Author: Grey Hayes

Which Senate Candidate will be Best for the Earth?

Will you vote on March 5th 2024 for Nature? How? It is a good time to do some research, ask some questions of candidates, and prepare to be an informed citizen when you cast your vote.

Situation Description – The Upcoming Election

There is a wide field of candidates running to be our Federal Senate representative. Senators are a Big Deal. Once elected, they can stay a long time in the office and there are many fewer of them than House representatives, so they are more powerful as individuals. As I often say in this column: I hope you cast your vote with careful consideration of the environmental platform of the candidates.

Three candidates stand out as particularly interesting in the lineup: Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff. Things are a little odd this election because we are voting twice for this same Senate seat.  The first vote is the PRIMARY for the full, 6-year term for senator. The top two vote getters will be the ones we get to choose between in November. The second vote we cast for senator is for someone to serve just until January 3, 2025, when Diane Feinstein’s term would have ended. They say that these types of things cause voter confusion and errors. Seems simple enough…

A Brief History

The seat up for election is the seat that Diane Feinstein had held for 31 years until her death while in office, 1992-2023. After Senator Feinstein died, Governor Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler to the position; Senator Butler is not running this election for that seat. This is the first time that the seat has been opened for an election since 1982, when Pete Wilson won it from Mill Valley’s Samuel Hayakawa. Pete, you’ll recall, went on to become the State’s Governor, setting up a situation that made it possible for Diane Feinstein to win the special election to finish his term. Once ensconced, it is difficult to unseat a Senator. (Some argue for term limits, but I can’t agree, preferring folks who get good at their work to stay put and do that well-practiced job even better for those they represent.)

Vote for the Environment!

Ask yourself if you know one single thing about the environmental voting record of…Diane Feinstein….Adam Schiff….Barbara Lee….or Katie Porter. I highly recommend the VoteSmart website to examine environmental voting records, endorsement ratings (many years back), and records of top funders. In short, Diane Feinstein scores higher than any other candidate trying to take her place on environmental issues, and she had a long record to chart.

When you examine ratings by the various environmental groups, think about who they are. I look to two organizations in particular: the Center for Biological Diversity Fund and the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. These two organizations have not been corrupted by the Outdoor Industry Association and their ilk, as have so many other so-called environmental organizations. Too many ‘environmental’ groups are professing that all of nature’s problems are best solved by e-bikes and unbridled public access to every square inch of conservation land; the passionate people in these movements frequently overlook the central importance of species conservation to life on Earth.

A Common Voter Conundrum

We often look to polls to determine who is the ‘most electable’ before casting our vote. We want to be on the winning side. The problem is that even those who are being polled are influenced by the media portrayal of who is most electable, but where does the media get that information? Inch by inch, voters gravitate towards who they feel others would vote for, not who they prefer. The result is that people get elected who weren’t the heartfelt choice of the majority of voters. How sad!

Environmental Records, Compared

Of the three candidates I’m discussing, Adam Schiff’s environmental voting record is the worst, Barbara Lee’s the best, and Katie Porter in between. Adam Schiff’s environmental voting record is different from the other two candidates with one recent vote in particular: he voted ‘no’ on legislation (Save Oak Flat from Foreign Mining Act) that would have blocked a Trump-era midnight deal that transferred sacred Native American land from the US Forest Service to a foreign-owned mining corporation. Why Representative Schiff thought it was a good idea to vote in favor of one of Trump’s corporate, anti-nature blunders is dumbfounding. Barbara Lee and Katie Porter both knew better.

However, all three candidates refused to co-sponsor the Keep it in the Ground Act of 2021. That legislation would prohibit further oil exploration of the outer continental shelf and would stop our friends at BLM from issuing, renewing, reinstating, or extending any onshore fossil fuel leases that are not now productive. So, you can see that all three candidates are somehow firmly in the court of the Oilogarchy, as are so many politicians….all of whom are driving species to extinction by heating the planet.

The Endorsements That Matter

The Center for Biological Diversity and its associated Action Fund align fairly well with my values, and their website has easy-to-navigate comparisons of the candidates, so that you can see why the Center endorses Barbara Lee and not the other two.

Other endorsements are interesting. For instance, it is very interesting, given the contrasts that I outlined above, that the Sierra Club has failed to endorse one of the candidates for this Senate seat. Another group I follow is the League of Conservation Voters; again, given the contrasting votes outlined above, it is interesting to see that the three candidates are given pretty much identical scorecards.

Ask! Look!

What they say is as important as what they don’t say. Check out Adam Schiff’s website and you’ll see in BIG BOLD LETTERS the heading “PROTECTING WILDERNESS LANDS AND PRESERVING ENDANGERED WILDLIFE” – and then a big fat nothing about endangered species in the words below. You must dig a lot to find something, anywhere with anything he has done to protect endangered wildlife. Good luck finding any legislation that he originated that addresses the many shortfalls of species protection. Barbara Lee’s website contains this statement in favor of keeping the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as it is, which harkens back to the first answer I ever got from a candidate on this subject. When I asked their campaigns about their endangered species platforms, Obama’s staff wrote back to me that he wanted to keep the ESA as it was whereas Hillary Clinton’s staff wrote me and said merely that she opposed drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Barbara Lee’s website mentions the problematic theme that she “is committed to protecting endangered animals and preserving and increasing public access to our national parks and public lands.” Increasing access??!! That’s a coded nod to the Outdoor Industry Association and their lackies who are trying to turn our parks into playgrounds to the detriment of wildlife.

