Tag archives: wildlife

The party animals were out en masse when Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network hosted its annual Wild Night Out at the Carousel House at Chase Palm Park with 200 guests raising more than $150,000 for the popular group. The boffo bash, co-chaired by Gretchen Lieff and Connie Pearcy, had decided Hawaiian overtones with dancers from […]

Snow flurries, hail, and intermittent rain was just enough to dampen the top layer of loam along the serpentine spine of the Caliente Ridge, the Caliente Mountains being a west-to-east uplifting mountain range in the remote southeast corner of San Luis Obispo County. While mountain biking up the winding Caliente Ridge Road, a dense canopy […]

Timing the surge of an incoming tide took me to the backend of the Morro Bay Estuary. Paddling my standup paddleboard, I glided effortlessly through serpentine-like channels choked in colorful pickleweed. Flanked by massive Morro Rock to the north, the rest of the seven sisters lied ahead, prominent rocky spires that fortify the backend of […]

There wasn’t much going on at the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge (NWF). I was laying in the grassy, rolling hills of this California Condor sanctuary, and I was waiting for something to stir. It was mid-afternoon and thermal updrafts were just beginning to waft skyward when a solitary condor rose above the refuge like […]

As my leg dangled off my kayak and into the ocean, I waited to see how curious this adult harbor seal really was. It had been circling the flotilla of kayaks, displaying curiosity mostly seen from their pups. Suddenly, the adult approached. It decided to use my heel for a scratch post. Back and forth […]

It was 9:30 pm, and I was kayaking out to Scorpion Rock, a half-mile east of Scorpion Anchorage on Santa Cruz Island. I was meeting up with several nocturnal seabird biologists finishing their last round of mist netting for 2021 of the secretive ashy storm petrels on the Channel Islands National Park. If I didn’t […]

The double-crested cormorant, not a particularly lovable animal. But don’t tell that to the more than two dozen concerned and compassionate people who called the SB Wildlife Center from Butterfly Beach Tuesday evening and then the following morning. The record number of calls about a large gangly black bird started with Montecito resident Daniel Feinberg, […]

“I’ve never seen it like this. Business has never been better.” That’s quite the statement from Hiroko Benko, the CEO of the Condor Express, the booming whale-watching outfit that takes daily trips into the Santa Barbara Channel to give locals and tourists a glimpse at nearly every species of whale, as well as dolphins, seals, […]

The party animals were out in force when Roger and Sarah Chrisman hosted a nautical bash for the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network on their new 78-foot cruiser, Polaris II. The 30-year-old nonprofit, which cares for 3,400 animals each year and has more than 200 volunteers, has just launched a $1 million capital campaign to […]

She convulsed mightily standing watch on the fringe of her burrows. Her black milk ducts protruded through buff, tan fur as her belly full of rich milk warbled while she belted out a series of quavering trills warning her kits of potential danger. The watchful San Joaquin antelope ground squirrel (Ammospermophilus nelsoni) guarded her territory […]

The reflection from my headlamp glistened off the wet of its black button snout as we gazed into each other’s eyes under a star-filled night.  I felt the thumps on my picnic table that doubled as my bed at around 2 am on a windswept Santa Rosa Island. I had slept soundly until then, lulled […]

The pandemic might have produced a reduced need for services at many businesses and nonprofits. But that’s not the case at the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network. In fact, the coronavirus crises created a contrary result, even if only indirectly. “We saw a dramatic increase in animals coming here in 2020, and we’re certainly on […]

It’s Monday in Montecito, KEYT is predicting a high of 75 degrees, and the winds have finally blown out of the area. I look toward the garden where overnight gusts have left plenty of oak and eucalyptus debris to keep my broom busy. I decide to hit the phones early, answering the rescue line for […]

The phones at both the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network and Santa Barbara Zoo were quite busy over the weekend and into Tuesday — there were a handful of Australian Black Swans hanging out in the Santa Barbara Harbor, a sight never seen on the South Coast. That ended abruptly on Tuesday afternoon when Julia […]

The perpetual northwest winds were up, grooming the exposed foredunes of a windswept Ormond Beach in southern Oxnard. The well-manicured dunes constantly shifted with the winds, buffering a sliver of coastal wetland still hanging on in Southern California. The wetlands at Ormond Beach are one of the last remaining coastal wetlands in the entire state. […]

Santa Barbara’s Wildlife Care Network has just broken ground on its new state-of-the-art $6 million, 5,400-square-foot hospital in the Goleta foothills. “It will allow us a greater capability to save and serve thousands of wild lives,” says Ariana Katovich, executive director. “Current conditions have staff working out of old, meager facilities. Diets are prepared in […]

It has been quite a hair-raising year for Montecito crimper Marcus Boyle, owner of the Halo & Horns salon on Coast Village Road with his wife, Clara, just a curling tongs’ throw from Ca’Dario. Marcus, 45, who trained at Vidal Sassoon in London, celebrates the first anniversary of his business this month having worked for […]

Resting easy in my tent, headlamp burning bright, I was putting pen to paper when I heard giant kangaroo rats (GKRs) communicating with one another throughout a star-filled night. From one grassland burrow to the next, the drum of their oversized feet tapped the ground at a feverish pace, sending a message to other GKRs […]

It was a trail run like no other. Three trail runners had returned from an early morning run beneath dewy, overcast skies, reporting a mountain lion sighting on the narrow single-track trail, the Coon Creek Trail of Montaña de Oro State Park, located just south of Morro Bay. The runners reported that the mountain lion […]