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The Public’s Reaction to Otter Reintroduction

News Feed
Thursday, September 12, 2024

A San Francisco crabber for 15 years, Nick Krieger arrived at the Bay Model Visitor Center in Sausalito a bit late after a morning of teaching surf lessons. He noticed that attendance was sparse, and he didn’t spot any other fishermen. But there had been a three-day stretch of calm weather, so he suspected they were taking advantage of the windless day.  The open house in Sausalito was one of 16 held by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in June 2023 about the potential reintroduction of southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis), also known as California otters, to their historic range in northern California and Oregon. Attendees were invited to write down their opinions about a sea otter return and hundreds of their answers were published in an open house report by the Service in August this year. The majority of comments from the couple hundred Californians who participated extolled the benefits of sea otters in helping to restore kelp forests, the importance of biodiversity, ecosystem balance, and as many screamed in uppercase: “they’re just plain CUTE!” Only a small fraction of answers expressed opposition—and most of those were concerned with impacts to commercial and local fishing. A public engagement specialist answers questions at the information station on sea otters’ natural history and their keystone species role in Benjamin, Fort Bragg (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) “These informal events were a chance for us to meet one-on-one with members of the public to learn more about their interests, perspectives, and concerns about the idea of restoring sea otters to the ecosystem,” the Service wrote in an email. Currently there is no proposal from the Service to reintroduce the otters, but Congress directed the Service “to study the feasibility and cost of reestablishing sea otters” on the Pacific Coast, a result of the passage of Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. Two years later, the Service released its feasibility assessment that concludes the reintroduction of sea otters to northern California and Oregon is both economically and ecologically feasible.  Otters once occurred from Baja California, Mexico to Oregon, but the population was hunted to near extinction for their pelts and is still listed as a threatened species under California state law. Southern sea otters have persevered along the central California coast, but the species has only reclaimed 13 percent of its historical range. Without the protection of kelp forests, which become more sparse north of Monterey Bay, otters are less inclined to migrate to the waters they were extirpated from more than 100 years ago. Those who do take the risk to venture north often return with fatal shark bites. The effect of sea otters on kelp is well-studied: otters control urchin populations that feed on kelp, which serves as habitat for other species, attenuates ocean currents, and absorbs carbon dioxide. In central California where southern sea otters persist, kelp populations have resisted centuries-long trends of decline that have occurred along coastlines without sea otters. Northern California has experienced an unprecedented depletion of kelp forests since 2014. Warming, nutrient-poor waters paired with the absence of sea urchin’s natural predators—otters and sunflower sea stars—has led to forest collapse in which only five percent of bull kelp remains in small, isolated patches in northern California. Purple sea urchin barren in Monterey, CA (Zachary Randall via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0); sea otter eating a purple urchin (Ingrid Taylar via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0) As the need for kelp restoration intensifies, so are conversations within the federal government about how southern sea otters can prevent exploding urchin populations from consuming the little kelp that remains—and hopefully, allow kelp forests to return. But in a changed ecosystem where humans harvest shellfish, the question of reintroduction requires more than biological considerations. In the feasibility report, the Service estimated that the costs of site evaluation, otter acquisition, release, monitoring, and postmortem and spill programs would range from $26 million to $43 million dollars over a 13-year period. While some would reap the benefits of sea otter return in ecosystem services, ecotourism, and finfish industries, the impact on shellfish fisheries—oysters, crabs, urchins, and clams—remains uncertain. “The ultimate success of reintroduction, however, would require additional work to overcome some challenges, particularly in the socioeconomic sector,” the Service’s feasibility assessment states.  The open houses were part of the Service’s further efforts to evaluate public, industry, and tribal perspectives through informal conversations and voluntary surveys and mapping activities. The Service says their intention was “to follow up on the next steps recommended in our feasibility assessment by reaching out directly to people in the coastal communities that would be most directly affected by the possible future reintroduction of sea otters.”  At the open houses, booths staffed by the Service presented information on colorful poster boards and invited people to share their thoughts in a series of questionnaires. There was a “Community-Based Mapping Activity” to help the Service understand what people valued about specific coastal environments and how they expected sea otters would affect that landscape. The voices of fishermen seemed scant in this survey, as only 39 of 185 responses from seven open houses in California answered with concerns about the impacts on fishing. More than two-thirds of those responses came from the open houses in Bodega Bay and Fort Bragg—rural coastal cities with multigenerational fishing families, where commercial fishing was identified as a “deeply ingrained value” by the Service. “Our community has a long history of a connection with the coast for commercial shellfish,” wrote a Fort Bragg local. “My concern is there aren’t enough viable sea urchins to feed the sea otters, and so they will eat whatever they can—wiping out the other shellfish.” As seen in Monterey Bay, otters ignored the urchin barrens, where emaciated urchins, devoid of the fleshy orange meat that seafood lovers (especially otters) crave, dominate the ecosystem. Still, where meaty urchins lived in isolated kelp patches, the otters dined, protecting the patches of kelp from overgrazing, and preserving spores for future kelp growth and recovery.  