Published by the Point Reyes Light

In its quest to meet California’s goal of bringing greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, Marin considers its farmers and ranchers a key part of the solution. 

Published by the Point Reyes Light

Before he died in May, a sponge expert who worked with the Royal British Columbia Museum discovered a new species of sponge among samples collected from the depths of the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary: Farrea cordelli.

Published by the Point Reyes Light

A forgotten fuel break along the border of Tomales Bay State Park will be revisited this fall, thanks to funding from the new countywide parcel tax dedicated to fire prevention. The fuel break, which was first established in 2006, was recommended following the 1995 Mount Vision Fire as a key way to protect the communities of Seahaven and Inverness. 

Published by the Point Reyes Light

The California Coastal Commission will allow for the failing seawall used as a public walkway on Brighton Beach to be rebuilt by the owner, albeit much narrower.

Published by the Point Reyes Light

Gabe Reyes, one of the primary field biologists researching native bat populations in Marin, can no longer handle bats under guidance handed down this month by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The fear is that Mr. Reyes and the state’s 50-some researchers permitted to handle the animals could introduce Covid-19 to North American bat populations.

Published by the Point Reyes Light

What role can the home gardener play in restoring the native California ecosystem? The answer to that question is limitless for Judith Larner Lowry, who has grown native plants on an acre-and-a-half lot on the Bolinas Mesa for nearly four decades through her business, Larner Seeds.

Published by the Point Reyes Light

By 2030, the projected sea level combined with a particularly nasty storm event could flood nearly everything west of Highway 1 in Stinson Beach: 590 parcels, 430 buildings and several miles of road. By the middle of the century, every high tide will bring flooding, and the roadways will likely need to be altered to maintain access to the low-lying town. 

Published by the Point Reyes Light

Dismally low numbers of adult coho salmon are returning to the Lagunitas Creek watershed this winter, despite adequate streamflows. Out of the nearly 8,000 smolts that migrated to sea in 2018, the Marin Municipal Water District estimates just one percent have returned to spawn. 

Published by the Point Reyes Light

The three-day heat wave in early June cooked tens of thousands of mussels in their shells in the intertidal zones along the Marin and Sonoma coasts. 

Published by the Point Reyes Light

To address the drastic decline in bull kelp along the Northern California coast, the Greater Farallones Association released a recovery plan last month to inform future management decisions. Purple urchins play an important role in the plan: the species, booming since the die-off of sea stars on the Pacific coast, have decimated kelp forests.  

Published by the Point Reyes Light

What goes on among coyotes in the seashore when no one is watching? What is the bobcat’s favorite trail, the rhythm of otter play, the strategy of the red fox that arrived during the drought? Richard Vacha, a Point Reyes Station resident with more than 30 years of local tracking experience, knows. 

Published by the Point Reyes Light

It’s meditation—the slowing of time and the absence of sound—that Ron Elliott, a Point Reyes Station resident who has had hundreds of encounters with white sharks while free diving off the Farallon Islands, is seeking.

Published by Point Reyes Light

Hoping to lounge on Drakes Beach during a break in the weather? Think again. A group of elephant seals and their young invaded the most accessible part of the beach during the government shutdown last month, drawing international media attention.

Published by the Point Reyes Light

The Bolinas Community Land Trust has scored some prime real estate on the Big Mesa, where it hopes to build up to eight new units of housing for farmworkers. With help from an anonymous donor, the trust this month acquired 20 acres of undeveloped land that border the Bolinas fire station.

Published by the Point Reyes Light

The United States House of Representatives on Tuesday night passed by a voice vote H.R. 6687, the bill introduced this month by Representative Jared Huffman and co-sponsored by Utah Republican Robert Bishop, which directs the Interior Department to continue to authorize ranching in the Point Reyes National Seashore and the northern reaches of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. 

Investigation published by the Point Reyes Light

For years, both advocates and opponents of the historic ranches in the Point Reyes National Seashore and the northern district of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area have battered the National Park Service for not updating its vision for those lands and instead relying on a 1980 general management plan.

Published by the Point Reyes Light

Just before the attack, there was a lull in the waves. In the calm, she played on her surfboard, kneeling on its face to practice balancing—and then she slipped. The majority of her body was back on her board, out of the water, when she screamed and jerked her feet upwards, kicking away from biting teeth. The shark surfaced then, rising above the water to reveal an eye, a belly, a fin. Then it disappeared.

Published by the Point Reyes Light

A new report out of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego found that the coastline of the Point Reyes National Seashore has some of the highest rates of cliff erosion from the Mexican border to Bodega Head.

Published by the Point Reyes Light

After a minute of controlled breathing, inhale deeply, and then duck below the surface. You’re scouring for rounded shells attached to rocks or to the thick bodies of floating kelp. You’re carrying a foot-long abalone iron and you’re prepared to move fast.

Published by the Point Reyes Light

Did it jump ship with a sailor who made it to the shores of Bodega Bay, or was it sewn into the hem of a bride-to-be of a Bodega Bay landowner? Local legends may differ on the details, but it’s generally agreed that the Bodega Red potato arrived by boat directly from South America, likely Peru, to the shores of Bodega Bay in the early 1800s.