PostedByKimberly Wear
on Wed, May 3, 2023 at 1:57 PM
Courtesy of the Yurok Tribe
Members of the first cohort sit on top of the enclosure with the new cohort and mentor bird No. 746 inside.
What a difference a year makes.
On this date one year ago, A3 and A2 took their first flights into the wild, marking the historic return of California condors to North Coast skies after a more than 130 year absence.
Now eight of the birds known to the Yurok Tribe as prey-go-neesh are flying free, with A5 "Neee'n" and A6 “Me-new-kwek'" recently spotted soaring high above Redwood Creek. The North California Condor Restoration Program reported in a post this week that all the birds are doing well.
(Read more about the Yurok Tribe-led program in the June of 2022 cover story, "Coming Home," here.)
Mentor bird No. 746, the first of the birds held sacred by the Yurok Tribe to arrive on Humboldt County soil in more than a century and the first to provide a local feather for the regalia worn by dancers during the World Renewal ceremony since that time, remains at the Oakland Zoo.
Known as "Paaytoqin," the bird that helped teach those now riding the thermals high in the air how to be a condor was moved in December due to concerns about avian flu. An outbreak has killed 20 California condors in the Southwest flock along the Utah and Arizona border as of April 28, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
No cases have been detected in condors living in California or other populations of the largest bird in North America, which still teeters on the brink of extinction after decades of recovery work. The Northern California Condor Restoration Program is the latest release site to join the fold.
Yurok Tribe Facebook page
The mentor condor at the release enclosure's pool.
So let's take a walk down memory lane and remember the day that prey-go-neesh returned to Yurok County skies and watch the moment caught on video.
PostedByKimberly Wear
on Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 12:57 PM
Submitted
The signing ceremony.
The Trinidad Rancheria and California State Parks signed an agreement this week that allows tribal members to access and gather on their ancestral lands and “recognizes that a collaborative approach will better facilitate managing and preserving cultural and natural resources in the North Coast Redwoods District,” according to a joint announcement.
The five-year memorandum of understanding was formally entered into Monday at Sumeg Village in Sue-meg State Park.
According to the announcement, the MOU also “establishes a protocol for continuing open discussions and outlines the responsibilities of State Parks and the Trinidad Rancheria to promote successful cooperation and partnership between the parties for the mutual benefit of State Parks and the Trinidad Rancheria.”
“I would like to thank State Parks for their acknowledgment of equal standing and rights for all tribes within shared ancestral territory,” Trinidad Rancheria Tribal Chair Garth Sundberg said in the release.
State Parks Director Armando Quintero said the agreement will remove barriers for Trinidad Rancheria tribal members.
“State Parks also formally acknowledges the benefits of traditional ecological knowledge in the land management of these lands and processes as we better learn how to care for and sustain the land in which we all live and love,” he said.
Under the agreement, the release states, Trinidad Rancheria and State Parks “shall develop a mutually beneficial approach for the maintenance of traditional cultural practices by providing the Trinidad Rancheria tribal members access to places within the park units and properties covered in this MOU, including sacred and spiritual places.”
“This is a small but significant step toward restoring and acknowledging the inherent relationship of the people to the land from which we come,” said Rachel Sundberg, Trinidad Rancheria Tribal Programs director and Tribal Historic Preservation officer. “For years, we have been required by the State of California to be permitted to exist in relationship with the lands of our ancestors. As the original people of this land, with the responsibility to take care of our plant relatives, many of us have rightfully refused to be permitted. We have always gathered the plants and medicines gifted to us by the wo-ge in these lands. We have done it according to the way our grandmothers taught us and their grandmothers before them, sustainably and with consideration for those who would come after us.”
PostedByKimberly Wear
on Tue, Apr 4, 2023 at 1:20 PM
Are you beginning to feel like this winter weather will never end?
Well, there’s a reason for that, according to the Eureka office of the National Weather Service, which reports that last month was the second coldest March since 1887, “looking at the average high and low temperature for every day of the month.”
NWS also reports record lows were set for the date on March 2 and March 26, including a chilly 29 degrees on March 2, which was just 1 degree off the all-time low for that month.
But the forecast is showing there might be some actual spring weather in the near future.
In a Saturday social media post — which NWS assures was not an April Fool’s joke
— the Eureka office reports that the NOAA NWS Climate Prediction Center's 8-14 Day Temperature and Precipitation Outlook “indicates above 40 percent probability of above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation for the West beginning next weekend.”