A commercial urchin diver of 44 years at the Fort Bragg open house wrote, “my life is already changing because of the loss of kelp. Things in the ocean are bad, don’t make things worse.” Still, nearly half of comments from all seven California open houses said that the sea otters would restore or improve ocean ecosystems, and a quarter expected the otters would reverse kelp and seagrass loss by controlling urchins, which otters had done when reintroduced to the Elkhorn Slough estuary in Monterey Bay. “Sea otters can get rid of the urchins munching on kelp,” wrote a Point Reyes local who attended the Sausalito open house. The same respondent wrote that natural beauty and wildlife made Point Reyes special. For people who were supportive of the sea otters returning, the Service found that beauty, wildlife, mental and spiritual health, and environmental quality were mentioned frequently. From this mapping activity, the Service categorized the respondent’s comments into three types of value assigned to otters: instrumental (material goods and services), relational (human-nature interactions), and ecological (intrinsic value of nature). Multiple values could be held by one individual.  Graph created by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service based on the community-based mapping survey, correlating respondents’ values with their support for sea otter reintroduction (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) “I really hope that sea otters could help restore the kelp forest as a key player in ecosystem balance,” wrote one respondent at Fort Bragg. “I’m also mindful of the needs of both subsistence and commercial fishermen.” Many fishermen expressed values of natural beauty, biological diversity, and tradition, and held the belief that introducing sea otters would disturb the environment by removing endangered shellfish species.  “The ocean is in trouble enough, why add another predator to the abalones and other sea life?” asked one respondent in Bodega Bay. An attendee, who values the Mendocino coast for its natural beauty, recreation, and resource availability, wrote “the cost spent on reintroduction will be better used in direct kelp reforestation and protection.” The respondent fears sea otters will not survive with the growing presence of urchin barrens, and the Service should instead fund “more efficient ways to benefit the ecosystem.” Situated at another booth, the “Next Steps” activity asked attendees what possible socioeconomic effects the Service should consider at potential reintroduction sites. From this survey, over 60 percent of the 84 responses in California acknowledged the possible or inevitable effects of sea otter reintroduction on the fishing industry. “I am sympathetic to fisheries’ concerns,” one respondent in Emeryville wrote. “Can they receive subsidies or grants?” Many respondents got creative, proposing that the Service supplement fishermen’s incomes with taxes on vacation rentals or employ fishermen in otter eco-tourism. But some expressed that socioeconomic factors should not even be considered. In California, 13 of the 84 responses explicitly dismissed possible socioeconomic concerns. “There are no negative economic effects,” one respondent at the Fort Bragg open house said. “The amount of food otters eat should not be considered a loss to anybody.” Another respondent from the San Francisco open house believed that otters should be reintroduced “purely for the preservation of the species” without considering any human impact.   The Service found that people who held recreational versus livelihood-based values were more likely to expect sea otters to have a positive impact on the coastal region by “controlling sea urchin barrens and revitalizing kelp forests.” “We should not always prioritize corporate or human profits,” one Point Reyes attendee belonging to a family of recreational fishermen wrote. Another respondent wanted to distinguish between who gets the profits.  “We shouldn’t do anything substantial for the corporations, and should focus on those with a real connection to shellfish as a livelihood,” the respondent at Emeryville said. But from surveys, both commercial and subsistence fishermen express that their livelihoods deeply rely on shellfish. “I am a Native American that has lived in Fort Bragg all of my life,” one respondent wrote. “Sea otters are going to take our food sources away, like abalone and mussels.”  Similarly, “the reintroduction will affect what I do,” wrote a commercial fisherman, translated from Spanish, and asked that the Service consider all families that depend on “ocean products.” Whether subsistence or commercial, fishermen in northern California harbor a deep and often-generational connection and access to shellfish that has become more fragile. Under these conditions, many are expressing that sea otters are a severe threat to their livelihoods. Service biologists talk to open house attendees (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) After the open houses, the Service analyzed the results of the feedback they received in an open house report. They state that the viewpoints of those who participated can’t entirely represent the perspectives of their communities, and that the open houses were just a first step in an “ongoing effort” to understand what local community members cared about. As for next steps, the Service plans to convene a series of workshops with stakeholders and scientific experts to explore options that “might present an acceptable level of risk to all parties”—and ultimately develop criteria for potential reintroduction site selection. After a full-scale socioeconomic impact study, the Service then intends to develop pilot studies or small-scale reintroductions to decide whether surrogate-reared southern sea otter pups or wild captured sea otters in estuaries should be chosen for establishment. Their final step: integrate population growth and expansion models to forecast outcomes of interaction between the reintroduced populations. The Service also solicited general feedback in California and Oregon on the open houses themselves. Of the 70 comments they received, 63 percent deemed the open houses as very valuable and 24 percent as valuable. Although there were mixed opinions on how sea otters will impact northern Californians, the open houses appeared to be a two-way street in sharing information between the Service and the general public. For Nick Krieger, he preferred staying under the radar at the Sausalito open house. He did not want to upset people with his controversial views, and chose not to participate in the survey activities.  “I went to listen and observe,” Krieger said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife invited coastal communities to comment on otters in Northern California and here’s what they learned. The post The Public’s Reaction to Otter Reintroduction appeared first on Bay Nature.

