Once again, our owl problem is in the news. National Geographic Daily News has a story today about the experiment to give northern spotted owls a chance at keeping a talon-hold on their habitat by killing barred owls. And, once again, the tale stars Green Diamond wildlife biologist Lowell Diller and his spaniel, Riley. Diller, it must be […]
Environment / Natural Resources
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A Goosenecking Sight at Clam Beach
I suspect I’m not the only Humboldt-er who finds myself meandering down the beach keeping a gentle eye out for seafaring debris from Japan’s 2011 tsunami – you know, a skiff, a soccer ball, perhaps a motorcycle? It’s fascinating to think these wayward objects, gone astray in the midst of one of this century’s worst […]
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Historically Dry
June 30 brought the close of the 2013-2014 water year, and it will go down in history as one of the driest ever recorded in Eureka. According to measurements by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s station at Woodley Island Marina, the area recorded about .35 inches of unexpected rainfall in June, bringing the year’s […]
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Army Corps Halts Bypass Work
If you’ve driven though Willits lately, you’ve noticed the tan swaths of fill swooping through pasture along the east side of U.S. 101 and the spindly wooden forms revealing the future configuration of the Willits Bypass. Yes, the project’s substantially underway. And yet it continues to be riddled with problems. Most recently, the Army Corps […]
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UPDATED: Official: Sewage Spill Won’t Spoil Oysterfest
Friday afternoon, on the eve of Oysterfest, the Humboldt Community Services District dropped a bombshell of a press release, alerting the public that a massive sewage spill occurred in the Humboldt Hill area and that some may have flowed into Humboldt Bay, spurring the California Department of Public Health to halt oyster harvests as of […]
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EPIC Finds a New Director
The venerable (and not-always-loved) Environmental Protection Information Center is undergoing a “restructuring” that includes the departure of executive director Gary Graham Hughes. Natalynne DeLapp, who has been with EPIC since 2008, most recently as the organization’s development director, will take over the executive director position June 15. She said the change in leadership was a […]
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Dry May Worsens Water Woes
With the water year coming to a close at the end of the month, local rainfall totals have just barely eclipsed half the 30-year average. As our recent spate of sunny, cloudless days will attest, Humboldt County remains very much in a drought. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s station at Woodley Island recorded just […]
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UPDATE: Gray Wolf Listed as Endangered
Wolves are officially an endangered species in California. Natalynne DeLapp of the Environmental Protection Information Center confirmed this afternoon. That three of four California Fish and Wildlife commissioners approved the listing. “It’s a good day for wolves in California and beyond,” Delapp said. PREVIOUSLY: Close to 200 people filled the conference room of Fortuna’s Riverlodge […]
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Poison Accord
The maker of d-Con®, Reckitt Benckiser, will no longer sell the poison pellets that happy homemakers for years have used to fatally banish unwelcome rodents (and which some marijuana farmers have used to clear their crops of pests, resulting in the deaths of wildlife). New legislation already bans the general, non-permitted use of such poisons in […]
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Klamath in Congress
UPDATE: In a statement released today, May 22, Congressman Jared Huffman calls the senators’ new Klamath bill “a milestone toward an historic effort to revive California’s ailing salmon stocks, improve water quality and build economic resilience” and says it “provides a framework for ending decades of conflict through the biggest dam removal project in the […]
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Biologist Gets 10 Months for Yurok Grift
A judge today sentenced a local biologist to serve 10 months in prison for his role in conspiring to embezzle nearly $1 million in federal funds from the Yurok Tribe over a three-year period beginning in 2007, according to Yurok Tribal Chairman Thomas O’Rourke. Mad River Biologists founder Ron LeValley pleaded guilty in February to […]
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‘Does that Mean Trails are Back?’
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously this afternoon to put language in the General Plan Update’s Conservation and Open Space element supporting the creation of a “regional trail system.” Today’s meeting kicked off on an unusual note, as 5th District Supervisor Ryan Sundberg cued up his cell phone’s speakerphone and played a voice […]