Monga Bay reported
For farmers, sometimes the easiest way to save a crop or prevent catastrophic insect damage is to spray a pesticide. But this common practice is wreaking havoc on the soil, according to new research published recently in the journal Nature. The study examined soil from 26 European countries, finding that pesticide contamination is widespread beyond … Continue reading
Posted in Environment | Tags: Pesticides
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Catalina Island Trip Details -Tuesday, March 10, 2026 Duration: A full day on Catalina Island – The boat departs from Long Beach Harbor for Avalon at 9:50 am, and we’re on the 7:55 pm return. Please meet in Long Beach at 8:30 am for check-in. Group Size: Limited to 15 volunteers. Difficulty: Easy to moderate walking on well-maintained trails. What is included:
What is not included:
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Posted in Environment | Tags: Catalina Island Marine Institute
New Scientist reported
Temnothorax kinomurai, a parasitic ant species found in Japan, reproduces asexually and all of its young develop into queens that try to take over other ants’ colonies
Read more Everyone’s a queen: The ant species with no males or workers
Posted in Animals | Tags: Parasitic Ants, Temnothorax kinomurai
ScienceDaily reported
Plants make chemical weapons to protect themselves, and many of these compounds have become vital to human medicine. Researchers found that one powerful plant chemical is produced using a gene that looks surprisingly bacterial. This suggests plants reuse microbial tools to invent new chemistry. The insight could help scientists discover new drugs and produce them more sustainably.
Read on www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/02/260203030546.htm
Posted in Wildflowers and Other Plants | Tags: Microbial Tools
SF Gate reported
Golden mussels, an invasive species of mollusk known to wreak havoc on water infrastructure and aquatic habitats, are spreading rapidly through California.
Read on www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/california-golden-mussels-21941209.php
Posted in Animals | Tags: Golden Mussels, Invasive species
Audubon reported on December 16, 2025
A new collection of case studies highlights how nature can provide resilient, cost-effective answers to today’s infrastructure challenges.
The challenges facing communities and the environment are daunting: severe weather, flooding, and the impacts of climate change have all taken center stage. Today Audubon released a new report highlighting approaches to these issues that are rooted in nature-based solutions: methods of harnessing the power of nature to provide benefits for our communities and the environment. Nature-based solutions utilize ecosystems to protect people, their homes and communities, and promote biodiversity.
Read more at Audubon Releases “Nature Works!” Showcasing Nature-Based Solutions
Posted in Environment
Our biggest fundraiser of the year is back, with a 2026 goal of raising $180,000 to protect Bay Area birds. Your participation supports our youth education program, habitat restoration, and conservation advocacy. Over thirty tours will be available. Registration opens at 1 pm on Feb. 28
Learn more at 2026 Golden Gate Birdathon
Posted in Birds | Tags: Golden Gate Birdathon
Friends of California Condors Wild and Free Upcoming Events at Events | Friends of California Condors Wild and Free
Posted in Uncategorized
Photographed in the East Bay Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park in Berkeley, CA on February 23, 2026.
The Regional Parks Botanic Garden is a California native plant garden. It is located within Tilden Park in the hills above Berkeley, California, It is a 10-acre garden includes many of the state’s rare and endangered plants and a place for visitors to wander among trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses from plant communities throughout the state. There are free weekend and holiday tours. Admission and parking are free. For more information about the garden visit the Friends of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden.
Colorado wildlife authorities have introduced a plan to reintroduce the wolverine, one of the largest members of the weasel family, back into the state where it’s been absent for a century.
— Read on www.goodnewsnetwork.org/colorado-begins-planning-return-of-wolverine-across-its-parks-absent-for-more-than-100-years/
Posted in Animals | Tags: Colorado Wolverine Reintroduction
SF Gate reported
Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the oldest state park in California, is now 153 acres larger, thanks to the $2.415 million purchase of a storied nearby property.
NoraBella, or “the Gateway to Big Basin,” was purchased by California State Parks from the conservation nonprofit Sempervirens Fund and permanently added to Big Basin’s now 18,376 acres, California State Parks announced on Thursday. The property borders Saddle Mountain at the park’s eastern entrance, and features creeks, waterfalls, canyons and a diverse forest habitat home to gray foxes and mountain lions.
Read more Purchase of contentious 153-acre property permanently expands Big Basin Redwoods State Park
Posted in Park | Tags: Big Basin State Park, NoraBella
Numbers of rare butterfly eggs have skyrocketed in Wales after landowners let their hedgerows grow wild to help the Brown Hairstreak survive.
— Read on www.goodnewsnetwork.org/numbers-of-rare-butterfly-eggs-are-best-on-record-after-hedges-allowed-to-grow-wild/
Posted in Butterflies, Wildflowers and Other Plants | Tags: Butterflies and Hedges, Habitat
NPR reported
A newly discovered species of large dinosaur lived in marshy areas, hunted for fish and had an impressive horn protruding from its skull. It is the first time in over 100 years that scientists have discovered a new species of Spinosaurus dinosaurs, which are large fish-eating predators that first emerged during the Jurassic period more than 140 million years ago.
Read more at New Spinosaurus species had a massive head crest
Posted in Animals | Tags: New Species, Spinosaurus dinosaurs
The Mendocino Voice reported
After decades of decline, endangered coho salmon have returned to the coast in numbers that more than double the targets set by habitat restoration projects. In 2008, just 5,000 coho were estimated across the entire state, one percent of their historic numbers; over the winter of 2024-25, more than 30,000 were counted in Mendocino County alone, showing that recovery is possible. Conservationists say that while it’s still too early to tell what this season’s numbers might be, it’s looking promising for another good year.