A San Francisco crabber for 15 years, Nick Krieger arrived at the Bay Model Visitor Center in Sausalito a bit late after a morning of teaching surf lessons. He noticed that attendance was sparse, and he didn’t spot any other fishermen. But there had been a three-day stretch of calm weather, so he suspected they were taking advantage of the windless day. 

The open house in Sausalito was one of 16 held by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in June 2023 about the potential reintroduction of southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis), also known as California otters, to their historic range in northern California and Oregon. Attendees were invited to write down their opinions about a sea otter return and hundreds of their answers were published in an open house report by the Service in August this year. The majority of comments from the couple hundred Californians who participated extolled the benefits of sea otters in helping to restore kelp forests, the importance of biodiversity, ecosystem balance, and as many screamed in uppercase: “they’re just plain CUTE!” Only a small fraction of answers expressed opposition—and most of those were concerned with impacts to commercial and local fishing.

A public engagement specialist answers questions at the information station on sea otters’ natural history and their keystone species role in Benjamin, Fort Bragg (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

“These informal events were a chance for us to meet one-on-one with members of the public to learn more about their interests, perspectives, and concerns about the idea of restoring sea otters to the ecosystem,” the Service wrote in an email.

Currently there is no proposal from the Service to reintroduce the otters, but Congress directed the Service “to study the feasibility and cost of reestablishing sea otters” on the Pacific Coast, a result of the passage of Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. Two years later, the Service released its feasibility assessment that concludes the reintroduction of sea otters to northern California and Oregon is both economically and ecologically feasible. 

Otters once occurred from Baja California, Mexico to Oregon, but the population was hunted to near extinction for their pelts and is still listed as a threatened species under California state law. Southern sea otters have persevered along the central California coast, but the species has only reclaimed 13 percent of its historical range. Without the protection of kelp forests, which become more sparse north of Monterey Bay, otters are less inclined to migrate to the waters they were extirpated from more than 100 years ago. Those who do take the risk to venture north often return with fatal shark bites.

The effect of sea otters on kelp is well-studied: otters control urchin populations that feed on kelp, which serves as habitat for other species, attenuates ocean currents, and absorbs carbon dioxide. In central California where southern sea otters persist, kelp populations have resisted centuries-long trends of decline that have occurred along coastlines without sea otters. Northern California has experienced an unprecedented depletion of kelp forests since 2014. Warming, nutrient-poor waters paired with the absence of sea urchin’s natural predators—otters and sunflower sea stars—has led to forest collapse in which only five percent of bull kelp remains in small, isolated patches in northern California.

Purple sea urchin barren in Monterey, CA (Zachary Randall via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0); sea otter eating a purple urchin (Ingrid Taylar via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)

As the need for kelp restoration intensifies, so are conversations within the federal government about how southern sea otters can prevent exploding urchin populations from consuming the little kelp that remains—and hopefully, allow kelp forests to return. But in a changed ecosystem where humans harvest shellfish, the question of reintroduction requires more than biological considerations.

In the feasibility report, the Service estimated that the costs of site evaluation, otter acquisition, release, monitoring, and postmortem and spill programs would range from $26 million to $43 million dollars over a 13-year period.

While some would reap the benefits of sea otter return in ecosystem services, ecotourism, and finfish industries, the impact on shellfish fisheries—oysters, crabs, urchins, and clams—remains uncertain. “The ultimate success of reintroduction, however, would require additional work to overcome some challenges, particularly in the socioeconomic sector,” the Service’s feasibility assessment states. 

The open houses were part of the Service’s further efforts to evaluate public, industry, and tribal perspectives through informal conversations and voluntary surveys and mapping activities. The Service says their intention was “to follow up on the next steps recommended in our feasibility assessment by reaching out directly to people in the coastal communities that would be most directly affected by the possible future reintroduction of sea otters.” 