You can view a moving video of Katie Porter speaking eloquently about the need to pass the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act of 2023; Ms. Porter is on the House Natural Resources Committee, which suggests her passion for, and knowledge about, environmental matters.

I hope you’ll spend a little bit of time following this course of questioning and even drop a line to the Senatorial candidates asking them about their positions on the environment, and species conservation specifically. Those things make a difference. And, hopefully, you’ll be casting your vote for the environment in this coming election!

-this column originally appeared as part of Bruce Bratton’s BrattonOnline.com blog – check it out!

Rainsong from Creek and Cloud

It has been blowing and blustery with so much rain that the ground is oozing and bubbling, and newfound springs are pouring from gopher holes across the entire landscape. The creeks do more than murmur: they rush and shout. The ocean has been loudly roaring with unfathomably massive waves, more foam showing than water. People tire of no sun, but all are thankful for the rain, we will perhaps never again complain of rain…lucky us for the wetness, for hydration of the ground, moistening of the forest duff, the slicking of the rocks and mud, and the paddling of the 11 ring necked ducks across Lake Molino.

An enlarging moon rises above Molino Creek Farm and some of its cover-cropped fields

Moon Growth

Last night, the cloud cover slackened, and the moon was as bright as the sun has been for many days. Moonglow shining through drizzly fog. Owls hooting. Deciduous trees awaken even at night, the quickening of sap, the fattening of buds.

Dazzling Green

We all this sprinter. The trees are bare and the grass is turning Electric Green. The meadows around Molino will get 6’ tall this spring, if we let them. In the past week, in the aisles between the orchard trees and the margins of the farm fields the grass doubled to 2’ tall. It has become unbearably wet to trod off trail or road, shoes and pant legs quickly soaked, even when it hasn’t rained for hours (rare).

Sprinter- the trees are still bare, but the grass is turning electric green

Flowers Unfurling

The first orchard trees are in bloom – the first plums are a’flowerin’. The quince bushes aren’t far behind. The orchard understory is thick with 2’ tall (!) someplaces lush cover crop: fava beans, oats, and vetch. The wide, blue-green fava bean leaves are lush and heavy, nodding as the first white flowers emerge in whorls along the stems. Under the trees, the Iberian comfrey is in full bloom, tempting the bumble bees, preparing them for the Big Bloom when we really need them. Borage, native strawberries, and weedy radish are also offering nectar in the understory. Sprinter – a time for the vibrancy and lushness of the herbaceous world.

Pile It Up

There’s not much going on with the farming, but the Molino folks have been ‘at it’ with land management. We’re not quite done burning all the biomass we piled up this last and the prior year, but we’re close. Fourteen piles ate up lots of stuff into relatively nothing, doing work at the same time. We made the burn piles on top of brush that we didn’t want, so the stumps were thermically removed, saving future work. Often, these piles went through both weekend days with shifts of energetic people tending and adding to them. Each branch we torch is one less to add to the future wildfire, and we work apace to make the farm more fire safe with the understanding that next summer could challenge us once again with an uncontrolled inferno. Meanwhile, we get soaked in the rain while the bonfires steam our clothes dry and keep us warm.

The ridge has fewer trees: dozens fell in the 75mph winds a few weeks back

Chores

We can no longer rest. Although the short, dark, wet days still make us lazy, we must awake and enliven and get to work. After a 2-year hiatus, the meadow voles are back- good news for the riddance of gophers but bad news for the sweet bark of the young trees. Time to make bare the area around young tree trunks- the only way to keep the voles at bay. Also, many young trees pitched sideways must be propped. And…The Pruning! The Grafting! The Planting! Wow, is it ever time to catch up.

-this post simultaneously published at Molino Creek Farm’s website

Environmental Injustice and Accountability

Shall we all agree? Injustice shall not stand! But what are the ultimate measures of environmental injustice, and how do we make those responsible for violating those measures more accountable? Shouldn’t these be the primary questions we pose as ethical humans concerned with the welfare of future generations? As the which came first the chicken-or-the-egg statement goes, ‘no peace, no justice.’

Species Loss and Soil Loss

I posit that the loss of species is the primary measure of environmental injustice. And I would suggest that soil loss is, as a measure, just as important. It is sometimes difficult to make the case that a given species is critical to the welfare of humans. But any informed, rational conversation on the subject will eventually conclude that the most justice is served by ensuring all species survive. It is similarly difficult for most people to understand and discuss the importance of keeping soil in its rightful place. And again, if people take the time to have informed rational discussions on this matter, they will conclude that is absolutely critical that humans do everything in their power to ensure that soil is not lost…from any place.

Measuring Success

Humans have become expert at measuring things, and there are easily available metrics for monitoring species and soil health. The federal government of the United States has an Endangered Species Act and a Marine Mammal Protection Act and the State of California has its analogues. These two very powerful pieces of legislation demand a science-based approach of measuring the degree to which species are approaching extinction, publishing lists of species which have entered that trajectory, and demanding humans take the actions necessary to recover those species back to healthy populations. With those rules, we have progressed well in our species health measurements, database management, analyses, and predictions – oodles of very smart humans’ careers are spent on these issues. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries and California Department of Fish and Wildlife are the authorities responsible for protecting species.

Similarly, both the federal government and the State of California have strong legislation to address soil loss. The federal Clean Water Act and the state Porter-Cologne Act both address soil loss where it can most easily be shown to affect human welfare: in wetlands, streams, and rivers. Again, humans have become adept at measuring soil (aka ‘sediment’) levels in our wetlands and waterways. The acting authority for both pieces of legislation is the State Water Quality Control Board, acting with Regional Water Quality Control Boards…ours being the Central Coast office based in San Luis Obispo.