PostedByKimberly Wear
on Tue, Mar 28, 2023 at 3:00 PM
The Tsunami Warning Communications Test takes place tomorrow (Wednesday) between 11 a.m. and noon, an annual opportunity for local emergency officials to tryout local alert systems that would be activated in the case of a distance-source tsunami heading toward Humboldt's shores, like events in 1964 and 2011.
"The test will trigger the Emergency Alert System (EAS) across the three county area of Del Norte, Humboldt, and Mendocino counties resulting in alerts on radio and TV broadcasts, weather radio, and activation of tsunami sirens in some areas," the NWS said in a release. "The Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system for cellular phones will NOT be tested, but in a real emergency it would be activated for a Tsunami Warning. However, some county reverse calling systems are expected to be tested the hour before the test to alert people of the coming tsunami warning system test at 11 am."
Due to weather conditions, the Civil Air Patrol will not be flying during the testing.
During the 2021 event, nearly half of the sirens were silent after being "corroded to oblivion" by years of exposure to salt air and the North Coast's notoriously wet weather. (Find more information in the story "Icons of Preparedness," which looks at the costs vs. the benefits of replacing the sirens, as well as whether the devices are as effective as cellphone alerts and other warning systems.)
PostedByKimberly Wear
on Tue, Mar 28, 2023 at 11:21 AM
Caltrans reports U.S. Highway 101 has reopened.
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Another winter storm has dumped enough snow to close down U.S. Highway 101 at Rattlesnake Summit in Mendocino County north of Laytonville, according to a Caltrans District 1 social media post.
There is currently no estimated time for reopening.
🔴ROAD CLOSURE: U.S. 101 (pm 70-77) is fully CLOSED at Rattlesnake Summit, north of Laytonville in Mendocino County due to snow. There is currently no estimated time of reopening. Please check https://t.co/faudYOtp7p or the QuickMap app for the latest road conditions. pic.twitter.com/XW2JksOZf8
Caltrans is reminding motorists that historic Fernbridge will be closed for 55 hours this weekend, including to emergency vehicles, after which it is expected to reopen fully to two-way traffic.
Relegated to one-way, controlled traffic since being jolted by the Dec. 20 earthquake, Fernbridge will close entirely beginning at 10 p.m. on March 17, reopening at 5 a.m. March 20, to allow work crews to finish repairs.
The work is somewhat weather dependent, Caltrans has warned, and repair dates could shift. But as of March 15, the agency indicated it was planning to move forward.
“The closure will allow crews to partially replace the bridge’s deck, repair abutments, repair columns and conduct paving,” the agency announced on social media. “Two-way traffic is expected to resume on the bridge following this weekend’s closure.”
FERNBRIDGE FULL CLOSURE THIS WEEKEND: The bridge between U.S. 101 and Ferndale will be fully closed from 10pm Friday, March 17, to 5am Monday, March 20. Motorists — including emergency vehicles — will need to use an alternate route.#Fernbridge#Route211#HumboldtCountypic.twitter.com/SxJmZkRdBj
Jared Davis stands beside his charter fishing boat, Salty Lady, as it sits in dry dock in Richmond on Mar. 8, 2023.
Most summer mornings at first light, Jared Davis is a few miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge, motoring his charter fishing boat Salty Lady over the Pacific Ocean. His eyes sweep the horizon, looking for diving birds, but mostly he watches the screen of his dashboard fish-finder for schools of anchovies — a sure sign that salmon are near. When the signs look good, he throttles down to trolling speed and tells his customers to let out their lines.
“Drop ‘em down!” Davis calls out the window. “Thirty to 40 feet!”
When the bite is steady, the Salty Lady may have 20 customers on board, each spending $200 for the chance to catch salmon. On the best days, fishing rods bend double the moment the lines go down, and a frenzy of action ensues, often amid a hundred or more other boats. Hooked Chinook thrash at the surface, and the deck becomes strewn with flopping fish.
Last year, California’s commercial and recreational fishing fleet, from the Central Coast to the Oregon border, landed about 300,000 salmon.
But this year, Davis and other salmon anglers won’t be fishing for salmon at all.
In response to crashing Chinook populations, a council of West Coast fishery managers plans to cancel this year’s salmon season in California, which will put hundreds of commercial fishermen and women out of work in Northern California and turn the summer into a bummer for thousands of recreational anglers.
Last year, the industry’s economic value was an estimated $460 million for fish sales and related businesses, including restaurants, tackle shops, private fishing guides, campgrounds and other services. Salmon season usually runs from May through October.
The closure, Davis said, “is going to be devastating to my business.” He said he will “try to scrape together a season” by targeting other species, like rockfish, lingcod, halibut and striped bass, but generating interest in catching these fish will be a challenge.
