Thanks for tuning-in to Coastal Zone CA! Our
site endeavors to log the character of coastal California’s natural
and human history, as well as to highlight the contributions of locals of
the land doing great work and having fun. Please check for regular updates.
In the Zone Interview
we visit salt of the earth and hear their stories, in the Real
World we examine pieces of the natural history of coastal
California, and in Coastal
Roots we share a bit of California’s maritime history.
A BIG THANK YOU to the ultimate Zone Local - Zephyr Forest
- for constructing the Coastal Zone CA website!!
Yay for hi-tech teenagers!!
Enjoy
It’s weird to write “10” for the year. Are we supposed to write “010”? no.. I’ll get used to it eventually. Now that the obligatory holiday hub-bub is winding down, I’m happily back on the Coastal Zone website updates. At our house we celebrate winter solstice as the primary winter holiday, then followed by Christmas out of multi-generational habit. I feel the deeper meaning of the season is worth honoring, and I always have a good time researching ancient seasonal celebrations and practices – some of which were carried out by our ancestors.
My favorite solstice gifts this year were: spending time at our tiny cabin in Bolinas with my kids; getting up at dawn to light the woodstove and watch the yellow willow out back turn bright orange in the sunrise; seeing our annual visiting Hermit thrush again, and watching it make several sweeps onto the front door window pane, collecting one toyon berry at a time from our winter garland on the door, and then perching on neighboring branches to eat the single berries; and then a fabulous Christmas Eve surf with no one else out, under a glorious sunset, in glassy seas.
Recently, and in the interim between CZ website updates, at least two exciting botanical stories have emerged in California: The first was the amazing discovery of a wild individual of the Franciscan manzanita (Arctostaphylos hookeri ssp franciscana) in the Presidio of San Francisco. The Franciscan manzanita, endemic to San Francisco, was thought to be extinct in the wild and had not been seen in 67 years. The discovery was made this November after the shrub was day-lighted when a tangle of eucalyptus and other large trees hiding it were removed from amongst the Doyle Drive off-ramp structures. (Doyle Drive, which extends southeast from the Golden Gate Bridge and through the Presidio of San Francisco, is in the beginning phases of re-construction). It’s amazing the manzanita was not crushed or removed inadvertently in the felling process.
DNA testing will be done to compare this individual with the last known wild Franciscan manzanita from the Laurel Hill Cemetery area of SF. In the 1940’s, this Laurel Hill specimen was the last wild individual, hanging-on to it’s tiny plot of land as the cemetery was being relocated and demolished to make way for further urban expansion. The shrub was dug up and removed in the night, and thus saved from extinction, by early female California botanist, activist, and bohemian, Lester Rowntree. It was then transplanted to her botanical garden in Carmel. Lester is worth researching further: A very cool lady.
A second recent California botanical update is the discovery of the new oldest plant in CA! This latest development in the story of California’s historic ecology is the finding of the Jurupa Hills Palmer’s oak (Quercus palmeri), an individual thought to be 13,000 years old... thought to surpass the Palm Springs creosote bush in age by 1000 years. This individual Palmer’s oak shrub is far out of its habitat zone of higher and wetter elevations, and is over 30 miles away from the nearest living Quercus palmeri. This low, shrub-like individual is infertile due to lack of pollination, and it spreads clonally. It is currently prostrate in form, and spreads for over 75 feet. It is guessed that this oak sprouted-up in its current location during the end of the last Ice Age when the climate was cooler and wetter. It has somehow been able to adapt and hang-on for tens of thousands of years as its relatives died-back, and the Jurupa Hills of southern California have became more and more dry over time. It is of course now threatened by human disturbance: suburban neighborhoods and off road vehicle use in the immediate area. I hope steps are taken very quickly to protect and further study this treasure.
Here’s two cents from me to you/a simple word for beachgoers: Don’t be such users! And this goes for locals and surfers too! Don’t just drive to the beach, check the spots, use them or not, and split. If you used gas to check your spots – whether you surfed, or hung out, or not – take at least 20 minutes to pick up plastic and trash on the beach! Yes, You: beach trash pick-up. I too have been far from perfect about this, and I am trying to steadily improve in this department. I can usually find a washed-up or discarded bag on the beach to fill up with the strewn garbage, but I suggest having a stack of recycled paper grocery bags (or reusable bags) in your car for such tasks. Throw-in some protective gloves and hand sanitizer for yourself too. You will be the coolest guy on the beach if you are seen picking up the washed-up plastic bits, wrappers, ocean-going cigarette lighters, fishing gear remnants, and the endless plastic bottle tops in the wrack line.
I used to live on Midway Atoll Northwest Hawaiian Islands – the most remote place on earth – and observed countless albatross chicks and other wildlife choked to death and dead in the sun with their innards FULL of plastic cigarette lighters, bottle tops, toys, and garbage they or their parents picked up on the open ocean and thought was food. This also goes for pelagic fish, local California seabirds, marine mammals and of course sea turtles.
It’s such a simple thing to do!! You’ll get some oxygen, become more familiar with your beach, and you’ll probably find some cool stuff to take home. Protect your hands, and be safe and sanitary of course. Report any oil or tar balls observed (don’t touch it without official training and gear), as well as anything dangerous such as syringes, medical waste, human waste, or weapons.. Sad but true – all possibilities for beach trash. I know you’ve heard it all before, but start taking care of your favorite spots instead of just using them. Give it a concerted try starting in 2010!
This edition of the Coastal Zone CA is focused on the Farallon Islands. We’ve
got a great interview with longtime Farallon field biologist, expert ornithologist,
and white shark researcher, Pete Pyle; Farallon natural history insights;
a shipwreck research story; and a few gratuitous bloody white shark photos.
Happy winter! -r
-Rowena, and the Coastal Zone CA crew
Photos P. Pyle
Ferndale with CA Indian Basket, 2005