Photo by Vince Duperron

Progress?

We have had some success, but mostly we are failing to address species decline and soil loss. The Monterey Bay region has excellent examples of both the limited successes and abject failures with both issues. If you get to Moss Landing or Monterey and hop on a whale watching boat (and I hope you do!), you can predictably view endangered species that, due to legal protections, measurements, and adaptive management, have recovered somewhat from extinction. Hike at the Pinnacles, and you can see California condors which most people feared would go extinct not that long ago. Walk on some of our local beaches and you might see a snowy plover…another species who owes its survival around here to the Endangered Species Act. Same with the southern sea otter, marbled murrelet, and the central coast populations of steelhead and coho salmon. If I’m convincing you of humans’ ability to reverse species extinction, you are being premature. All of those species, and dozens more endangered animal species remain on the federal and state lists of imperiled species because they have not been recovered. And, many, many more species qualify for listing under the state and federal endangered species acts but the authorities haven’t spent the time to analyze them. Locally, only the peregrine falcon has been ‘delisted’ – no small feat! The reason so many species are so tenuously holding onto their existence: lack of accountability.

Accountability

Holding people accountable begins with measuring their success. After legal action by the Center for Biological Diversity, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has been dutifully publishing 5-year reviews of the status of each federally listed species; the stories in those reports are not good, but their reports fail to go so far as to hold anyone accountable. Turning to our much-vaunted free press, The Intercept recently published an exposé that illustrates who should be held accountable for the lack of protection afforded endangered grizzly bears. That story, and similar stories I’ve documented from around the Monterey Bay, point to problems with the justice system. If you haven’t figured it out yet, the US justice system is seriously in trouble: there is no justice in the USA! As shown in that Intercept article, anyone can destroy the habitat of, or kill individuals of, any endangered species and easily get away with it.

Point Reyes Horkelia: another species about to be listed as Endangered due to bad public lands management decisions

Local Examples – Endangered Species

Whale species, snowy plovers, Ohlone tiger beetles, California red-legged frogs – all local endangered species with good documentation of legal infractions that have gone unanswered. There are films, witnesses, and reliable first-hand accounts (including by legal enforcement personnel) showing boat captains purposefully pursuing and interfering with the movement of – harassing – legally protected whales on the Monterey Bay…and these are ongoing situations. When interviewed, Federal enforcement personnel say that it is hopeless to enforce such infractions because they report to too few legal personnel and those personnel say such cases don’t stand any hope of holding up in court. Similarly, State enforcement personnel say that unless they catch, film, and have witnesses of someone in the act of killing an endangered sea otter (with ‘blood on their hands’ and a ‘body in their trunk’) there is no hope of legal enforcement of the many more frequent (and well documented) situations of human behavior negatively impacting that imperiled species. Again, they say this is due to limited legal bandwidth within their agency and the hopeless nature of the justice system in convicting anyone. In Florida, there is good legal precedent for finding parks agencies responsible for allowing visitors to trample endangered sea turtle nests. In Florida, as with California, state parks personnel are required to plan for such endangered species protection, even on popular beaches. Around the Monterey Bay, parks agencies routinely allow visitors to trample endangered snowy plover nests and squish endangered Ohlone tiger beetles: there’s documentation aplenty with both situations. As recently as this past year, park agency personnel have destroyed wetlands occupied by California red-legged frogs to ‘improve’ trails. In past years, park agencies have graded and graveled trails, destroying Ohlone tiger beetle habitat. When reports reach federal officials, they respond that they contact parks personnel, admonish them, receive apologies, and then they forget it…there is not one bit of justice served!

Local Examples – Soil Loss

I could, and will in a future essay, provide a similar litany of examples where responsible agencies have failed to enforce regulations designed to address soil loss. The San Lorenzo River is ‘listed’ as impaired by sediment- soil loss in that watershed is rampant and largely unaddressed. There is more to come on this.

Upper- and Lower-Level Accountability

What do we do? If voters don’t demand that District Attorneys enforce environmental crimes, they won’t. If we don’t demand that our politicians have environmental platforms, they won’t work to improve the justice system so that it protects species and soils. But is the fault really way up there at those ranks? Can’t we demand accountability at lower levels? After all, unless we work together at every level, we won’t succeed.

If you see something, say something. We must have compassion for the enforcement personnel who so want to do their jobs but feel disempowered. And let’s learn how to be good witnesses, how to provide the right reports, and how to help document the two primary root environmental justice issues. Evidence must mount from more people more frequently. We must also make sure that the evidence is well stewarded: I look forward to annual reports from enforcement agencies about the frequency of infractions that remain unenforced.

Finally, why do we allow parks agencies to keep operating so that visitors are destroying the endangered species that those parks were designated to protect? Why do parks personnel allow so much soil loss from roads, trails, farms, and buildings? This goes beyond enforcement. This is a political issue. No one wants such injustice.

-this essay originally posted by the wise Bruce Bratton, who aligns some of the areas’ best minds to post in his weekly blog at BrattonOnline.com – why not subscribe today?

Contrasting Two Biodiversity Hot Spots

When I can muster it, I travel to the American tropics to experience an even greater degree of species diversity than California. I’d like to share some of what I noticed in the contrasts between the people and places I experienced this December in Ecuador, perhaps the most species rich place on Planet Earth.

