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Archive for the ‘Lecture Notes’ Category

Mapping a Changing Landscape

Posted in Lecture Notes on August 26, 2009|

Using photography, old maps, and any scrap of archival information they can find, Robin Grossinger and his colleagues at the Historical Ecology Program of the San Francisco Estuary Institute piece together what San Francisco Bay Area landscapes used to look like. In trying to solve climate change and other environmental issues, can we calibrate ourselves better with the california landscape better than we currently do. As much as we have collectively changed the Californian landscape, especially in the last 60 years, the landscape has never really gone away.

From the distribution of oaks and other trees in the bay area, to interior marshes, to beaches in the bay and the way creeks flow down into the South Bay, it seems like there is things that we could do a lot better.

The value of seeking to return areas to their former state is not from a sense that “more natural” is better, but that it can be a pragmatic and worth doing from a cost savings perspective, working with the landscape rather than fighting to change it. Restoring wetlands which could help with flood control, not trying to turn intermittent streams into perennial ones that we constantly have to dredge, and for which we have to import water to keep running.

Of course, the problems are now complicated by our growth and how we have changed things. One example of the complexities that we have created is the steelhead salmon runs that go up rivers in the South Bay… Salmon that can no longer return to the delta partly because so much water is pumped away from it — to ironically feed these kind of rivers.

We can hope that the work that Robin and his colleagues are doing can help lead us to a better path to living within our environment.

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Migrations with Peter Pyle

Posted in Lecture Notes, tagged , on July 31, 2009|

Peter’s talk took us across the Pacific Ocean, following the stories of a few remarkable animals. Two in particular.

He started with two species of albatross that live on Midway island. It was a bit of a puzzle why and how these two closely related species lived together so closely. The albatross for a long time was seen as a problem and the Navy waged war against it until they figured out how to coexist (the albatross managed to do well enough in the battle that a statue was erected in its honor).

The scientific mystery was not solved until they tagged the animals as they left their chicks behind to find food. The chicks are mostly safe and sound on the island (the Navy aside) with not predators, but little nearby food. What the scientists discovered was that the animals flew thousands of miles to feeding grounds, and that is where the species separated: one flew to the Bering sea, the other flew to California.

Parent albatross leave their chicks for a month at a time taking 4 days to fly to near their destinations: upwellings where they could store up on the food they needed for themselves and their chicks. Nearly 7,000 mile round trips. The birds become flying “fat bombs” converting their food to an awful smelling oil that is hard to remove from one’s hands. The birds are also built for the long distances, with their long wings the wind can carry them the whole one way distance without flapping a wing, perhaps even sleeping on the wing.

Equally surprising was what Peter Pyle and his colleagues found with sharks in the Farallones. Peter worked their studying birds, but soon became fascinated with the local sharks (only confirmed after 1980 that they were Great White’s) working to study and protect them.

When they started tagging sharks they found the sharks were swimming thousands of miles. Some would appear regularly in Hawaii, almost all of them would spend some time in a random place in the South Pacific (a mating area most likely, but there doesn’t seem to be any good reason for the spot — perhaps it is some deep deep ancestral spot where there used to be a coastline, sharks being one of the older species on the planet).

They also found that there was a difference between males and females. Male sharks would be gone a year, but females would be gone for two. It’s suspected that the female sharks give birth to their young on the other side of the Pacific, before they make their way back.

He ended the talk touching briefly on a few other journeymen species: leatherback sharks swimming from Indonesia to California (as we’d seen in an earlier talk from this year) and the Bar-tailed Godwit flying some 13,000 miles in its migration to New Zealand.

Astonishing journeys, reinforcing some how little we know about some of the animals that we share the planet with, even some animals like the Great White Shark that we obsess over.

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Underwater with Mike Boom

Posted in Lecture Notes on July 1, 2009|

Mike Boom gave us a fantastic introduction to the ecosystems off California shores. He started with an amusing pantomime description of what it takes to suit up and equip oneself to make his underwater videos.

The video camera itself was surprisingly normal looking for the stunning results he had on screen. He started with Southern California waters off Catalina Island, showing us from plants, to invertebrates, to fish the host of creatures that inhabit the seas. He left us with a litany of names that probably only scratched the surface of the water’s diversity, but the images brought oohs and aahs from the crowd.

