Santa Cruz County Animals Digest

Several bills making their way through the California Legislature seek to address overcrowded animal shelters and streamline how animals receive care.

California has released 500,000 salmon into the Klamath River. As dams are removed, the fish will be some of the first to return to a free-flowing river.

California State Parks and partner Friends of California State Parks are working together on a project to rehabilitate a number of dunes at Rio Del Mar State Beach to reduce erosion, increase resilience and restore wildlife habitat.

Obstacles are mounting for officials who are attempting to rescue a young gray whale that was discovered entangled in a gillnet off Laguna Beach was recently sighted off the coast of Thornton State Beach in Daly City .

Captains of fishing boats on the California coast are bracing for salmon fishing to be severely restricted — or possibly canceled for a second year.

The goal is to eliminate habitat competition between "invasive" owls and native owls.

Elkhorn Slough’s resident otters were singled out when a team of scientists published a cover story in the prestigious journal Nature describing how they protect against erosion in coastal estuaries by eating burrowing crabs.

Whale experts are anxiously awaiting the annual 2024 count of gray whales migrating through Monterey Bay, following a sharp decline in last year’s gray whale survey.

There was a time not so long ago when trained observers were overwhelmed by the number of whales migrating through Monterey Bay.

The Wildlife Conservation Board voted to award $10.3 million to the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County to preserve the 27,000-acre Camatta Ranch in Santa Margarita.

Foragers at the beaches in Half Moon Bay might be damaging the area’s reef.

While temperatures aren’t warm enough for mosquitoes to run rampant, now’s the time to prevent breeding grounds.

Within the last century, the recovery of southern sea otters has contributed to the health of California’s underwater forests, according to a new research paper from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Ten conservation groups filed an intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its failure to list western wolves under the Endangered Species Act.

An extinct species of walrus was unearthed in Santa Cruz County, evoking a time when California was teeming with odd creatures that feel closer to fantasy than reality, researchers said.

Each fall, millions of hunters across North America bag deer. Over the winter, people chow down on the venison steaks, sausage, and burgers made from the animals.

Chinook and other salmon runs are collapsing. Conservation groups call it too little, too late. Plan includes dam removals and restoring river flows.

The number of western monarch butterflies overwintering in California dropped by 30% last year, likely due to how wet it was.

Mountain lions are provisionally protected and a final decision to offer them permanent protections is expected this year by the California Fish & Game Commission.

Those pandemic puppies are growing up to be a public health concern.

For months, the California Department of Food and Agriculture has been waging war on the oriental fruit fly, a voracious pest that can attack hundreds of types of fruits and vegetables.

After the commercial Dungeness crab season was delayed due to the presence of humpback whales, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced it will reopen next week with some restrictions.

New rules took effect Jan. 1 permanently protecting the most fragile deep sea corals off Southern California. Simultaneously, more than 4,500 square miles of ocean waters are now reopened to fishing after more than 20 years of closures.

Research shows that a mountain chickadee facing deep snow is like a canary in a coal mine—its survivability tells us about the challenges ahead.

An outbreak of the avian flu that began in California in October has killed 5.5 million birds throughout the Golden State. About 20% of the deaths have come in Sonoma County.

Visitors can see the critically endangered Lord How Island stick insect, on display for the first time in North America, in a special habitat at the zoo’s Wildlife Explorers Basecamp.

A dark-sky movement to save birds from window strikes is sweeping the San Francisco Bay Area. Several cities have passed or are drafting laws restricting light pollution while making windows easier for birds to see.

Novelist Jonathan Franzen looks at how trap-neuter-release policies in feral cat colonies have troubling consequences for city residents, local wildlife and even the felines themselves.

Sarah Grimes investigates reports of dead marine mammals up and down the coast. So when she began finding the decapitated bodies of harbor seal pups just a few miles north of Fort Bragg in 2016, she was on the case. Grimes wasn’t able to pin down the culprit until last year, with the help of a UCSC student.

The Dungeness crab season will open in the northernmost regions of California in early January. The season remains closed in the Monterey Bay region until at least Jan. 11 due to the continued presence of humpback whales.

Since the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County completed work on its wildlife tunnel at Laurel Curve, smaller critters have been spotted using it to get to the other side of Highway 17. But this month, the Land Trust was able to capture a mountain lion on video.

Salmon populations in the Scott and Shasta rivers have crashed, so state officials are about to restrict irrigation again. And the controversial rules may even become permanent.