A indigenous guided Amazonian river tour in Ecuador, one of hundreds available

Oh, the Riches

One of the most interesting conversations I had while traveling in Ecuador was during the taxi ride back to the airport as I was departing for California. I mentioned to the taxi driver some of the things I’d noticed in Ecuador that contrasted with California. For instance, the roadways were clean – no litter! Also, I hadn’t seen any homelessness during my travels, though I frequented areas where entire people had no obvious means of employment. Everyone I encountered during my 3-week stay had been more than polite – outgoingly kind more like it. And, those with whom I interacted seemed to appreciate and even understand a lot about the biological richness of their country. I told the taxi driver that these things were surprising to me as Ecuador was supposed to be such a poor country. He shook his head and corrected me – Ecuador is a rich country, quoting Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt, “Ecuadorians are rare and unique beings: they sleep peacefully in the midst of crisp volcanoes, live poor in the midst of incomparable riches and rejoice with sad music.” He then asked me if the United States was also a rich country, and how well did the people of the USA sleep? I didn’t know quite how to answer. (It turns out that one-in-five US citizens take sleep medication regularly).

Tourism Economy

It is interesting that both Santa Cruz County and the country of Ecuador generate approximately the same amount of cash due to tourism: $1.1 billion annually. It is there that the similarities end. The Beach Boardwalk is the driving force for Santa Cruz County tourism. Experiences in nature are what drives tourists to Ecuador; they go to experience Darwin’s discoveries in the Galapagos Islands or to see the rich jungles, volcanos, mountains, and the plethora of wildlife. Everywhere you go in Ecuador there are lodges hosting people whose destination is Nature. Lodges are gateways to the Parks, and each lodge has a cadre of nature guides trained to help tourists see the richness around them. Nature guides study for years to become certified to lead tours in the parks. The guides I met could identify hundreds of birds by their songs, knew a bit about most of the plants we encountered, could identify tracks in the mud, and could talk about the distribution of species across the country and beyond. There are hundreds and hundreds of such guides in that country, which is the size of Colorado.

What a Contrast!

As I returned home, I wracked my brain to think of a single lodge in the Monterey Bay that caters to nature tourists and has any nature guides at all. The San Francisco Airport toilets were much nastier than the toilets in the Quito airport. Trash litters Highway 1. The homeless population was not sleeping peacefully, though others might have been, back in my hometown of Santa Cruz. I’m not sure how many of my culture were rejoicing, with sad music or otherwise: joyfulness is not a phenomenon I equate with this culture. Certainly, most of us living around the Monterey Bay aren’t living poor, but we, like Ecuador, dwell ‘in the midst of incomparable riches.’

Miles of beautiful coast and not an eco-lodge or terrestrial biodiversity guide to be found

When is a Tourist Just a Tourist?

What does it matter that tourists go to the Boardwalk versus taking a walk with a nature guide? They come, they spend, they go home…its all good for the economy, right?

Between guided hikes at an Ecuadorian lodge at 9,000’ I sat by a fireplace looking through the reading material on the coffee table. There, among giant, full-color books published by the Ecuadorian government about the nation’s biological richness, I saw a magazine published by the American Bird Conservancy. That group, and the Audubon Society are two fairly mainstream conservation groups working to save birds from extinction. Many of the tourists supporting Ecuador’s lodges are birders. There is a natural connection between tourism and conservation. The same cannot be argued about Beach Boardwalk visitors.

So, why isn’t there an economy of immersive nature tourism around the Monterey Bay?

The Thrill Isn’t There and We Just Don’t Care

Thrilling, isn’t it? Roller coasters…rides…the children won’t be bored. Once the children grow up, the adults head overseas to see birds and nature: why not sooner? What is it about Nature that makes experiencing it so family unfriendly?

Even a drive along Highway 1 is so unenthralling as to invite so much littering.

Do we care so little about impressing the tourists, do we have such little pride, that we don’t bother keeping our airport toilets and roadsides clean? Aren’t we richer than that? Or, are we really quite poor?

What would Humboldt say of those currently living around the Monterey Bay? “They are just normal beings: they sleep fitfully in the midst of isolation and crime, living poorly in the midst of incomparable riches and rejoice in violent movies.”

Hoary manzanita, Arctostaphylos canescens – on granodiorite, ridgeline south of Loma Prieta

Awake! The Unfolding is Nigh

Now the rain has wetted the green hills, flowers are bursting, birds are singing spring songs, and streams are noisily dancing. The solution is at hand. Toss aside the social media, decline the invitation to the movies, take the trail and saunter. Invite someone to join you, someone with whom you can adventure and discover the amazing life unfolding around the Monterey Bay. First on the list: the manzanitas! A dozen species within a short drive – discover them all, their beautiful bark, their honey-scented flowers with hummingbirds and bumble bees aplenty. Jackrabbits and brush bunnies, roadrunners and quail, coyote and mountain lion tracks around every corner. Need a guide? Sign up for a walk if you can find one: ask me if you can’t. The Monterey Bay’s ecotourist economy and resulting conservation start with you, now and tomorrow. Let’s make Ecuador a sister country to the Monterey Bay – biodiversity hotspots with plenty of inspiration to share.

-this post originally appeared as part of Bruce Bratton’s laudable BrattonOnline.com weekly blog: check it out! Subscribe! Support! It is The Place for news on the Monterey Bay. No other outlet supports a regular environmental column. Other outlets have SUBPAR environmental reporting.

Not Passing Through

A fundamental issue related to the inter-connectedness between humans and between humans and Nature is how we move. How often do we change homes? When we are doing errands or our work, how quickly do we move around the landscape, in cars, bikes, buses, or on foot? When we visit nature, how do we move…and how fast?