At the open houses, booths staffed by the Service presented information on colorful poster boards and invited people to share their thoughts in a series of questionnaires. There was a “Community-Based Mapping Activity” to help the Service understand what people valued about specific coastal environments and how they expected sea otters would affect that landscape. The voices of fishermen seemed scant in this survey, as only 39 of 185 responses from seven open houses in California answered with concerns about the impacts on fishing. More than two-thirds of those responses came from the open houses in Bodega Bay and Fort Bragg—rural coastal cities with multigenerational fishing families, where commercial fishing was identified as a “deeply ingrained value” by the Service.

“Our community has a long history of a connection with the coast for commercial shellfish,” wrote a Fort Bragg local. “My concern is there aren’t enough viable sea urchins to feed the sea otters, and so they will eat whatever they can—wiping out the other shellfish.” As seen in Monterey Bay, otters ignored the urchin barrens, where emaciated urchins, devoid of the fleshy orange meat that seafood lovers (especially otters) crave, dominate the ecosystem. Still, where meaty urchins lived in isolated kelp patches, the otters dined, protecting the patches of kelp from overgrazing, and preserving spores for future kelp growth and recovery. 

A commercial urchin diver of 44 years at the Fort Bragg open house wrote, “my life is already changing because of the loss of kelp. Things in the ocean are bad, don’t make things worse.”

Still, nearly half of comments from all seven California open houses said that the sea otters would restore or improve ocean ecosystems, and a quarter expected the otters would reverse kelp and seagrass loss by controlling urchins, which otters had done when reintroduced to the Elkhorn Slough estuary in Monterey Bay.

“Sea otters can get rid of the urchins munching on kelp,” wrote a Point Reyes local who attended the Sausalito open house. The same respondent wrote that natural beauty and wildlife made Point Reyes special. For people who were supportive of the sea otters returning, the Service found that beauty, wildlife, mental and spiritual health, and environmental quality were mentioned frequently.

From this mapping activity, the Service categorized the respondent’s comments into three types of value assigned to otters: instrumental (material goods and services), relational (human-nature interactions), and ecological (intrinsic value of nature). Multiple values could be held by one individual. 

Graph created by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service based on the community-based mapping survey, correlating respondents’ values with their support for sea otter reintroduction (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

“I really hope that sea otters could help restore the kelp forest as a key player in ecosystem balance,” wrote one respondent at Fort Bragg. “I’m also mindful of the needs of both subsistence and commercial fishermen.”

Many fishermen expressed values of natural beauty, biological diversity, and tradition, and held the belief that introducing sea otters would disturb the environment by removing endangered shellfish species. 

“The ocean is in trouble enough, why add another predator to the abalones and other sea life?” asked one respondent in Bodega Bay.

An attendee, who values the Mendocino coast for its natural beauty, recreation, and resource availability, wrote “the cost spent on reintroduction will be better used in direct kelp reforestation and protection.” The respondent fears sea otters will not survive with the growing presence of urchin barrens, and the Service should instead fund “more efficient ways to benefit the ecosystem.”


Situated at another booth, the “Next Steps” activity asked attendees what possible socioeconomic effects the Service should consider at potential reintroduction sites. From this survey, over 60 percent of the 84 responses in California acknowledged the possible or inevitable effects of sea otter reintroduction on the fishing industry.

“I am sympathetic to fisheries’ concerns,” one respondent in Emeryville wrote. “Can they receive subsidies or grants?” Many respondents got creative, proposing that the Service supplement fishermen’s incomes with taxes on vacation rentals or employ fishermen in otter eco-tourism. But some expressed that socioeconomic factors should not even be considered. In California, 13 of the 84 responses explicitly dismissed possible socioeconomic concerns.

“There are no negative economic effects,” one respondent at the Fort Bragg open house said. “The amount of food otters eat should not be considered a loss to anybody.” Another respondent from the San Francisco open house believed that otters should be reintroduced “purely for the preservation of the species” without considering any human impact.  

The Service found that people who held recreational versus livelihood-based values were more likely to expect sea otters to have a positive impact on the coastal region by “controlling sea urchin barrens and revitalizing kelp forests.”

“We should not always prioritize corporate or human profits,” one Point Reyes attendee belonging to a family of recreational fishermen wrote. Another respondent wanted to distinguish between who gets the profits. 

“We shouldn’t do anything substantial for the corporations, and should focus on those with a real connection to shellfish as a livelihood,” the respondent at Emeryville said. But from surveys, both commercial and subsistence fishermen express that their livelihoods deeply rely on shellfish.

“I am a Native American that has lived in Fort Bragg all of my life,” one respondent wrote. “Sea otters are going to take our food sources away, like abalone and mussels.” 

Similarly, “the reintroduction will affect what I do,” wrote a commercial fisherman, translated from Spanish, and asked that the Service consider all families that depend on “ocean products.”

Whether subsistence or commercial, fishermen in northern California harbor a deep and often-generational connection and access to shellfish that has become more fragile. Under these conditions, many are expressing that sea otters are a severe threat to their livelihoods.

