Sonoma Coast – Enviro Updates

SuzanneMay 22, 2025May 24, 2025Sonoma Coast, Wildlifeabalone, Bodega Marine Laboratory, restoration

Federal funding cuts threaten Bodega Marine Lab’s pioneering program to save rare white abalone

Amie Windsor, PRESS DEMOCRAT

A groundbreaking program to rescue endangered white abalone at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab is now at risk, as proposed federal budget cuts threaten to end the funding that made the species’ comeback possible.

When Alyssa Frederick and her team at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory went to spawn white abalone on Jan. 7, it was almost as if the sea mollusk knew something was looming on the horizon.

“Usually we put them into the bucket of chemicals and I tell the team, ‘Go take a break, grab a slice of pizza or a cup of tea,’” Frederick, director of the lab said. “And I kid you not, within two minutes, the person watching them said, ‘They’re spawning!’”

It was a rare scene for a marine invertebrate on the brink of extinction starting a quarter century ago.

“They showed up,” Frederick said, radiating pride. “They did the best job.”

Now, efforts to rescue the endangered species are at risk after the Trump administration proposed to cut federal funding for all species recovery grants, which serve as the financial lifeblood for Frederick’s work at the lab.

SuzanneApril 16, 2025April 20, 2025Sonoma Coast, Water, Wildlifedams, fisheries, habitat restoration, salmon season, water flows

CalTrout remains committed to salmon recovery efforts as commercial salmon fishing season is shut down again

CALTROUT

On April 15, 2025, officials announced a third consecutive closure of California’s commercial salmon fishery as Chinook salmon populations continue to struggle across the state. Limited windows for recreational fishing will be allowed on specific dates to ensure minimal impact on the salmon population. This season’s decision by the Pacific Fishery Management Council marks the most consecutive closures the state has ever seen, exemplifying how dire the crisis for California’s native salmon has become.

While this decision will help keep populations afloat, the closure has significant economic repercussions, affecting the commercial fishing industry, recreational charter operators, and communities reliant on salmon-related industries from Monterey to the Oregon border. Additionally, salmon hold cultural importance for Native American Tribes in California. Low salmon numbers directly impact many Californians’ way of life.

“A third year of closure is brutal for towns along the North and Central coasts that rely on anglers to fill hotels and restaurants during the season,” said Charlie Schneider, California Trout Lost Coast Project Manager. “While a short recreational season will keep hope alive for some anglers, it won’t do much to support the communities and economies that rely on these fish. We aren’t going to stop working for those folks.”

California’s salmon crisis is a result of long-term habitat degradation, water mismanagement, and compounding impacts from climate change. The staggering loss of these fish is part of a larger biodiversity crisis. CalTrout and UC Davis’ SOS II: State of the Salmonids report found that 45% of California’s native salmon, trout, and steelhead are at risk of going extinct in the next 50 years if current trends continue.

SuzanneApril 6, 2025Sonoma Coast, WildlifeCDFW, crab season, Dungeness crab, humpback whale, whale entanglement

Sonoma County crabbers face new limits as state restricts season for 7th year — but can keep working

Alana Minkler, PRESS DEMOCRAT

For the seventh year in a row, California officials are limiting commercial Dungeness crab fishing along the coast — including off Sonoma County — to protect humpback whales from becoming entangled in fishing gear.

Charlton H. Bonham, director of the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, announced the new restrictions Thursday after aerial footage showed whales returning early to coastal feeding grounds.

All commercial crab fishing zones south of San Mateo County must now close for the season. Fishing Zone 3 — which stretches from the Mendocino County line to Pigeon Point and includes Bodega Bay and the San Francisco Bay — will remain open for now, but under tighter rules: crabbers must reduce their gear by half and avoid setting traps deeper than 30 fathoms, or about 180 feet.

The state has repeatedly delayed or shortened crab seasons since 2019 to protect migrating whales from becoming ensnared in vertical fishing lines.

SuzanneMarch 16, 2025March 16, 2025Sonoma Coastbeach access, California Coastal Commission, development, recreation

Op-Ed: Does our coast need saving again?