Changing Homes

According to surveys, US citizens move from one house to another 18 times. On average, they move every 6-11 years, depending on region and economic status. In other parts of the world, such as China, there are millions of itinerant workers who are on the move all of the time. Refugees from war, climate disasters, cartel/mob threats, etc., are numerous. Is this natural?

Some would suggest humans are naturally nomadic. Long lived civilizations are very rare, and I’d be interested in knowing how long pre-industrial indigenous group are thought to have remained in the same territory.

The Social Meaning of Moving

Neighbors are a very long type of human relationship. Some people don’t know their neighbors. Some even don’t want to. The throng of cities provide anonymity that some crave. Rural areas lay bare the need to interact with neighbors. Some loner rural denizens stand out in their desire for isolation, leaving the rest of the neighborhood wondering and curious. That spectrum means there is a wide variety of meaning when we move away from the social fabric of our neighborhoods. When we move farther still, we leave behind those we chose to interact with, our communities, our friends. How have those moves affected you, your family, your friends?

Lost Communities

I posit that the frequency of people moving is negatively affecting the quality of communities. If people stayed put more, wouldn’t they come to better understand the things that affect their community? Even if they aren’t particularly interested, it seems like people gradually come to understand housing issues, strains on water sources, the health of the public transit systems, who has power and who doesn’t, how weather affects people, social norms, and history. Each of those types of understanding influences our relationships with others in our community and can affect the political parties and politicians we choose. When we move, our votes make less sense, and our communities suffer the consequences.

Moving Around Where We Are

Closer to home, how do we move about in our daily lives? I am amazed at rush hour traffic and suppose that most of those people can’t afford not to be moving so slowly, breathing thick exhaust. For a long time, as a commuter, I tallied the very expensive vehicles on the road at various times of day. Not surprisingly, the rich are better able to avoid rush hour. So, how and when we move around is highly affected by how much money we have. But, everyone moving in cars on the road share the experience of isolation from each other and from the world as a whole. The more time people spend in their cars, the more isolated they are.

Economic conditions notwithstanding, Covid lockdowns changed many people’s movement patterns. People looked at their homes differently. For instance, people started cultivating many more houseplants. As the urban bustle subsided, wildlife started edging further into the built environment. We noticed the world around us a lot more. It was quieter both on the streets and in the air. Air pollution declined. Some of our movement patterns remain curtailed despite city governments’ attempts to get businesses to reverse work-from-home policies.

Moving Around In Nature

A ‘avid’ mountain bike enthusiast once told me that they rode carefully so as to avoid running over newts. For those who read my column regularly, you know I have an affinity with newts. When I walk in the forest, avoiding stepping on newts is something that keeps my attention. It is not easy. Newts blend into the forest floor easily, are varying sizes and move at varying speeds, and are sometimes so numerous that you have to walk ever so gingerly to avoid them. It is even more difficult for a bicyclist to avoid smashing newts, and that example serves for a world of other nature interactions. The faster you move around nature, the less likely it is that you will see the nature around you. Also, bicyclists, by covering more ground than those on foot, also disturb more wildlife than other, slower-moving parks visitors. If we are looking to increase the nature sense of humans, we must work to get mountain bikers off of their bikes, so they move more slowly and experience nature more deeply. The same goes for joggers. Parents who care about helping their children connect with nature have a challenge to show their kids how nature is exciting even if you aren’t on a bike or running through a park.

Infrastructure in Nature

‘Stay on the trails’ is an increasingly common park visitation rule. It wasn’t that way very long ago. Technically, State Parks has to formally designate an area as a natural reserve to legally restrict use to trails. At Cotoni Coast Dairies, the land managers have to go through an arduous rulemaking procedure to restrict future visitors to trails. Staying on trails changes the way you experience nature. Wildlife avoid trails. The vegetation surrounding trails is different. Your chance of encountering other people on the trails changes your experience. And, most trails are designed as straight lines, as if we are all in a hurry to get from one place to the next when we visit nature. Trail builders with parks agencies think that people want ‘loops’ and are averse to ‘out-and-back’ trails. Turn offs from the main trail better end in some giant attraction, like an incredible view. Those straight lines and loops create a certain type of experience for parks visitors. I suggest those designs enforce a more fleeting and more separate interaction with nature. What would it be like if more trails led one way to nothing obviously spectacular? What if parks managers designed in slow, immersive experiences into their ‘infrastructure?’

If people slowed down, looked around, and took more time to experience nature, wouldn’t that connect them more with the natural environment? Wouldn’t that connection make them care more about protecting the environment? Just as people moving less increases the possibility of caring more for their neighbors and human community, people moving more slowly in parks should increase their caring for the non-human world.

-this post originally published by Bruce Bratton in his highly engaging and enlightening weekly blog found at BrattonOnline.com, where you can turn for the most meaningful news for the Monterey Bay area.

Animals of our Hearts

We each come to loving non-human wildlife for our own reasons, and we want to assure that all species are thriving for future generations. Among the many people with whom I interact, their answer to an intriguing question is uncannily and increasingly resolute.

“How many species do you need to maintain the quality of life you desire?”

“All of them” is the answer more and more people are giving me.

How does that work?

Only through the goodness of our hearts will we conserve wildlife. What doors open our hearts enough that we are willing to act to restore wildlife?

Cute, Fuzzy Creatures

As children, we are fascinated and kind towards non-human animals. Often, what we glean from children is that they find wildlife to be ‘cute.’ Whether they are stuffed plush toys or animated cartoons, we indulge our youngest children’s inherent love of wildlife. They have pets, or visit friends’ pets, and develop relationships with non-human species. Children learn to cuddle and stroke pet fur, and the pets purr and roll, and show pleasure, giving love back. Humans and non-humans give and receive love, reducing stress and building trust. We expand the community from our core human families to include non-humans.