Service biologists talk to open house attendees (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)


After the open houses, the Service analyzed the results of the feedback they received in an open house report. They state that the viewpoints of those who participated can’t entirely represent the perspectives of their communities, and that the open houses were just a first step in an “ongoing effort” to understand what local community members cared about.

As for next steps, the Service plans to convene a series of workshops with stakeholders and scientific experts to explore options that “might present an acceptable level of risk to all parties”—and ultimately develop criteria for potential reintroduction site selection. After a full-scale socioeconomic impact study, the Service then intends to develop pilot studies or small-scale reintroductions to decide whether surrogate-reared southern sea otter pups or wild captured sea otters in estuaries should be chosen for establishment. Their final step: integrate population growth and expansion models to forecast outcomes of interaction between the reintroduced populations.

The Service also solicited general feedback in California and Oregon on the open houses themselves. Of the 70 comments they received, 63 percent deemed the open houses as very valuable and 24 percent as valuable. Although there were mixed opinions on how sea otters will impact northern Californians, the open houses appeared to be a two-way street in sharing information between the Service and the general public.

For Nick Krieger, he preferred staying under the radar at the Sausalito open house. He did not want to upset people with his controversial views, and chose not to participate in the survey activities. 

“I went to listen and observe,” Krieger said.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Historic Sale of Dams Clears the Way for Salmon to Return to the Kennebec River

The Nature Conservancy has announced that it will purchase and oversee four hydroelectric dams on the lower Kennebec River in Maine, paving the way for their eventual removal

