NRS Science Writer Honored for Book on San Francisco Bay

April 22, 2013 By

by Rob Irion, direc­tor, UC Santa Cruz Sci­ence Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Program

Natural History of San Francisco Bay (University of California Press, 2011).Nat­ural His­tory of San Fran­cisco Bay (Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Press, 2011).

Nat­ural His­tory of San Fran­cisco Bay, a book coau­thored by NRS sci­ence writer and UC Santa Cruz Sci­ence Com­mu­ni­ca­tions alumna Kath­leen Wong, has received the Harold Gilliam Award for Excel­lence in Envi­ron­men­tal Report­ing from The Bay Insti­tute of San Francisco.

The 352-page book, pub­lished by the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Press as part of its series of Cal­i­for­nia Nat­ural His­tory Guides, explores the hydrol­ogy and geol­ogy of San Fran­cisco Bay and its vast water­shed, its myr­iad plant and ani­mal inhab­i­tants, and the pro­found impacts from the cities, indus­tries and thor­ough­fares that now ring the bay.

The book also cap­tures the opti­mism of researchers involved with one of the country’s largest envi­ron­men­tal restora­tion efforts, as well as the ongo­ing threats to the estu­ary from cli­mate change.

Wong and her coau­thor, San Francisco–based free­lance jour­nal­ist Ariel Rubis­sow Okamoto, were hon­ored by The Bay Insti­tute at an awards cer­e­mony on April 11 at the Aquar­ium of the Bay in San Francisco.

Coauthors Kathleen Wong (left) and Ariel Rubissow Okamoto at The Bay Institute's award ceremony on April 11 in San Francisco. Photo: Robert IrionCoau­thors Kath­leen Wong (left) and Ariel Rubis­sow Okamoto at The Bay Institute’s award cer­e­mony on April 11 in San Fran­cisco. Photo: Robert Irion

Rubis­sow Okamoto, a long­time cor­re­spon­dent on San Fran­cisco Bay water issues, was invited by UC Press to write a primer about the bay—the West Coast’s most urban­ized estuary—and its water­shed. Her vision for the book, infused with human sto­ries and nar­ra­tive jour­nal­ism about restor­ing the estu­ary to health, was not typ­i­cal for an entry in the ven­er­a­ble guide­book series by UC Press. Rubis­sow Okamoto asked Wong to help reshape the man­u­script and to report, write, and edit new mate­r­ial. The pair also acquired his­tor­i­cal and cur­rent photos—including many taken by Wong’s hus­band, Max Eissler.

All told, Rubis­sow Okamoto worked on the vol­ume for about five years, and Wong for more than two. “Giv­ing birth to this book felt end­less at the time, but like any proud par­ent, I now feel the effort was entirely worth­while,” Wong says.

The part­ner­ship was ideal, Wong adds. “[Ariel’s] strong rela­tion­ships with bay sci­en­tists and broad knowl­edge of Cal­i­for­nia water issues have shaped my report­ing and sparked a whole new appre­ci­a­tion for the won­ders of the bay,” she writes in the book’s acknowledgments.

The award is named for Harold Gilliam, a for­mer colum­nist for the San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle and author of numer­ous books about San Fran­cisco and the region’s nat­ural his­tory. “After expe­ri­enc­ing, research­ing, and writ­ing about San Fran­cisco Bay over a period of 50 years, I was cer­tain that I knew all there was to know about it,” Gilliam says. “I was wrong. Rubis­sow Okamoto and Wong have enabled me to see it in a new dimension—call it 3D, or maybe even 4D.”

Wong earned a dual B.A. in biol­ogy and English/American lit­er­a­ture from UC Santa Cruz before enrolling in the Sci­ence Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Pro­gram in 1998. She worked as an intern at U.S. News & World Report, then as a staff reporter for the Mon­terey County Her­ald. For sev­eral years, Wong was senior edi­tor at Cal­i­for­nia Wild, the for­mer mag­a­zine of the Cal­i­for­nia Acad­emy of Sci­ences. She now works as prin­ci­pal pub­li­ca­tions coor­di­na­tor for the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Nat­ural Reserve Sys­tem in Oakland.

Rubis­sow Okamoto has worked as a free­lance jour­nal­ist for 25 years. Her main clients have included the Sierra Club, Urban Ecol­ogy, the Oceanic Soci­ety, the San Fran­cisco Estu­ary Part­ner­ship, and the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey. Her arti­cles have appeared in the San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle and Bay Nature. She also is the author of Guide to the Parks, the first guide to the Golden Gate National Recre­ation Area.