Read more Restoration efforts spark remarkable comeback for coho salmon on Mendocino CoastRestoration efforts spark remarkable comeback for coho salmon on Mendocino Coast
Photographed in the East Bay Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park in Berkeley, CA on February 22, 2026.
The Regional Parks Botanic Garden is a California native plant garden. It is located within Tilden Park in the hills above Berkeley, California, It is a 10-acre garden includes many of the state’s rare and endangered plants and a place for visitors to wander among trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses from plant communities throughout the state. There are free weekend and holiday tours. Admission and parking are free. For more information about the garden visit the Friends of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden.
See the events calendar for the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden at Garden Events
Posted in Class/Workshop, Garden | Tags: UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Events
Officials discuss why Sea lions are making a home in Sacramento instead of by the ocean.
Watch on www.youtube.com/watch
Earth.com reported
A tiny roundworm living in Utah’s Great Salt Lake has now been confirmed as a species never before described by science.
Researchers say its ability to survive in the lake’s extreme salt levels not only expands what scientists know can live there, but also raises new questions about how it arrived and what role it plays in a fragile, bird-supporting ecosystem.
Posted in Animals | Tags: Diplolaimelloides woaabi, New Speciers
The Guardian reported
The lifespan of fish appears to be drastically reduced by pesticides, a study has found.
Even low levels of common agricultural pesticides can stunt the long-term lifespan of fish, according to research led by Jason Rohr, a biologist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
Read more at Pesticides may drastically shorten fish lifespans, study finds
Posted in Animals, Environment | Tags: Impact Pesticides on Fish
SF Gate reported
Yosemite National Park has closed to visitors due to the impacts of a powerful winter storm, which has dumped copious amounts of snow over the park and caused trees to topple around Yosemite Valley and over park roads.
Superintendent Raymond McPadden officially closed the park Thursday afternoon, citing “high snow loading, multiple road closures into and within the park due to heavy snowfall, on-going tree and limb failures, and potential avalanche conditions” in a safety closure notice reviewed by SFGATE. “The closed area includes the entire park,” the notice reads.
Read more Superintendent closes Yosemite National Park for safety reasons
Posted in Park | Tags: Yosemite Closure
See the calendar of events for theTejon Conservancy at www.tejonconservancy.org/calendar
Posted in Walks & Hikes | Tags: Tejon Ranch Event
SF Gate reported
It was a late Sunday afternoon like any other on San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island. The day was winding down, and Aidan Moore, a guest relations employee for Alcatraz City Cruises, was at the dock of the tourist attraction helping visitors disembark. Suddenly, one of the tourists approached him, wide-eyed: They had just seen a coyote swimming to shore, something that has never been recorded before.
Read more at San Francisco coyote swims to Alcatraz for first time ever
Posted in Uncategorized
SF Gate reported
In 2026, busy national parks, including Arches, Glacier and Yosemite, will be doing away with reservation systems that for years have helped control crowds, the National Park Service announced on Wednesday.
Read more National parks remove reservation systems despite crowds
National Park News Release National Park Service Expands Access for Summer 2026 While Maintaining Safety at High-Visitation Parks
Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: National Park Reservations
Earth.com reported
A new study warns that some of the richest bird areas in the western United States could be hit hard by future high-severity wildfires, the kind that kill most trees and can permanently change forests.
Researchers estimate that roughly a quarter to nearly a third of bird diversity hotspots in the region fall in areas expected to burn at high severity in the future, putting important habitats and the species that depend on them at risk.
Read more Severe wildfires threaten 30% of bird diversity hotspots in the West – Earth.com
Posted in Birds, Environment
Earth.com reported
New analyses show that Nepenthes khasiana, a carnivorous pitcher plant from northeast India, loads its nectar with a nerve-disabling chemical that quickly incapacitates ants and other insect pollinators.
Read more at Surprising discovery made about the nectar of carnivorous pitcher plants
Posted in Wildflowers and Other Plants | Tags: Nepenthes khasiana
SF Gate reported
Visitors spotted a grizzly bear that was awake earlier than usual in Yellowstone.
Posted in Park | Tags: Yellowstone Grizzly Bears
The Independent reported
Small Australian shrub with delicate pink and purple flowers was found thanks to a popular plant ID ap
A plant thought to be extinct has been rediscovered in northern Queensland after 58 years, with the help of a community-driven species identification smartphone app.
Ptilotus senarius, which belongs to a family of flowering plants called Amaranthaceae, is a small, slender shrub endemic to the dry regions of Western Australia.
It was last recorded to have been seen in 1967.
Read more Plant species that was presumed to be extinct reappears after nearly six decades
Posted in Wildflowers and Other Plants | Tags: iNaturalist, Ptilotus senarius
Several Storm Updates from SF Gate:
Interstate 80 through the Sierra Nevada was shut down Tuesday morning as intense snowfall, high winds and near-zero visibility made travel dangerous along the mountain corridor.
“Travel impacts are expected to be severe…” Read more »
The closure is due to rockslides and debris in the roadway. Read more »
A series of cold fronts are expected to bring heavy snow to parts of the Bay Area. Read more »
Posted in Environment | Tags: Winter Storm Impacts
See the schedule of upcoming Bay Nature Events mailchi.mp/baynature/march-11
Posted in Talks, Walks & Hikes | Tags: Bay Nature Events
Earth.com reported
Mushrooms that long looked the same across forests in Europe and North America turn out not to be the same at all. DNA and molecular analysis shows they are three different species.
By separating the three, quietly distinct fungi that had been bundled together for decades, researchers correct records that shape how biodiversity is counted and protected.
Read more at Three new mushroom species discovered that smell like shellfish
Posted in Mushrooms | Tags: New Mushroom Species
Natural History Wanderings 