contends that his relationship with Nut is the same as any relationship a human has with an animal—a dog, a cat, a horse—it’s just a little less common. However, Red-tailed Hawks haven’t been domesticated for generations like dogs and cats; Nut was born wild.

A Peregrine Falcon named Gracie flies by the Bay Bridge. Photo: Glenn Nevill at kqedquest.

While there are many objections to the practice of falconry, the Peregrine Falcon has falconers to thank for its continued existence. Peregrine Falcons were on the edge of extinction in the 1970s, because the pesticide DDT made their eggshells perilously thin. However, falconers had healthy Peregrine Falcons in captive breeding programs; offspring from these captive-bred falcons were carefully raised without human contact and were introduced to the wild. Because of these efforts and the ban of DDT, Peregrine Falcons were removed from the Endangered Species List in 1999.

Learn more about falcons in the Science on the SPOT story, Peregrine Falcons Up Close, and the QUEST story Falcon Fascination. Also, check out the falcon Nest Cam at San Jose City Hall.

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