As adults, we carry with us that love of cuteness, the desire for connection with non-humans, the tactile pleasure of the furry cuddling interaction. And we develop still other ways to connect with non-human animals.

Non-Human Friends: Our Pets

The friendships we create with non-human species are complex, and we each have our own approach. Many share a basic understanding that has developed with our non-human pet species. There are troves of common wisdom about dog and cat behavior towards, and expectations of, humans, which I will not repeat. I’m sure you have plenty of material to reference, as this is a deeply cultural realm and the subject of many conversations, especially when extended family gathers and ‘pet talk’ is a relatively safe space for discussion.

As those pet conversations get more personal, it becomes clear that many humans rely on non-humans (and vice versa) for friendship. Our pets go with us on adventures and reveal to us much that we may not have otherwise experienced. Our pets recognize our ups and downs and participate actively with all of our emotional territory.

Wild Friends

It’s not only pets: some people recognize friendship with wild creatures. The stand-out crowd are those who feed or provide water for wild birds. This bunch is so numerous as to have a sizeable economy surrounding these connections. People buy and maintain hummingbird feeders, bird baths, bird feeders, suet cages…some even invest in specialized foods such as worms or fruit jellies for their favorite bird species. There is an emerging movement in gardening for wild birds.

Still others connect with the wild furry animals that they frequently encounter in parks or in their yards…squirrels, deer, and foxes are the ones I hear about the most. People put out squirrel food, some even getting to know a squirrel well enough to feed it out of their hands. Some folks get to know a certain local doe and her fawns, watching her through the year as she raises them from spots to adolescents. The doe may very well know about the safety net provided by their proximity to a friendly human’s habitation. She and her fawns will feel comfortable near the humans they recognize. Being very sound-centric, they respond attentively and curiously when we talk to them. The very habitual fox, trotting the same paths at the same times each day, will know just how to avoid human encounters but we catch glances of them when we break our rhythms. They poop on our shoes outside the door as a way of saying hello. For a while, foxes were so regularly seen in Bonny Doon that when their populations dipped a whole community was saddened.

Wildlife Viewers

Many of us are falling in love with more and more species of wildlife. We call ourselves naturalists or wildlife viewers. We study the critters we encounter in order to learn new stories. Domesticated dogs provide a gateway into the natural world…through our regular ‘dog walks’ and through our observation of their sniffing around and explorations. Wild animals do those things, too, in many more ways. They draw us out of our cozy homes to visit them and see what they are up to. Observing their behavior, we learn new things about the natural world. As our curiosity grows, we find ourselves in places we wouldn’t otherwise venture, at times of day we might not otherwise get out. Wildlife viewers must get up very early sometimes. To see a river otter, they go to the riverside; to see whales, they go out in boats; to see pond turtles, they spend time gazing at logs in ponds; to see snowy plovers, they squint into binoculars on a wind-blown beach; to hear owls, they stay up late and scritch gravel to goad them to calling.

Hunters

A significant and important segment of the human population connects with wildlife as part of the hunt. Sometimes, hunting provides important food for subsistence; historically, this was even more so. Other times, hunters enjoy the sport as well as the food. Hunters and people who fish get to know the species they pursue and the habitats those species rely on. And, their love of wildlife for hunting has actualized incredible conservation successes. Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited are two of the many organizations supported by hunters which have helped steward wildlife habitat and recover species.

All of Us

Statistics suggest that the vast majority of humans, even here in the apparently divided USA, strongly support wildlife conservation. When we realize the importance of wildlife to our standard of living, we are compelled to learn more about what wildlife need to survive. When we connect with wildlife, we realize we are part of something greater than ourselves, bigger than our simplified human-oriented world. When we see wildlife make a connection with us, we feel part of the natural world, and our basic selves become more grounded and real. When we work to conserve wildlife, we are at our best…serving the world that serves us. Three ways we can be effective at wildlife conservation:

  • Vote for candidates that detail their approaches to conservation. Every political candidate has the means to make a bigger difference than any one of us acting alone.
  • Join a wildlife conservation organization, donate more than membership fees. The Center for Biological Diversity is my choice. The Audubon Society is a good one, too. I’m vetting others…suggest one that you think I should mention!
  • Tell your friends heart-felt wildlife stories. Help create a culture that connects with wildlife!

-this post originally part of a Bruce Bratton weekly blog at BrattonOnline.com, read it and be enlightened!

-to be further enlightened on this subject, see the recording of my recent presentation about local wildlife by clicking here.

Surrounding Sounds

As the Great Marvel occurs, the sounds so change also. The Great Marvel is the onset of winter rains. As citizens of a Mediterranean climate, this should be as monumental as it is for the other living beings around us. Simultaneously, the sounds of winter set in. Are you listening?

Humans are very visual, but we have other senses that would be good to emphasize. Let’s call this next week “Sound Awareness Week.” This will have particular meaning for those who can’t hear at all or hear well: for those of you, perhaps your gift this next week is to help more people describe what they are hearing, a two-for-one kind of experience. For those of you who are already acutely aware of sound…there is always more to explore!

Background, Seasonless Sounds: Rural and Urban

Everywhere you go, there are always a few noises no matter what season. Airplanes: more so on weekends with recreational aircraft. Roaring motorcycles: replete with accentuating noise apparatus, illegal, but unenforced! Barking domestic dogs, a seemingly Universal human mishap: some dog owners can’t seem to hear their own hounds (or don’t care)!