Steve Lopez, LOS ANGELES TIMES

Donald Trump’s threats underscore the importance of defending the 1972 ballot initiative that protects California’s coast.

In 1972, thousands of Californians came together in what was a defining moment in state history. They were united by fears that the spectacular coast was in danger of becoming overdeveloped, heavily industrialized, ecologically diminished and irreversibly privatized.

Rue Furch, a Sonoma State University student, signed on as a volunteer for Proposition 20, which called for a commission to “preserve, protect, restore, and enhance the environment and ecology of the coastal zone.”

“I was just one of the worker bees, and it felt great to be doing something positive,” said Furch, whose role was “collecting signatures and holding signs and showing up to rallies.”

In Sacramento, a young legislative assistant named Sam Farr (who would later become a congressman), helped organize a coastal bike ride, led by state Sen. Jim Mills, that galvanized Proposition 20 support and drew hordes of reporters as cyclists pedaled from Land’s End in San Francisco to Balboa Park in San Diego.

“The highway patrol kind of designed the route,” said Farr, who recalled that cyclists camped at state parks along the way and dined on food donated by supporters of the rolling “save our coast” call to arms.

SuzanneDecember 20, 2024December 25, 2024Sonoma Coast, WildlifeDungeness crab, endangered species, Endangered Species Act, fisheries, humpback whale, NOAA

California’s commercial Dungeness crab season to start in January, with restrictions

Mary Callahan, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The wait for fresh Dungeness crab is now only about two weeks away, following an announcement Friday that the commercial fleet can begin harvesting the tasty crustaceans off the Sonoma Coast and to the south beginning Jan. 5.

The season opener came with a caveat from the state: for the second straight year, boats operating south of the Sonoma-Mendocino County line will be permitted to do so with only half their allotted crab pots to reduce the risk of whale entanglement in a year that’s already seen a rise in marine mammal interactions.

“It’s a bummer,” said Dick Ogg, president of the Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Marketing Association. “We don’t like that we are restricted, but we understand what we need to do to protect the animals. Everybody has to compromise, and we are doing the best we can to still provide the resource to the public with what we were allocated.”

The decision to launch the season, delayed since the Nov. 15 statutory start for the seventh year in a row, comes despite the continuing presence of federally endangered humpback whales off the coast. There have been 14 whale entanglements already in 2024, though only four of them are confirmed to involve California commercial crabbing gear.

The other 10, the latest discovered Dec. 2, involve gear that is still unidentified but which is consistent with crabbing gear, state wildlife officials said.

SuzanneSeptember 19, 2024September 23, 2024Agriculture/Food System, Habitats, Sonoma Coast, Wildlifecrab season, Dungeness crab, whale entanglement, whales

A handful of crab boats experimented with a new gear. Can it keep whales from being entangled?

Mary Callahan, PRESS DEMOCRAT

A trial of innovative crab fishing gear designed to reduce whale entanglements is being hailed as a resounding success that should advance widespread use of the new technology off the California coast sometime soon.

But the reception to the trial and reports of its success have opened a window into profound conflict within the Dungeness crab fleet over the future of the industry, the squeeze of government regulations, and mistrust of the technology and those who promote it.

Battered economically by shortened crab seasons for six years and the total closure of king salmon seasons for two years running — many fish for both — commercial crabbers are at once desperate for more opportunities to fish and eager to reclaim some control over their livelihoods.

They have largely resisted the idea of so-called pop-up gear, citing the expense of converting their equipment, doubts about its reliability and concerns that failures and unintended consequences could actually lead to more whale entanglements.

Nineteen commercial crabbing boats participated in the largest experiment to date, fishing with “ropeless” gear from April 9 through June 30, when most of the fleet was shut out of the crabbing grounds because of concerns about ensnaring marine animals.

SuzanneJuly 23, 2024July 30, 2024Habitats, Sonoma Coast, Wildlifehabitat restoration, kelp forest, sea urchins

Groups unite to replant Sonoma Coast kelp forest

Cole Hersey, NORTH BAY BOHEMIAN

This July marks the first summer planting of lab-grown bull kelp along specific sites on the Sonoma coast by the Greater Farallones Association and NOAA.

