Tag: "san francisco bay"

Bay-Friendly Gardening: Welcoming Wildlife and Nature Into Human Habitats

Bay-Friendly Gardening: Welcoming Wildlife and Nature Into Human Habitats

A "Bay-Friendly" gardens initiative is underway around the Bay Area under the sponsorship of Stopwaste.org. Last weekend some generous, certified “Bay-Friendly” garden owners opened their yards for tours.

 
Bay Area Tides

Bay Area Tides

The daily tides are the Bay's way of breathing, from its windpipe at the Golden Gate to its lungs, the wetlands from the Delta to the coast.

 
How Do Gulls Know When Giants Games are Ending?

How Do Gulls Know When Giants Games are Ending?

Gulls mysteriously show up at AT&T Park during the ninth inning of every San Francisco Giants game. How do they time their arrival so well? Local experts weigh in.

 
Sea Lions, Herring, and Climate Change

Sea Lions, Herring, and Climate Change

I thought I’d check in on the sea lions at Pier 39. Just a few years ago, there were about 1600 of them. Then in 2009, most of them swam away.

 
Mount Diablo Views

Mount Diablo Views

Mount Diablo, in the heart of the East Bay, is an interesting mountain in many ways. But first of all, Mount Diablo is just there.

 
Combating Bay Invaders

Combating Bay Invaders

California has passed the strictest rules in the country to prevent ocean freighters from introducing more foreign species to the bay. But the standards are so tough, officials may not be able to enforce them.

 
San Francisco Bay Slowly Recovering From Gold Rush Miners' Devastating Legacy

San Francisco Bay Slowly Recovering From Gold Rush Miners' Devastating Legacy

USGS geologists are finding that Gold Rush-induced sediment levels in the San Francisco bay might be diminishing.

 
Sand Waves and the Golden Gate

Sand Waves and the Golden Gate

Mapping of the underwater topography (called bathymetry) reveals landscapes fundamental to understanding the Bay Area's unique geology. The Golden Gate strait connects the San Francisco Bay to the open Pacific Ocean and is only one mile across.

 
Geologic map of central part of California (credit: California Geological Survey)

Geologic Context and History of the San Joaquin River

The biggest river restoration project in California's history, however, is now underway for the San Joaquin River.

 
Oil Spills and the Environment

Oil Spills and the Environment

The volume of oil recently spilled in the Gulf of Mexico is several thousand times what was spilled in San Francisco Bay in 2007, but the ecological studies conducted in the wake of the SF spill give us an idea of what we can expect in the Gulf.

 

The Changing Bay: Wetland Restoration Projects in Northern California

Wetlands — they are possibly the most diverse ecosystems on the plant, according to environmental scientists.

 
Reporter's Notes: The Changing Bay

Reporter's Notes: The Changing Bay

Less sediment in the bay means there's less for the wetlands, which could be an issue. But there's one thing that makes it worse: sea level rise.

 
Reporter's Notes: Ghost Fleet On The Move

Reporter's Notes: Ghost Fleet On The Move

Argentine ants have had amazing success as an invasive species in the US. Their West Coast super colony numbers in the billions and spans from Mexico to Oregon. But aside from invading homes, they've had a dramatic effect on native ants and local ecosystems.

 
Reporter's Notes: Sewage Spills Increasing

Reporter's Notes: Sewage Spills Increasing

The biggest problem can be the smallest thing, and that's the case in the sewer world. More than 20 million gallons of raw sewage spilled into California waterways last year, according to the state Department of Water Resources Control Board. That's not counting the partially treated sewage that makes its way into our water from overflows and sewer system malfunctions.

 
Reporter's Notes: Oil Spill Anniversary

Reporter's Notes: Oil Spill Anniversary

November is the month when thousands of migratory birds on the Pacific Flyway make their stop in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's also the month when herring arrive in the Bay in gigantic schools – tons and tons of the tiny fish. And November's the month last year when the Cosco Busan crashed, leaking 53,000 gallons of black goo into San Francisco Bay.

 
What makes a shark a shark?

What makes a shark a shark?

So, how do the Bay's leopard sharks, soupfin sharks, sevengill sharks, spiny dogfish, and other shark species differ from "non-shark" fishes? Here are a few key distinctions.

 
Producer's Notes: Ghost Fleet

Producer's Notes: Ghost Fleet

On the surface of the story, the Ghost Fleet of Suisun Bay is leaking toxic waste in the form of peeling ship paint containing nasty heavy metals into an already stressed bay ecosystem. Bad guys: Mothball Fleet. Good guys: Enviros who are suing. Simple, right?

 
A fishy odyssey through the delta

A fishy odyssey through the delta

Talk about a wild ride. Every year, millions of fish make a strange and harrowing detour through the Skinner Fish Facility, part of the State Water Project's facilities in the Delta. In my last post, I wrote about my visit to the Banks Pumping Plant, whose giant pumps slurp water from the Delta to help [...]

 
Reporter's Notes – Cool Critters: Sharks of the Bay

Reporter's Notes – Cool Critters: Sharks of the Bay

First things first: If you swim in the bay, no need to worry about sharks. None of the experts we spoke to could remember a single instance of someone getting bitten. And you can rest easy about Great Whites too; they don’t seem to have a taste for Bay waters. For more on this, see [...]

 
Sticking up for the little guy: the California freshwater shrimp

Sticking up for the little guy: the California freshwater shrimp

This year the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) will celebrate its 35th anniversary. Under the ESA over 1,350 species are listed in the United States as threatened or endangered, including over 300 in California. This includes a number of "celebrities" of the conservation world such as the humpback whale and California condor, but also dozens [...]