How Spiders Fly
Darwin saw them ballooning. Without any wind. Eventually some scientists figured out their electric secret.
• September 18, 2025
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Fish Kill at Clear Lake Reveals a Seven-Foot Sturgeon Surprise
A problem lake was doing pretty well this year. Then came a series of unfortunate…
A Land Back Success for the Amah Mutsun Within Its Historical Territory
Later this year, the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band—Indigenous people whose ancestors lived.
How Spiders Fly
Darwin saw them ballooning. Without any wind. Eventually some scientists figured out their electric secret.
Yellowjackets—Bane of the Picnic, Builder of Hidden Kingdoms
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A Call for Cat-Bird-People
Cat and Bird, by Paul Klee (Public domain) I am a bird-person. I was assigned…
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Fishermen at Oyster Pier this June in south San Francisco. (Jillian Magtoto) Lifelong San José…
Backed by Supporters, SF State’s Marine Research Lab Delays Closure
Katharyn Boyer, interim EOS executive director and professor of biology, poses for a photo inside…
The Man Who Records the Nature Sounds We Meditate To
Martin Sanchez listens to what the trees are saying. (Tanvi Dutta Gupta) Under the tall…
We’ve Lost the A’s, But At Least We Still Have This Invasive Succulent
Greg Friedman took some ice plant after an A’s night game. “I was entering a…
Will Newsom’s Expedited Wildfire Prevention Plans Harm Wildlife?
Fuel reduction and clearing by East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD). On March 1, almost…
A Ramble Around Pacheco Marsh
This piece was originally published in KneeDeep Times, a digital magazine featuring stories from the frontlines…
Bay Nature’s 2025 Summer Guide!
Looking for some great summer reads? We’ve pulled together a few of our favorites, from…
East Bay Skyline Recreational Trail
Travel through six of the most beloved East Bay parks, loosely following the 32-mile East Bay Skyline National Recreation Trail (Skyline for short) and Bay Area Ridge Trail, on the ridgeline above open grasslands with an incredible view of San Francisco Bay to the west and Mount Diablo to the east, through maritime chaparral that supports rare plants, down into coast redwood groves, and to the shores of Lake Chabot.
Staff picks
Point Reyes, After the Cattle
Pastures are visible from a derelict milking barn at the historic D Ranch, founded in 1870 and abandoned after the creation of Point Reyes National Seashore. (Lisa M. Krieger) In the gently rolling hills of Point Reyes National Seashore, rangeland scientist Felix Ratcliff crouches down in the dirt in search of clues to the landscape’s…
Local AmeriCorps Fellows Lose Jobs, Leaving Oaks Unplanted and Career Prospects Unclear
GrizzlyCorps fellow Emily Dewing and ecologists David Lumpkin and Scott Jennings prepare to tag dunlin at Tomales Bay. Dewing lost her fellowship to DOGE’s AmeriCorps cuts.(Nils Warnock) Over the past eight months, Christian Noriega, 22, collected a few thousand acorns at Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, about 10 miles outside San José, sprouted them, and planted…
Survival of the Flittest: Relocated Butterflies Are Spotted in San Francisco
One year ago, a team of earnest conservationists released a few dozen silvery blue butterflies at the Presidio, hoping they would settle down and fill the ecological niche once held there by the Xerces blue butterfly, before the U.S. military poured gravel over Xerces’ last known habitat in the Presidio military base in the 1940s.…
Point Reyes is Far From the Only National Park that Hosts Agriculture
The park ranger was a little impatient. “There is no grazing in John Day Fossil Beds,” she said, “because it is a national monument.” I had asked her about cattle in this remote unit of the National Park System for a reason. After the recent agreement to remove almost all the long-standing ranches from Point…
Along With Its New Park, Ocean Beach Gets a Dunescaping
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Even Ground Squirrels Got In On the Vole Feast Last Summer
By last summer, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire professor Jennifer Elaine Smith had been studying California ground squirrels at Briones Regional Park for twelve years. There wasn’t much these rodents could do that could surprise her. Then her team saw a ground squirrel stalk, hunt, and eat a California vole. It wasn’t a fluke, like some…
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