I stood with my feet buried in sand, staring at the ocean waves as they touched the beach. It was mid-October. To my untrained eye, the Monterey Bay shoreline looked like a child’s bubble bath. To California Fish and Wildlife scientists, it was a terrible déjà vu. Nine years ago, an algal bloom wreaked havoc—and…
She stood at the fire line, waiting. The sky blurred just above the hill, introducing the arrival of the flames. Crackling patches of yellow and red crept their way down the hill toward her. She heard an ensemble of croaking. A bunch of fast-moving black dots, soon turned into recognizable outlines. Hundreds of Pacific Chorus…
I watched nearly 2,000 baby olive ridley sea turtles hatch while working on a sea turtle conservation project in Costa Rica. Most of them were born in our human-made hatchery from wild eggs we had relocated— each hatchling crawled and tumbled upon dozens of siblings in a sheltered plot, eager to be free. Others were…
Mammals are thriving among the vestiges of nuclear disaster. It’s fraught work for the researchers who study them. Nature is taking back Chernobyl. Three decades after a flawed nuclear reactor spewed radioactive material over 200 towns and villages across the borders of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, trees grow through abandoned houses, owls hoot from rafters,…
Parenthood is both a universal and deeply personal experience. With my science background, I’m always contrasting what I understand as a biologist and what I feel as a mother. Sometimes the latest evolutionary/genetic/cognitive behavioral/comparative biology discovery reinforces my experiences (for example positive benefits of co-sleeping.) Other times it jars me out of a prejudice I…
For many years, I thought California sea otters were cute and cuddly. Who can resist watching them playing in the ocean, often with a baby otter alongside? Cute sea otter imagery is everywhere, from event logos to plush toys to bumper stickers, because we love them so much. Sea otters also help keep the ocean…
“Don’t you dare lick that seal!” screamed a bikini-clad young woman flicking the salty waves with her toes. As I glanced across the Santa Cruz Dog Beach toward the base of a succulent-covered cliff, a brown mutt the size of a footstool was fondling a lifeless pinniped half buried in the sand. It was one…
On a little island off the coast of central California, researchers, conservationists and artists are teaming up to help some threatened sea birds raise their next generation. The helping hand comes in the form of some stylish new housing. The Rhinoceros Auklet is a small seabird that researchers call the “the penguin of the North…
As any pet owner will tell you, lots of non-human animals have their own personalities. Even within the same species, individual animals can have specific behavioral traits, such as tendency to be shy or playful. In the case of zoo animals, knowing a creature’s personality could help zoo keepers improve its well-being in captivity and…
The title might be a bit of a stretch, but the punch of it approximates how astonished I was to see the sea lions of the Santa Cruz Wharf this past weekend. Before a sunset dinner on Sunday, I was dazzled by a group of sea lions resting on the horizontal structural beams that lay…