On a sunny afternoon just north of Bodega Bay, two large troughs of water bubbled in the sunlight, toward the ocean. Swirling in the eddy of bubbles were slimy forest green blades of kelp. Julieta Gomez, the Greater Farallones Association (GFA) kelp restoration specialist, explained that these were blades of lab-grown bull kelp, a tall brown algae that towers dozens of feet over rocky coastlines like a tree.

Bull kelp forests were once a common sight along beaches all across Marin and Sonoma counties. But over the last decade, they have been almost entirely wiped out from the West Coast, only surviving in small pockets between Santa Barbara and Alaska. In Marin and Sonoma, their numbers have been wiped out by nearly 90%, replaced by vast areas of urchins, called urchin barrens. One such barren reaches hundreds of miles from Marin County, all the way to the Oregon border, according to work conducted by UC Davis researchers.

SuzanneMay 30, 2024June 2, 2024Local Organizations, Sonoma Coast, Sustainable Livingcoast conservation, development, Russian River

Marty Griffin dies at 103, leaving legacy of land conservation, environmental leadership

Mary Callahan, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Marty Griffin was among a generation of pioneering conservationists who fought off development pressure and paved the way for protection of large swaths of the Marin-Sonoma Coast.

He didn’t do it alone. But the vast, open landscape of rolling hills and coastal waterways that draws nature lovers to the Marin-Sonoma coast might have looked a whole lot different had Marty Griffin not been around.

Imagine a freeway, whole communities, housing for tens of thousands, a mall, coastal villas, even a nuclear plant on the huge swath of coastline now dominated by nature preserves, public parks and agriculture.

Griffin and other early conservationists mobilized during the 1960s and ‘70s―as intense development pressures threatened to alter the North Bay landscape profoundly―and fought to thwart that outcome, shifting the region’s culture in ways that are evident in the lands now protected.

Since his death at home in Belvedere on May 22 at the impressive age of 103, Griffin has been remembered not just for his commitment to the cause but for his passion and leadership, the “clever,” “wily” manner in which he approached each challenge and his refusal to back down.

SuzanneMay 21, 2023July 11, 2023Land Use, Sonoma Coastcoastal bluffs, development, Timber Cove

Op-Ed: Coastal protection threatened where it started

Richard Retecki, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Those of us who spent much of our lives working to protect the coast are dismayed and shocked that the Board of Supervisors would even consider overturning the well-thought-out recommendations of their own Planning Commission to benefit one particular East Coast developer whose bulldozers are aimed at sensitive natural habitat right above the oceanside bluffs near Timber Cove.

Can you imagine a four-lane freeway running from Petaluma to Jenner, built to service high-density subdivisions blanketing the scenic blufftops between Bodega Bay and the Russian River, and permanent closure of a swath of shoreline to block off access by the public?

These were just a few of the environmental threats the Sonoma Coast faced in the 1970s. Outspent financially and confronted by an aggressive billboard campaign underwritten by corporate oil and development interests, California’s voters and state Legislature simply said “enough” and set in motion an orderly process to ensure that the California coast would survive in perpetuity.

California’s voters had just adopted Proposition 20 — the statewide coastal initiative — in 1972, largely in response to a series of disastrous schemes targeting the Sonoma Coast. By 1976, state legislators had made coastal protection permanent.

SuzanneNovember 21, 2022November 23, 2022Agriculture/Food System, Sonoma Coast, Wildlifecrab season, Dungeness crab, Endangered Species Act, fisheries, whales

California commercial Dungeness crab harvest again delayed

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The commercial harvest of Dungeness crab off the North Coast and Central California has once again been delayed due to large groups of federally protected humpback whales still foraging in the fishing grounds.

They’re fewer in number than in late October, when state Fish and Wildlife Director Chuck Bonham first hit pause on the season’s start. But the whales still remain at concentrations high enough to raise the risk of ensnaring them in fishing gear if the fleet were to deploy the thousands of traps used each season.

The whales also exceed thresholds established three years ago to more closely manage the commercial fishery in a way that reduces entanglement of marine mammals protected under the Endangered Species Act — notably blue and humpback whales and leatherback sea turtles.

Environmental Center of Sonoma County

Category: Sonoma Coast