Sonoma Coast – Enviro Updates

The ocean off California keeps breaking heat records

May 5, 2026

Hayley Smith, TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

An extreme marine heat wave is simmering the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, and experts are warning that it could affect coastal weather and ecosystems for months.

The ocean heat wave started forming at the end of last year but has worsened in recent weeks, according to readings from the Scripps Pier in La Jolla, which has broken more than 25 daily temperature records this year. The surface water temperature on Wednesday was 68.5 degrees — 7.7 degrees above average for the date. The sea bottom was 67.6 degrees, the hottest April 15 in about 100 years of records.

The heat wave is deep, persistent and widespread, spanning from roughly San Francisco to the Mexican border. Those are “pretty significant indicators that this has both staying power and will have consequences for weeks or months or even seasons to come for Southern California,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources.

There are several factors driving the staggering heat, including a unyielding ridge of high pressure straddling Southern California and weaker-than-normal coastal winds, which typically drive upwelling along the coast. Upwelling is when cold, deep ocean water rises to the surface.

But human-caused climate change is undoubtedly pushing the temperatures to new records, Swain said, noting that it takes many times more energy to heat ocean water than it does to heat air. “From an ocean warmth perspective, we are now entering a pretty dramatic period” for this part of the world, he said.

Climate Change & Energy, Sonoma CoastEl Niño, kelp forest, marine heat wave

Estero solution moving forward

March 20, 2026

Austin Murphy, PRESS DEMOCRAT

A new website that compiles community suggestions lists seven potential parking solutions to solve problem.

For some residents of Bodega Harbor, a quiet, high-end enclave of homes overlooking the Pacific, the opening of a nearby, 547-acre public preserve was not a reason to celebrate.

Following a four-month period of phased-in access over three days a week, the Estero Americano Coast Preserve, just south of Bodega Bay, fully opened in November 2025. For a brief spell, it operated under the radar. Then, following a flurry of media attention in January, “it went viral,” as Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins put it.

Suddenly, visitors from across the Bay Area and beyond thronged to the protected spot. That was a problem.

The stunning open space, owned and operated by the nonprofit Wildlands Conservancy, has no dedicated parking lot, forcing all those hikers and birdwatchers – nearly 1,200 on one sunny January Sunday – to park on Osprey Drive and other narrow byways close to Shorttail Gulch trailhead, the only way into the park.

Sonoma CoastEstero Americano Coast Preserve, parking, traffic

Neighbors of spectacular new Bodega Bay preserve overwhelmed by visitor traffic

January 30, 2026

Austin Murphy, PRESS DEMOCRAT

To paraphrase that haunting voice in the movie “Field of Dreams”: If you preserve it, they will come.

Ever since word got out about the opening of the spectacular Estero Americano Coast Preserve, just south of Bodega Bay, outdoor enthusiasts have arrived in droves, from all over the Bay Area and beyond.

The 547-acre parcel, formerly the Bottarini Ranch, is owned and managed by The Wildlands Conservancy, which acquired it in 2015, following a purchase put together by the nonprofit Sonoma Land Trust. The property features 5 miles of trails wending through coastal prairies, along dramatic bluffs and down to a remote beach.

Sonoma CoastEstero Americano Coast Preserve

Op-Ed: Why California gray whales are starving

January 18, 2026

David Helvarg, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Recently, while sailing with friends on San Francisco Bay, I enjoyed the sight of harbor porpoises, cormorants, pelicans, seals and sea lions — and then the spouting plume and glistening back of a gray whale that gave me pause. Too many have been seen inside the bay recently.

California’s gray whales have been considered an environmental success story since the passage of the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act and 1986’s global ban on commercial whaling. They’re also a major tourist attraction during their annual 12,000-mile round-trip migration between the Arctic and their breeding lagoons in Baja California. In late winter and early spring — when they head back north and are closest to the shoreline, with the moms protecting the calves — they can be viewed not only from whale-watching boats but also from promontories along the California coast including Point Loma in San Diego, Point Lobos in Monterey, Bodega Head and Shelter Cove in Humboldt County.