Seasonless Urban Noises

As many readers are situated in urban or near-urban areas, let’s first sift through the background sounds that a realtor once told me (mistakenly) that I would ‘get used to’ so that one day I ‘won’t even notice.’ Traffic: the hum or revving of engines, the squealing of tires. Car stereos played so loudly as to accelerate deafness. Sirens. Fighting domestic cats. Crows, hundreds of crows cawing. Pigeons cooing. The mechanical noises of Boardwalk rides and the accompanying screaming.

Uniquely Rural Noises, All Year Round

A few birds and coyotes sing the same all year round. Dark eyed junco, spotted towhee, Stellars and California scrub jay, great horned owl…all birds that seem to go on and on with similar calls all year round. Many other birds clearly vary their songs more seasonally. Coyotes yap and chortle-howl most any time during the year.

Winter Noises

Think about those prior non-seasonal noises, review them and visit them in your mental soundscape…then think about what you are hearing these days that’s different than say a month ago.

The three big noises that mean winter most to me: rainfall, wind, and waves.

Rain

The many sounds of rain make me smile whenever I stop long enough to enjoy them. The sound of urban rain – on pavement, bouncing off cars, pouring off of roofs, rushing down storm drains. In the City, its like you are part of a giant cement fountain where all of the water is guided this way and that, popping out here and there by design.

In the country, you can enjoy the very varied sound of rain hitting different plant communities. Grassland rain is very quiet as millions of grass blades expertly catch and lower raindrops, springing back for the next one, dancing on and on, up and down. Conifer forest rain is quiet at first, too: needles delicately capture the oncoming rains. After a bit, the sound changes as the needles let loose big droplets that clamor as they pass down through the canopy and onto the ground. Waxy leaved plant communities, oak and madrone forests and chaparral have particularly rattly-noisy rain sounds. Raindrops pop when they hit those leaves, spattering and spraying with more noise still. Rain on the ocean, in lagoons and estuaries, and on ponds has the most soothing sound, where you can really get a sense of the minute changes in rainfall intensity and duration.

Wind

City and country wind sounds are different, too; either way, the wind noise is significantly heightened with the onset of winter storms. Tuning into wind noises in either place, you can visualize zephyrs and gust fronts as they pass by, come towards you, or after they retreat.

In the City, wind makes varied and unique high whistling noises as it passes through wires; there are wires everywhere in the City. If you live near a tree that catches the wind, you come to know its song. Palm trees rattle and bark. Conifers roar with different pitches. Bare branches of the many street trees also sing songs.

In the Country, the ridge top forests are often talking through the winter. Depending on the wind direction, each ridge and forest type has its own distant hum-roar-swoosh. If you are in the forest when its windy, you get to hear the groan and sometimes pop of trees swaying. Leafy evergreen live oaks make a noise in the wind that makes you wonder if its raining.

Waves

Big wave events are common around the Bay through the winter, and those waves make big noises. Besides bird song, listening for the waves is what most frequently brings me back to the moment. When I catch the wave noise and pause, I try to pick out individual waves even from far away. I try to follow that wave as its crashing progresses directionally. Then, I listen for the crescendo or the lulls of the varying sets. I pay attention to my breath to compare the tempo. Sometimes, I think I can feel the waves through the ground, perhaps the big noise reverberating into the ridges and terraces. After a particularly long lull, I pick up the spray off of the first big wave before the subsequent waves drown out that higher note. I’m thinking of late that long sets of big waves make tones like singing: listen for the notes, am I right?

Other Winter Noises

There are a few other winter noises that are unique to the city or countryside.

In the City, the sound of traffic changes as rolling tires are louder, making wet and splashing noises. The Boardwalk makes less noise.

In the Country, the ephemeral streams start their chorus. Post-storm waterfalls sing. Under the redwoods in the mountains, you can hear the flute-like call of the varied thrush, a winter denizen. In orchards and in riparian forests, you might hear the distinct whiney ‘weeent’ of the red-bellied sapsucker, another species only around in the rainy season.

Now Listen!

Its over to you…check it out…report back on the onset of uniquely winter sounds. Tell me, tell your family, tell your friends what’s all that noise about? Compare notes.

-this originally posted by Bruce Bratton in his outstanding weekly blog BrattonOnline.com – check it out, donate…and read it!

Good Roach Stewards: Shifting Baselines

“Shifting baselines” is a term used to illustrate how humans acculturate to reduced wildlife, thinking that what they experience is normal and good. “Good enough” is perhaps a better term. Too many people measure success by saying ‘good enough!’ With species diversity in general and wildlife population health specifically, ‘good enough’ for some people is probably not what most people deserve and ‘shifting baselines’ is the problem at hand for large areas of Santa Cruz County.

Current Baseline: Shift Happened

Fifteen thousand years ago, a combination of poor human stewardship and climate change created a mass extinction event in California. Dire wolf, mastodon, mammoth, lion and other big cats, camel and horse relatives, the California turkey, a flightless duck in the lagoon at Laguna Creek, ground sloth, short-faced bear, and a host of other critters disappeared in a very short period of time. We don’t miss those species – they aren’t part of our cultural memory. But, we do seem to reminisce about beaver, gray wolf, tule elk, the California grizzly, badger and pronghorn…species that disappeared from the Central Coast more recently. Well, I’m not sure how many people really think about those species and ‘miss’ them. I do. The miracle recovery of some whale species seems to excite people, but those same people generally don’t consider the vastly reduced numbers of those species. In sum, our current wildlife situation is what is known as ‘depauperate’ – much reduced from historical numbers. And yet, most people think that what occurs today is ‘normal’ and they don’t much think about the opportunities to recover wildlife to more healthy populations on at least public lands in the Central Coast. Our experience of our “biological baseline” is greatly different than humans 15,000 years ago.