Filed Under: Reserves

Wilderness on the edge of town

April 5, 2013 By

Younger Lagoon a “liv­ing lab” for students

By Peggy Townsend/courtesy UCSC News Services

plant restorationCorinne Pope (Steven­son ’14, ecol­ogy and evo­lu­tion­ary biol­ogy) pauses as she plants rush and lizard’s tail seedlings in the reserve’s dark soil. She and other UCSC interns are restor­ing native grasses and shrubs in what was once a Brus­sels sprouts field — work that may some­day change restora­tion efforts at other Cal­i­for­nia sites. Image credit: Car­olyn Lagattuta

The walls of this class­room are lined with feath­ery Cal­i­for­nia coastal sage and nox­ious poi­son oak. Bob­cat, coy­ote, and skunk wan­der its floors while rap­tors soar over­head and waves can nearly drown out conversation.

But none of the UC Santa Cruz stu­dents at Younger Lagoon Reserve mind. In fact, it’s the plants and ani­mals that bring them to this postage-stamp-sized par­cel of wilder­ness. Here, they sharpen their minds while they get their hands dirty: learn­ing, research­ing, and mak­ing a dif­fer­ence too.

“This is such a beau­ti­ful place,” says Corinne Pope (Steven­son ’14, ecol­ogy and evo­lu­tion­ary biol­ogy) paus­ing as she plants rush and lizard’s tail seedlings in the reserve’s dark soil. She and other UCSC interns are restor­ing native grasses and shrubs in what was once a Brus­sels sprouts field — work that may some­day change restora­tion efforts at other Cal­i­for­nia sites. “I feel like I’m really con­tribut­ing some­thing,” Pope says.

The Younger Lagoon Reserve came to UCSC in 1972, and became a class­room and research site in 1981. Its 72 acres con­sist of a brack­ish Y-shaped lagoon dot­ted with birds, driftwood-scattered sand dunes, and a coastal ter­race, which was pur­chased by UCSC in 1999 and lies adja­cent to a mobile home park. More than 100 migra­tory and res­i­dent bird species have been counted here, along with deer, bob­cat, mice and brush rab­bits — and even a few snakes.

“A wild place right on the edge of town,” is how Younger Lagoon Reserve Man­ager Beth Howard (Kresge, 2001, envi­ron­men­tal stu­dents and biol­ogy) describes it. It’s that prox­im­ity, she says, that allows UCSC stu­dents from a vari­ety of dis­ci­plines to do field­work and be back in the class­room the same day.

Tim Brown (Porter, 2010, envi­ron­men­tal stud­ies), restora­tion stew­ard for Younger Lagoon Reserve, sits at a weath­ered pic­nic table tick­ing off the learn­ing activ­i­ties hun­dreds of under­grad­u­ates pur­sue here every year. Stu­dents take water sam­ples, write field notes, dip-net the lagoon for inver­te­brates, and use sci­en­tific equip­ment. Some­times, he’ll lead track­ing expe­di­tions where he’ll let stu­dents fol­low the wan­der­ing paw prints of domes­tic dogs and then com­pare those to the pur­pose­ful trail of a coy­ote. It’s a trans­for­ma­tive les­son in nature for many. Mean­while, grad­u­ate stu­dents pur­sue research on sub­jects like monomethylmer­cury for­ma­tion, ground­wa­ter move­ment, and coy­ote diet too.

“We’re all about teach­ing and research,” Howard says.

“We call it our liv­ing lab­o­ra­tory,” Brown adds.

One of the largest projects at the reserve involves up to 50 stu­dents each year in the work of restor­ing the for­mer sprouts field to a rich and diverse coastal prairie. Brown and Howard direct these interns as they gather seeds like Cal­i­for­nia oat grass and meadow bar­ley from seven local coastal-prairie sites each year. Then, stu­dents clean the seeds, prop­a­gate them in a green­house on cam­pus, and finally plant them in the soil.  “It’s messy and it’s cre­ative. A lot of inge­nu­ity comes into play,” says Brown of stu­dents adapt­ing things like pasta strain­ers and sieves into seed clean­ers. Brown gives a quick grin. “You get in touch with your ances­tors. You get your hunter-gatherer on.”

Stu­dents also are par­tic­i­pat­ing in a large research project to dis­cover more effec­tive restora­tion meth­ods — includ­ing strate­gies for get­ting rid of non-native weeds.

“Our applied research exper­i­ments on restor­ing coastal habi­tats give stu­dents an oppor­tu­nity to gain research expe­ri­ence and, at the same time, inform local man­age­ment prac­tices,” said Karen Holl, chair of the Envi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies Depart­ment. Ear­lier this year, she gave talks to land man­agers across the state on those tech­niques used at the reserve.

For Mickie Tang (Oakes, 2013, ecol­ogy and evo­lu­tion­ary biol­ogy) the restora­tion and research work at the reserve has changed her life’s direc­tion. Stand­ing amid flats of seedlings and buf­feted by an ocean breeze, Tang says she dis­cov­ered she likes ask­ing ques­tions and then find­ing the answer herself.

“I didn’t know I wanted to be a researcher until I came here,” she says.

Filed Under: Reserves, Younger Lagoon Reserve