Now in its eighth year of publication, Berkeley-based Bay Nature magazine recently announced the launch of a new content-rich Web site (baynature.org). While many nonprofits have good stories to tell, Bay Nature now has over 700.

The concept of Bay Nature magazine began as a conversation in 1997 between publisher David Loeb and Malcolm Margolin, author of the much-admired Ohlone Way and founder of Heyday Books in Berkeley. With seed funding from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation and other local funders, the inaugural issue covered by a majestic great blue heron photograph hit local magazine racks in January 2001. Now, just over ten years after that initial conversation, the magazine is one of four programs that make up the nonprofit Bay Nature Institute.

No Comments »

“Exercise is key to health, and studies have shown that people are much more likely to exercise if parks and opportunities for recreation are nearby,” writes the Trust for Public Land (TPL) in their latest issue of Land & People. For TPL and many other community-focused organizations, the interconnected issues of physical health, getting outdoors and connecting kids to the outdoors, are becoming paramount to their work. These issues are relevant for the land conservation-focused TPL, health organizations like Kaiser Permanente and funders like the Stewardship Council in California. TPL in fact received funding from Kaiser Permanente to build what they call “Fitness Zones” in Los Angeles, particularly in densely populated low income East Los Angeles neighborhoods where obesity is high.

Another organization focused on getting youth outside believes “[c]hildren are smarter, cooperative, happier and healthier when they have frequent and varied opportunities for free and unstructured play in the out-of-doors.” As such, the Children & Nature Network, chaired by Last Child in the Woods author Richard Louv, compiled two annotated bibliographies to research that will tell you just how much kids are not getting outdoors, the consequences and the most promising solutions.

No Comments »

With the New Year, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area has officially launched a competition to save endangered species living in urban island habitats of San Francisco, the Peninsula, and Marin. The year-long event, called the “2008 GGNRA Endangered Species Big Year,” hopes to spur the awareness and actions needed to save the 33 endangered and threatened birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, fishes, and flowering plants found in GGNRA. The GGNRA contains more endangered species than Yosemite and any other National Park in continental North America.

GGNRA, a unit of the national park system, includes the world-renowned destinations of Alcatraz Island and Muir Woods and is the world’s largest urban national park with over 75,000 acres in San Francisco, Marin, and San Mateo counties. GGNRA has a unique geographical position covering a broad range of habitats for plants and wildlife including marine habitats, salt marshes, redwood forests, chaparral and coastal scrub habitats, and grasslands, just to name a few.

Today, leaders of the San Francisco Naturalist Society and others will be hosting a kick-off party for the Big Year at the San Francisco Zoo.

Numerous educational and hand-on events to help the imperiled wildlife and native plants of GGNRA will take place throughout 2008. For example, if you want to learn how to see and save the Northern Spotted Owl, you can go to that animal’s profile page and find out about upcoming events for spotting it in its natural environment while helping to restore its foraging habitat.

Go to www.ggnrabigyear.org for more information.

No Comments »

Releasing Common Murres near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. (Photo: IBRRC)

Most of the wildlife victims of the deadly November 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill on San Francisco Bay have been waterbirds, but the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory also found two oiled red-tailed hawks. WildCare in San Rafael took in the birds that had landed on the beach to capture oil-covered waterfowl on the sand. Both birds survived the toxic effects of the oil and are now being released. WildCare is inviting the public to to watch them fly free at noon on December 12 in the Marin Headlands. For directions and details, RSVP on their Web site.

To date, WildCare has received over 580 birds oiled as a result of the Cosco Busan disaster on November 7, 2007. Oiled animals continue to arrive nearly every day. The San Rafael facility has taken in more than 20% of the oiled wildlife found after the spill. As of December 10, 2007, the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBBRC) in Cordelia reports 1,076 birds have arrived live, 632 have died or were euthanized, 389 have been cleaned and released, and 389 have been found dead.

Now, at a time when more birds are being found dead than alive, the successful rescue and release of surviving birds and widespread concern for wildlife survival can give Bay Area residents something to feel good about. For a video of a releasee at Tomales Bay, go to the IBBRC Web site.

In addition to WildCare and the IBBRC, Bay Nature magazine also lists informational resources, organizations, and volunteer opportunities related to the disaster.

No Comments »