What will future generations of humans come to think of as normal? Will they one day realize that California is down to three species of wildlife, all cockroaches, and form some sort of cultural pride to recover the last remaining wild species? This is the trajectory we are moving towards because no one seems to care about the situation with the Central Coast’s wildlife, right now. If they did, local parks managers would hear about it and politicians would hold them accountable.

Parks Manager Responsibility

Whether we are thinking about State Parks or land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the officials in charge of more than 20% of Santa Cruz County have a responsibility to monitor the impact of their management choices and to maintain wildlife populations for future generations. Specifically, all State Parks are required to have a General Plan and, in those plans, to outline how they will manage responsibly to maintain healthy wildlife populations. Similarly, the BLM is required to manage Cotoni Coast Dairies first and foremost for conservation, which requires wildlife surveys be conducted that can inform the agency’s management of livestock, ecosystems, and recreation.

Cotoni Coast Dairies: A Singularly Special Opportunity

What makes BLM’s management of Cotoni Coast Dairies a grandly special opportunity is that the property has not yet been opened to the public, so BLM can collect wildlife data before recreational activities begin to impact species. The wildlife of all other parks has already been negatively impacted by recreational use and so we can’t as easily understand how to improve the management of recreation in those places. Perhaps trail use on the trails BLM has already built will have no impact on wildlife – that would be extremely unusual! Chances are good that recreational use will negatively affect wildlife even hundreds of feet away from the trails. We won’t know how significant those effects will be unless data are collected before recreational use of the trails. And, we won’t learn which species are impacted by what numbers, timing and types of recreational use: those things would be very relevant to BLM and other regional parks managers in order to accomplish their mandates.

Illustration compliments of Steven DeCinzo

On the Other Hand: ‘Good Enough!’

Here’s some of the things I’ve heard about biological baselines to inform land management in Santa Cruz County. Mostly, land managers say that they have enough information to make good decisions. This is important for them to say because they are required to use the best available science. If they say that they don’t have sufficient science, they are admitting fault and might be held liable, so they can’t say anything but that they have enough science already.

When pressed, they say something akin to “Just look! Habitat!” You dare not suggest species are a better measure of management success because they have a world of arguments against that approach. Their argument goes…if you have a grassland, you have done all you can to protect grassland species…a redwood forest! Violà! Redwood forest species all taken care of! If the species aren’t there, they say something like “well, that’s beyond our control” or “they’ll show up some day.” In short…some vague habitat description and a map of the presence of said habitat is ‘good enough.’ The fact is that species are much more sensitive to management of those habitats than manager’s broad brush would suggest. The problem is…any more refined monitoring might be either expensive and/or could hold managers accountable.

Accountability

What if you had rare wildlife species on the land you managed, what would you do? Might you consult with the agency that is responsible for recovering those species? The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has good wildlife biologists, and they have survey protocols that are useful in documenting a species’ presence/abundance. Same with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Would you want to make the public aware of the conservation work you are performing, and how successful it has been? Would you be worried about negative publicity?

Do you think lands managers feel accountable about more than their conservation mandates? Do you think that they feel accountable to certain recreational user groups? How would you know which type of accountability they feel more concerned about?

Your Role

I hope that you have joined a pro-wildlife advocacy group. Working together, we can make sure that the wildlife our children’s children experience is more diverse, and more plentiful, than what we experience now. The alternative is bleak: children fascinated by the last species, raising cockroaches in cages and hoping that their offspring might live in the impoverished ecology resulting from a world of shifting baselines. I don’t think that is good enough.

– this article published in Bruce Bratton’s fabulous weekly blog BrattonOnline.com Sign up at that site to get the alert that it is out and then enjoy some quality time reflecting on news that matters…as well as excellent film/media reviews.

Season’s End

Now newts arise from dry grassland tunnels wetted by fresh winter rain,

ecstatic, star-guided, stretching towards far away ponds.

Now dust washes from every needle and leaf.

Wind gusts. Torrents. Then blue sky.

Nights dominate – deep rest, many dreams.

Now owl hoots with raindrop percussion –

raindrops, millions, each with its own tone.

Sharp snares – bouncing splashes explode from waxy madrone leaves.

Muffled droplets sink silently through softened turf.

The Molino Community Orchard, so loved…now prepared for a resting winter

Crop fields tilled and rested.

Brown, crumbly, bared soil,

winter seeds, absorbing.

2 Dog Farm’s dryfarmed butternut squash, culls, got tilled in this week

Now the rumbling, crashing, hissing roar,

musical hum of waves.

Reverberating waves echoing notes like distant Tuvan throat singing.

Now the wind howls.

Centipedes, pill bugs, beetles,

burrow deeper into the wetting duff.

Leaves shake loose, settle, sheltering myriad ground critters.

White, yellow, brown…fine fungal roots spawn through the complex of soil and leaflitter salad,

buttons, parasols push and unfold.

Banana slugs slither trailing tracks, silver mucous crossing leaves, clearing algae off dank windows, slime traversing the furry, rough bark plates of redwoods.

Sun rises after storm.

Vast glittering sparkles shine and twinkle across the landscape.

Celebration of rain,

so begins a new season of growth.

So begins the long dark wet muddy winter.

The last of Molino Creek Farm’s dryfarmed tomatoes have been tilled in.