The Nature Conservancy on Tuesday announced a landmark investment worth $168 million to purchase and oversee Brookfield Renewable’s four hydroelectric dams on the lower Kennebec River in Maine, paving the way for their eventual removal.The sale all but guarantees unfettered access for endangered Atlantic salmon and other seagoing fish from the Gulf of Maine to their historic spawning grounds upstream on the Sandy River for the first time since the Kennebec River was permanently dammed more than a century ago.The four dams are located in and between Waterville and Skowhegan and are the last impediments between the mouth of the Kennebec River and its confluence with the Sandy River near Norridgewock. The two parties finalized a purchase agreement on Sept. 15 that requires Brookfield to continue operating the dams over the next few years while The Nature Conservancy establishes a broader river restoration plan with stakeholder input, said Alex Mas, deputy state director for The Nature Conservancy in Maine, in an exclusive interview with The Maine Monitor.“Ultimately, the bigger vision is a free-flowing lower Kennebec that restores the ecology and strengthens the economy,” Mas said.The agreement does not include any of the five Brookfield dams farther upstream on the main stem of the Kennebec River and near its headwaters with Moosehead Lake, which experts say provides inferior fish habitat compared with the Sandy River.In addition to the $138 million already raised for the purchase of the dams, Mas said The Nature Conservancy plans to raise an additional $30 million to complete the acquisition and fund the budget of a new nonprofit entity that will take ownership of the dams and continue to staff them with Brookfield engineers and technicians.The nonprofit would then maintain the dams and ensure their continued energy production over the next five to 10 years or however long the lengthy federal regulatory process takes to decommission the dams. Meanwhile, The Nature Conservancy plans to solicit input from residents along the Kennebec River and others about how to remove the dams or redevelop their infrastructure.That includes working with Sappi North America, whose paper mill in Skowhegan relies on water diverted by the nearby Shawmut dam for plant operations, to find a technical solution to continue to fulfill the mill’s water needs, Mas said. Sappi employs 780 people at the Somerset Mill and recently completed a $500 million update that will double the production capacity of one of Somerset’s paper machines. It was the second of two multi-million-dollar improvements Sappi has made over the past decade.“We are 100 percent committed to developing a solution with Sappi for the Somerset Mill and their long-term water system needs,” Mas told The Monitor. “The Nature Conservancy is a large forest landowner in the state, so we are very keenly aware of how important that mill is, not just to the economy in the region, but also to the forest products industry as a whole.”It was only four years ago that Gov. Janet Mills’ administration recommended removing the Shawmut dam to improve habitat for Atlantic salmon and other seagoing fish. Sappi officials condemned the proposal and said Shawmut’s loss would cause it to close its paper mill. The Maine Department of Marine Resources backed away from that proposal shortly after Sappi’s backlash and a lawsuit from the dams’ owner, Brookfield Renewable, demonstrating the contention around the dams and their role in Maine’s shrinking paper industry.Sean Wallace, a vice president for Sappi North America, reiterated the company’s concern with removing Shawmut dam but said Sappi was open to negotiating a technical solution with The Nature Conservancy.“We believe there are solutions that preserve the impoundment and allow fisheries to thrive without sacrificing the livelihoods and investments tied to the mill,” Wallace said in a statement.Brookfield Renewable declined an interview request. In a statement given to The Monitor, CEO Stephen Gallagher said, “Brookfield remains committed to ensuring that Maine homes and businesses continue to benefit from reliable and clean hydropower on the Kennebec River and throughout the State.” The return of the Atlantic salmon Wabanaki officials, fishermen groups and others have advocated to remove the dams for decades. They hail the dams’ demolition as one of the last hopes to save federally protected Atlantic salmon from extinction after centuries of the species’ decline.Once abundant across New England, today wild Atlantic salmon are only found in eastern Maine rivers. Roughly 1,200 total Atlantic salmon on average return to Gulf of Maine tributaries such as the Kennebec River each year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Of those, fewer than 100 adult salmon annually are captured at the Lockwood dam on the Kennebec River near Waterville and trucked around the three other upstream dams to their breeding grounds in the Sandy River, according to John Burrows, vice president of U.S. operations for the Atlantic Salmon Federation.Improvements to the fish passways at the lower Kennebec River dams and others have only caused marginal gains for Atlantic salmon populations in recent years. Adults rely on truck transport to migrate upstream, and the juveniles they produce there often die when they migrate through the dams back downstream to the ocean.“If the dams weren’t there, then we would have far better downstream passage and great upstream passage,” Burrows told The Monitor. “This run of adult fish could go from less than 100 on average to several hundred in a really short time.”Ensuring unimpeded access to the cold, nutrient-rich habitat of the Sandy River is the single most important step to restore the species, state and federal officials have said.