Tag archives: wildlife
As I walked across an icy Pixley National Wildlife Refuge (NWF), five miles west of Highway 99, it sounded as if I was inside a packed house of a football stadium. It was an hour before sunset, and it sounded as if it was that loud. Just past sunset, squadrons of migratory sandhill cranes were […]
Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network is battening down the hatches as “baby season” kicks off! Executive Director Ariana Katovich says that since the New Year the nonprofit, based in the Goleta foothills, has had 222 “patients” of 62 different species, 70% of them birds, like herons and pelicans, and 30% mammals, including bush rabbits. But […]
I was on an early morning beach run in Carpinteria, pink and orange hues melding across the eastern horizon. While weaving my way in soft sand past wintering killdeer and western snowy plovers, those hardy shorebirds thoroughly enjoyed the wrack lines of tattered giant bladder kelp left behind by the previous high tide. Later that […]
We hugged the crumbly west cliff face of Cuyler Harbor on San Miguel Island with no expectations from the seat of our kayaks. From afar, we couldn’t see any wildlife, but we could clearly hear first-year northern elephant seals snorting and bellowing on distant pocket beaches concealed along the rocky shoreline. I was paddling with […]
There was no denying the six-foot-tall dorsal fin cutting through the open ocean above the Soquel Canyon State Marine Conservation Area within the teeming waters of Monterey Bay, along the Central California Coast. Black and steeple-shaped, the dorsal fin belonging to a mature, male orca glistened in the morning sun. This apex predator is known […]
It’s just one of so many countless hidden nooks and crannies carved out over time by volcanic upheaval, the surf, and weather along the craggy coastlines of the Channel Islands National Park. Most of these concealed, volcanic alcoves, corridors, and toothy grottos are only accessible by kayak. Going on foot or even by boat won’t […]
Down on the Carpinteria State Beach, between the mouth of the Carpinteria Creek and southeast of the Tarpits, a nesting colony of western snowy plovers continues to grow on the popular summertime beach. Nesting season is March 15 to September 15, and in 2021, the first successful western snowy plover nest since 1960 saw three […]
Over 20 years ago I attended a talk on Madagascar at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. It was one long rant about how the ecosystems of Madagascar had been almost totally destroyed. How there were no indigenous organizations for outside conservation groups to work with. And how the Pope had gone there to […]
I’d seen them on Old Army Pass in the Eastern Sierra a few years ago, small in stature but hardy American pikas, keystone species and great indicators of a warming planet. Before I saw them, it was their grating chirps concealed in talus, gritty granite habitat required for their survival. The hike to the […]
Dr. Rebecca Aldoretta is the new Director of Veterinary Services at the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network. She has vast experience in veterinary care, including wildlife and exotic pet medicine, companion animal general practice, and emergency medicine. After earning her veterinary degree from Kansas State University in 2015, she worked all over the U.S. including […]
It’s a secretive side canyon cloaked in unique island and California flora on the southeast fringe of Santa Cruz Island. However, this narrow, craggy draw needs to wait for the month of May to arrive before one can truly soak in all its island splendor. Over the years it’s proven to be one of the […]
Exactly one month from this issue’s publication, the Environmental Defense Center (EDC) will be having a 45th anniversary celebration at its headquarters in downtown Santa Barbara, a special community gathering that marks the first public event in the space in three years. Think of it as a one-shot revival of TGIF!, the environmental organization’s much-beloved […]
Estimates say that there are nearly 2,000 nonprofits in Santa Barbara County, each with a mission of supporting the local or at-large community in some way. But as far as we know, only one organization – The Elephant Project – has exactly one full-time employee. But don’t underestimate the impact of Kristina McKean, the founder […]
The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History – a nonprofit organization founded in 1916 – opens its popular summer exhibit Butterflies Alive! this weekend. For the first time, the exhibit will feature more than a dozen colorful tropical species from Costa Rica. Director of Guest Experience Kim Zsembik shares, “We are excited to welcome these […]
On Saturday, May 14, an unusual influx of emaciated, weak, and hypothermic brown pelicans began arriving at the Wildlife Hospital at the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network (SBWCN). The amount of pelicans that are being rescued and delivered are increasing at a daily rate, but the cause of their condition is still unknown. There are […]
In 1979, I was a young teen and very green in the ways of animal behavior. I was surfing out front of my home in Carpinteria. It was wintertime and the beach was deserted under cloudy skies. I was the only one surfing that cold, crisp overcast morning. It wasn’t long before I heard a […]
Whether you are in the process of renovating your home or still in the planning and dreaming phase, your Montecito Fire Department has a project to add to your list – the vents. Hear us out. Overhauling your vents may not be nearly as satisfying as a new kitchen, but having new vents could be […]
Impulse. Illogic. Emotionalism. These human qualities are the ones not to rely on when considering an exotic animal as a pet. Exotics may be beautiful, talented, and rare, but they are also living creatures – not commodities or toys. Too often they are kept captive at the whimsy and even cruelty of their owners, looking […]
They were a long way from home – a long way from the “Great North” – those distant, pelagic habitats northern fur seals thrive in. Strong ocean currents had firmly gripped these three beleaguered pups that were now seven months old. Malnourished and fatigued, they were discovered by beachgoers on Los Angeles County beaches. Now […]
It sounded like loud cannon blasts hidden away, echoing ahead in massive clusters of boulders somewhere in Joshua Tree National Park. I scrambled up into the direction of those deafening booms, a natural cathedral of granite spires, cliffs, and rock concealing two desert bighorn sheep rams in predawn light. They were in the rut battling […]