“Our customers want salmon,” he said, adding that last year, his customers caught roughly 2,000 Chinook.
Davis, 53, who has fished all his life, said the thrill of salmon fishing never grows old. “There’s nothing else like a wide-open salmon bite,” he said.
Chinook salmon caught by two recreational anglers off the San Mateo County coastline in 2017. Photo courtesy of Andrew Bland
Only in two previous years — 2008 and 2009 — has California’s salmon season been shut down completely. That closure came as the numbers of spawning fish returning to the Sacramento River, the state’s main salmon producer, crashed to record lows.
Now California’s Chinook runs have collapsed again.
PostedByKimberly Wear
on Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 1:06 PM
It’s official, rainfall totals recorded at the National Weather Service’s Woodley Inland office yesterday set a new record for the date at 1.54 inches, breaking the previous record of 1.28 inches set in 1980 and again in 2012.
Meanwhile, a flood warning remains in effect for the Eel River, which hit flood stage early this morning at Fernbridge and is expected to peak at 23.1 feet before dawn tomorow. As of 11:15 a.m., the river was at 20.18 feet, just over the 20-foot flood threshold.
A special action statement has been issued that advises taking steps to protect livestock in low-lying areas, according to the Eureka office of the National Weather Service.
Impact areas including Fernbridge, Scotia, Bridgeville, Fort Seward and Miranda.
At 22 feet, “the western half of the Eel Delta may be completely flooded, especially if at or above this level for an extended period of time,” including areas northwest of Loleta, Cannibal Island Road, the impact statement reads, while at 24 feet minor flood of State Route 211 into Ferndale can be expected while much of the Eel Delta may become flooded.
The NWS reminds drivers to turn around if they encounter a flooded road.
"Flooding is occurring or is imminent. Most flood related deaths occur in automobiles," the flood warning states. "Do not attempt to cross water-covered bridges, dips, or low-water crossings. Never try to cross a flowing stream, even a small one, on foot. To escape rising water find another route over higher ground."
PostedByKimberly Wear
on Mon, Mar 13, 2023 at 12:23 PM
A flood warning has been issued for the Eel River Valley from late tonight into early Wednesday afternoon and a special action statement has been issued that advises taking steps to protect livestock in low-lying areas, according to the Eureka office of the National Weather Service.
The California Nevada River Forecast Center is predicting the Eel River at Fernbridge will hit the 20-foot flood stage at approximately 6 a.m. Tuesday and continue rising until around midnight, hitting a peak of 23.1 feet.
Impact areas including Fernbridge, Scotia, Bridgeville, Fort Seward and Miranda.
At 22 feet, “the western half of the Eel Delta may be completely flooded, especially if at or above this level for an extended period of time,” including areas northwest of Loleta, Cannibal Island Road, the impact statement reads, while at 24 feet minor flood of State Route 211 into Ferndale can be expected while much of the Eel Delta may become flooded.
The crest, according to NWS, will be comparable to the event that took place Feb. 10, 2017. As of 8:15 a.m., the Eel River was at 15.5 feet.
A flood watch is currently on for portions of Humboldt County due to ongoing rain.
“Excessive runoff may result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations,” the flood watch states. “Creeks and streams may rise out of their banks. Flooding may occur in poor drainage and urban areas. Low-water crossings may be flooded.”
The Eel River is expected to fall below flood stage early Wednesday.
PostedByKimberly Wear
on Wed, Mar 8, 2023 at 11:37 AM
HCSO/Facebook
With recent storms wreaking havoc across the region and more winter weather on the way, Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal has declared a local emergency, which allows the county to apply for state and federal funds to address the damage and other impacts.
“Consecutive major winter storms have resulted in a large accumulation of snow, impassible roadways, downed trees, disrupted utility services, damaged and flooded roadways, mudslides, damaged structures and dead livestock; these impacts exhausting and exceeding available county resources,” a news release on the declaration states.
Another storm system is forecast to hit Thursday and Friday, bringing "stronger winds, heavy rains, and higher snow levels to the region through the weekend," according to the Eureka office of the National Weather Service.
Heavy snow and downed trees or powerlines blocked all of the routes into and out of the county at one point, in some cases several times, in the last few weeks.
Those conditions have strained county resources, with the sheriff's office urging residents to take a pause on trips inland to see the snow after having to make several rescues, which impinged on deputies' abilities to respond to storm-related emergencies, conduct welfare checks and bring needed supplies to those snowed into their homes.