His second segment showed us the waters off Monterey, with a similar progression of creatures — noting how the waters differ in plants and animals and how they are similar, as well as noting the difference in water, how southern waters can be much clearer if only a little bit warmer.

He ended the night with two extra little clips, one showing waters even further north in Alaska — again bringing out the differences of life as water gets colder (creatures from the deep in the south tend to show up at higher depths); the other showed a chance encounter with a juvenile seal which was a delight to watch. First shy, then coy, then outright showing off its splendid mobility in the waters — every now and again stopping for a scratch.

Check out some of his videos (from waters above and beyond Californias) at laughingeel.com.

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Saul Bloom on the History of Hunters Point Shipyard and Candlestick Point

Posted in Lecture Notes, tagged , , on June 13, 2009| 2 Comments »

Mr. Bloom started with a quick history of the area around the shipyard and candlestick point. Once rocky outcroppings poking into the bay they were long hunting grounds of bay area Muwekma Ohlone native americans.

Things rapidly changed only in this century. The area was known as butcher town, and third street saw large cattle drives into the area. The area saw some chinese fishing villages spring up, when San Francisco’s city government began forcing out Chinese from downtown.

The first drydock was established there in 1867, built on solid rock. Landfill didn’t begin until around WWI, and the Navy took over the whole shipyward in WWII. It expanded greatly during the war, and for a few years after. This period saw the greatest influx of african-americans but the number of jobs began to fall after 1948, and by the 60s less than 1000 were employed (down from 14,000). The shipyard was closed in 1974, but it has taken that whole time to begin transferring the land to the city, complicated by the massic amounts of pollution.

Mr Bloom took us through all the various plans for changing these parcels of to liveable spaces, and the problems therein. How best to treat Yosemite slough (whether or not to build a bridge over it), how much of Candlestick Point State Park to cut into or expand, how best to get rid of the navy’s garbage dump, parcel E2.

He showed us the proposals and alternates, and all the proposals for where Candlestick Park might be built (at the end of the day, it seemed that the shipyard, given the transit needs, is a tremendously poor place to build a stadium).

In all that Mr Bloom emphasized 3 things:
1) This develeopment alone, some 700 acres of redevelopment, will bring 30,000 new people into the area — no small numbers that could radically alter the politics of the area. But with additional development in the east of San Francisco, the city has yet to take a comprehensive look at the transit needs of all these people in this part of the city.
2) The tremendous potential of the area, being one of the warmest sunniest places in the city, with amazing views, and despite the pollution, host to a tremendous amount of diversity of natural life.
3) That we have a say in the process about how this area turns out. Please get involved.

If you would like to learn more, check out arecology.org.

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Grey Brechin (4/23/09)

Posted in Lecture Notes on May 23, 2009|

Grey Brechin gave us a tour of an impressive list of the things that were built under FDR’s new deal here in San Francisco. Before it became relevant, Mr. Brechin had been beginning to catalog the legacy of the new deal with the Living New Deal project.

It was not always great for the environment (dams and kudzu), but they left behind many things that were build to last. Here in San Francisco, we have things like parks, schools, utility buildings, and art. They were built by a whole alphabet soup of agencies including the Civilian Conservation Corps and the WPA. They were built for permanence, with beauty in mind and with respect.

You can find out more an contribute to the project at here.

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Joel Pomerantz (3/26/09)

Posted in Lecture Notes on March 27, 2009|

Joel gave a great talk on the history of transportation in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and the panhandle, exploring how horses, bikes, cars, trains, buses, freeways (plus an odd assortment of other things), as well as personalities and politics have shaped Golden Gate Park, our of what was once sand dunes, into our experience of the park today.

It was also the site of a few firsts: the first parachute jump (from a balloon), the world’s first driver’s license (you had to have one in order to drive in the park), and the world’s first children’s playground.

My favorite pictures were of a grand Mid Winter Fair in 1894. The grand buildings built for a passing events still boggle my mind. There was also the speedway built for racing horses, and the area where people gathered to show off their horses and carriages, people gathering to watch on chicken hill.

Joel urged the audience to become amateur historians themselves — much of this information is both out there in the world (the remains of things past) and in archives around the city. 

  • joelpomerantz.com – Joel’s personal site.
  • foundsf – a Wiki where you can explore and add to our knowledge of the history of San Francisco.

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