“What’s so unusual about the Sandy is that it has kind of the best possible confluence of factors,” Mas said. “You have these incredible cold water springs, great natural substrate, shade and a huge abundance of high-quality habitat. Historically, before there were any dams, the Sandy River would have been one of the most important places in the state for Atlantic salmon.”In addition to removing the four lower Kennebec dams, Burrows said two additional dam removal projects on tributaries leading to the Sandy River will open up 825 miles of river and stream habitat to the Gulf of Maine, creating a better chance for the Atlantic salmon’s survival.The Atlantic salmon isn’t the only species that would benefit from a free-flowing lower Kennebec. River herring, Atlantic sturgeon and American eel all rely on Maine’s freshwater rivers to either spawn or feed before swimming out to sea.Atlantic sturgeon — prehistoric, armored fish — are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. (That is a step down in severity from the Atlantic salmon’s endangered status.) River herring and American eel support Maine’s robust fisheries economy as both product and bait for Maine lobstermen. “River herring are a crucial forage stock in our ecosystems” and a preferred bait for lobster fishermen, said Ben Martens, executive director of Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association. “So there are very real benefits to the commercial fishing industry, the lobster industry, in particular, of getting local sustainable bait in the spring.”Mas, Burrows, Martens and other fisheries advocates all point to the 1999 removal of the Edwards dam near Augusta and 2008 removal of the Fort Halifax dam near Winslow as a sign of the potential upsides to removing the final four dams on the lower Kennebec River.River herring runs on the Kennebec River increased by 228 percent after the Edwards dam removal and 1,425 percent after the Fort Halifax dam removal, according to a 2020 study. After years of decline, Atlantic and endangered shortnose sturgeon are now rebounding in the Kennebec River, too, producing a spectacle near Augusta each spring when they leap above the water’s surface during their migration upstream. Energy tradeoffs, property tax changes The ultimate removal of the four lower Kennebec River dams would mean the loss of the 46 megawatts of total electric capacity they provide Maine’s grid. The four dams accounted for roughly 6 percent of the state’s hydroelectric capacity in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and an even smaller sliver of Maine’s total renewable energy capacity. The Nature Conservancy and other dam removal advocates have highlighted these figures as proof that the lower Kennebec River dams’ energy contributions are minimal and outweighed by the ecological impacts they have on the larger river ecosystem.As The Nature Conservancy continues to operate the dams for the next several years, it will work to develop new renewable energy sources and storage facilities that can be phased in as the dams are removed, Mas said.The dams’ removal will also result in the loss of more than $500,000 in annual property tax revenue for Waterville, Skowhegan, Winslow and Fairfield, municipal tax records show.Kristina Cannon, president and CEO of Main Street Skowhegan, said she’s confident that revenue can be offset by her nonprofit’s development of a whitewater river park in downtown Skowhegan and other regional redevelopment efforts happening elsewhere.The river park alone will bring in $625,000 through annual tax benefits, Cannon said, and she has broader hopes that the Kennebec River valley will continue to usher in new outdoor recreation opportunities. “What people need to remember first and foremost is that this is not happening tomorrow,” Cannon said. “This was a private sale, so this is not something that any of us locally could control, but what we should be doing is thinking about growth opportunities with what comes.”Many current Wabanaki tribal citizens descend from the Kennebec River area and have a distinct cultural connection to the river, said Darren Ranco, professor of anthropology at the University of Maine and a citizen of the Penobscot Nation.In 1724, English soldiers violently attacked the Indigenous community that lived near present-day Norridgewock, eventually driving survivors and other Indigenous people in the Kennebec River valley north toward the Penobscot River and New Brunswick.Ranco is a member of The Nature Conservancy’s board of trustees and will work with other Wabanaki officials to advise the nonprofit during its next stages of the dams’ acquisition and river restoration. He said he sees immense potential for restoring the Kennebec River ecosystem, opening up traditional hunting and fishing opportunities, and highlighting Indigenous stories associated with the river valley and its place names. “I think once you start to really open those up, you start to see the vibrancy of the ecology and the stories we’ve connected to over the last several thousand years,” Ranco told The Monitor. “And I think opening up dams opens up that flood of connectivity to places in that really deep way.”Mas, with The Nature Conservancy, said his organization is consulting both Wabanaki tribes and municipalities along the Kennebec River as it decides its next steps.As part of the sale, The Nature Conservancy will acquire many land parcels and pieces of dam infrastructure such as the historic powerhouse at Lockwood dam. The organization is open to redeveloping them for some community or commercial purpose.“Our hope would be that we could find a path that works for each (town) and not try to force them too quickly and just sort of pace it in a way that actually works,” Mas said.After the four dams officially change hands, Mas said The Nature Conservancy will need to raise at least an additional $140 million to fund the surrender of the dams’ federal energy licenses, in addition to their ultimate removal and redevelopment.Dam deregulation is a lengthy, resource-intensive process that requires in-depth environmental impact studies and technical back-and-forth between attorneys, engineers and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The four dams will also need to receive their new and amended federal licenses to operate in the interim, which could wrap up in the next few months depending on some state approvals.The Nature Conservancy has already completed some initial environmental reviews on the dams and their impoundments, ensuring no toxic sediments have built up over the years behind the dams that could be released with their removal, Mas said, but more in-depth studies will be needed for the formal decommissioning approval process.“We’re committed to both restoring the ecology of the river and strengthening the economy of the region,” Mas said. “And that means each site is a project unto itself, and we need to take the time to get the plan right.”This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