In 1972, there were some 10,000 gray whales in the population on the eastern side of the Pacific. Generations of whaling all but eliminated the western population — leaving only about 150 alive today off of East Asia and Russia. Over the four decades following passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the eastern whale numbers grew steadily to 27,000 by 2016, a hopeful story of protection leading to restoration. Then, unexpectedly over the past nine years, the eastern gray whale population has crashed, plummeting by more than half to 12,950, according to a recent report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the lowest numbers since the 1970s.

Today’s changing ocean and Arctic ice conditions linked to fossil-fuel-fired climate change are putting this species again at risk of extinction.

Climate Change & Energy, Sonoma Coast, WildlifeArctic sea ice, fossil fuels, gray whales

California bans harvest of red abalone until 2036

December 11, 2025

Claire Barber & Anna Hoch-Kenney, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Just outside Mendocino in the middle of Van Damme Beach, a weathered placard educates bystanders about the region’s red abalone, a once prolific sea snail whose mild taste and iridescent shell attracted throngs of divers up the Northern California coast.

But in November, the beach was quiet aside from small waves lapping against the shoreline and a steady stream of cars racing along Highway 1. Commercial abalone fishing has been illegal for decades, and recreational diving for abalone has been banned since 2018 due to significant population decline. Now all that remains of abalone culture here is the old sign, with its illustrated abalone fading in the sun.

“Abalone diving was part of Northern California culture. It was huge,” said Matt Mattison, a lifelong abalone diver and president of NorCal Underwater Hunters, a spearfishing nonprofit based in the region. “It was a big deal for a lot of families.”

It will be at least 10 more years before Californians get the chance to dive for abalone again. On Thursday, the state’s Fish and Game Commission voted to extend a ban on abalone harvesting in Northern California until 2036, citing continued decline in red abalone populations and ongoing environmental challenges — the longest extension since its initial 2018 closure.

Habitats, Sonoma Coast, WildlifeFish & Game Commission, fisheries, kelp forest, red abalone

Trump administration announces plan for new oil drilling off the coasts of California and Florida

November 20, 2025

Matthew Daly & Matthew Brown, ASSOCIATED PRESS

The offshore drilling proposal drew bipartisan pushback from lawmakers in Florida, where Republican Sen. Rick Scott said the state’s coasts “must remain off the table for oil drilling.”

The Trump administration announced on Thursday new oil drilling off the California and Florida coasts for the first time in decades, advancing a project that critics say could harm coastal communities and ecosystems, as President Donald Trump seeks to expand U.S. oil production.

The oil industry has been seeking access to new offshore areas, including Southern California and off the coast of Florida, as a way to boost U.S. energy security and jobs. The federal government has not allowed drilling in federal waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which includes offshore Florida and part of offshore Alabama, since 1995, because of concerns about oil spills. California has some offshore oil rigs, but there has been no new leasing in federal waters since the mid-1980s.

Climate Change & Energy, Sonoma Coastfossil fuels industry, ocean pollution, offshore oil drilling

Northern California’s next kelp forests might be growing in a lab

November 15, 2025

Carly Naim, COURTHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

Kelp once formed “underwater rainforests” on the California coast, but these fragile ecosystems have largely disappeared. At a marine lab near the Bay Area, scientists are trying to bring them back.

On a rainy day in September along a craggy slice of California shore, some young bull kelp floated around in a cement tub as if enjoying a bubble bath.

Unlike some of their kin elsewhere at this marine laboratory, ecologists had collected these specimens earlier that day. The scientists working here at UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory hope the kelp will grow, reproduce and eventually spore — an essential step for restoring the kelp forests that once flourished off the coast of Northern California.

This species — Nereocystis luetkeana, commonly known as bull kelp — is the foundational species in kelp forests, an ecosystem that provides habitat and food for countless other marine animals and plants.

An algae, it only lives for a year but can grow up to a foot per day and reach heights of nearly 100 feet. That’s taller than many trees.

Sadly, California’s kelp forests are in what researchers call “massive decline” as climate change disrupts natural processes in the Pacific Ocean. In around the past 10 years, they estimate more than 90% of these ecosystems have disappeared.

Sonoma Coast, WildlifeBodega Marine Laboratory, kelp forest, restoration, sea urchins, warm ocean