A Land Back Success for the Amah Mutsun Within Its Historical Territory

The tribe has been landless for more than 200 years. The post A Land Back Success for the Amah Mutsun Within Its Historical Territory appeared first on Bay Nature.

Later this year, the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band—Indigenous people whose ancestors lived throughout the river valleys that stretch inland from Monterey Bay—will reclaim land within the tribe’s historical territory for the first time in more than two centuries. The tribe’s land trust will acquire 50-acres in the Gabilan foothills, near the confluence of the San Benito and Pajaro rivers, south of State Route 129 in San Benito County. Sloping gently from oak woodlands to the grassland valley below, the site lies in the southern reaches of Juristac, a region of the Amah Mutsun’s ancestral territory that encompasses up to 100 square miles, and contains many areas and objects considered sacred by the tribe.  (Courtesy of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust)“The property is within the greater Juristac landscape, which is a very sacred site,” said tribal chairman Valentin Lopez, who serves as president of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust. Lopez said the parcel will be preserved as open space where tribal members can practice land stewardship, such as native plant restoration, while maintaining the wildlife connectivity of the area. “It’s our responsibility to take care of Mother Earth and all living things,” he said. “So taking care of this area as a wildlife corridor is right in line with our cultural values and our directive from Creator.”  The 50-acre parcel is one of several properties the California tribe is working to acquire, or gain access rights to, after multiple waves of colonization since the 18th century left them without a land base. In the early 2000s, Amah Mutsun leaders organized efforts to restore the connections their ancestors had to their lands and culture prior to the Mission era. The Amah Mutsun Land Trust was established a decade ago to spearhead that work, and, in the time since, the nonprofit has expanded its land-stewardship programs while securing agreements for several cultural easements within the tribe’s traditional territory.  The organization’s efforts culminated in the recent land transfer, in which the Community Foundation Santa Cruz County donated the 50-acre property to the Amah Mutsun Land Trust. While the land trust owns a two-acre property in Bonny Dune—within the historical territory of Awaswas-speaking people, whose villages were concentrated in the north Monterey Bay-area—the transfer marks the Amah Mutsun’s first land acquisition within its traditional territory since the 1790s, when Spanish missionaries forcibly relocated the area’s Indigenous people to Mission San Juan Bautista. The property will be transferred from the Community Foundation Santa Cruz County to the Amah Mutsun Land Trust this fall. (Ben Pease, PeasePress.com)A committee of tribal members named the place tooromakma hinse nii (pronounced toe row mock ma hēēn say knee), which, in the Mutsun language, means “bobcats wander here.” Along with lodging for Lynx rufus, the area known as Chittenden Pass serves as a critical wildlife corridor for mountain lions, American badger and California tiger salamander. Lopez said the land will provide members of the Native Stewardship Corps, a program of the land trust’s, an opportunity to perform conservation and native plant propagation work on their own lands, affording the young adults a greater level of cultural engagement. Before COVID-19 spurred a five-year hiatus, the Native stewards were performing work akin to a conventional conservation corps, Lopez said. “The purpose was also to restore relationships with the plants and the wildlife, and to take the time to show reciprocity in their work,” Lopez said. “There was a strong learning and cultural component for our stewards that wasn’t happening; they were just turning into a workforce.” The land was previously purchased by the Community Foundation Santa Cruz County in collaboration with the Trust for Public Land, Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, and Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) with the intent of eventually transferring the property to the Amah Mutsun Land Trust.  “This moment is transformational,” said Noelle Chambers, who was named as AMLT’s executive director in April. “The first decade of the organization was focused on building partnerships while re-learning and re-engaging Indigenous stewardship practices. After building our organizational capacity, we are positioned to move into the next phase of AMLT – acquiring lands for long-term Tribal stewardship.” Before taking her leadership role with the Amah Mutsun Land Trust, Chambers served as vice president of conservation for POST. Her work with the organization included collaborating with Chairman Lopez and AMLT on various conservation efforts in the area, she said, adding that it has been important for her as a non-Native person to learn about Indigenous perspectives on land stewardship and how to better integrate those practices in the conservation field. “It’s very exciting to have the ability to help the Amah Mutsun Land Trust acquire their first lands,” Chambers said. “It felt like a natural next step to use the skills I learned in my years at POST to work toward the return of land to the Mutsun people, and stewarding lands with Indigenous practices.” Chambers said the land trust is also exploring an opportunity to acquire a third property—almost 30-acres near Chitactac, the site of a Mutsun village west of present-day Gilroy. Situated close to Chitactac–Adams Heritage County Park, the property is bisected by a road and contains dozens of bedrock mortars used by Mutsun people to grind acorns and other foods.The organization is applying for grant funding to buy the land from the current landowner, she said. Bordered by Uvas Creek, the parcel currently holds agricultural fields that could one day be used to propagate native plants, Lopez said. (Along with the tribe’s planned restoration efforts at the San Benito Valley property, the tribe intends to create a native plant garden on a conservation easement atop Mt. Umunhum, a peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains.)  “Chitactac translates to ‘the place of the dance,’” Lopez said. “This was a very important ceremonial landscape and an extensive village site.” Gaining access rights to the Chitactac property would be another notable accomplishment for the California tribe, which was never provided a federal Indian reservation and is still seeking federal recognition. From left: Christy Fischer (Trust for Public Land), Valentin Lopez (Tribal Chair and AMLT Board President), Susan True (Community Foundation Santa Cruz County), and Athena Hernandez (Tribal member and former AMLT General Counsel) (Courtesy of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust)Despite the significant steps the Amah Mutsun have made toward legal land-ownership in the settler-colonial sense, Lopez said the land trust’s limited financial resources make large real estate acquisitions nearly impossible without support from larger conservation groups. One such organization is POST, which over the past year purchased two properties totaling 3,800 acres of rolling, open oak woodlands within the Juristac area. Located on the Sargent Ranch property west of Highway 101, the parcels were previously owned by the developer of a proposed sand-and-gravel mine that would operate on the remaining portion of the property. Bay Nature previously reported on Lopez and other tribal members’ vehement opposition to the quarry project, saying it would desecrate an area where Mutsun people once gathered for large ceremonies. Three years after the release of a preliminary EIR that drew thousands of public comments opposing the plan, the quarry proposal is currently on hold. It is unclear whether the project will move forward. Howard Justus, managing member of Sargent Ranch Partners, the San Diego-based company behind the project, declined to comment on the status of the proposal. Whatever the fate of the quarry, POST has signaled that the Sargent Ranch properties will be preserved in perpetuity, partly to maintain a crucial wildlife corridor at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The first purchase took place in October 2024, when the organization bought 1,340 acres for $15.65 million from an investor group that acquired the parcel in 2020. In a press release following the sale, POST stated that it would “retain ownership of the property until it can be transferred to a permanent steward.” In June, the environmental group purchased nearly 2,500 acres from Sargent Ranch Partners for a reported sum of $25 million. Neither POST nor AMLT disclosed any plans for a potential future land transfer at Sargent Ranch, though both have expressed a willingness to collaborate on future conservation efforts. But, now that nearly two-thirds of Sargent Ranch are owned by a conservation organization, Chambers acknowledged that POST’s purchases represent “a huge step” from AMLT’s perspective, adding “we’re really hoping POST is able to secure the rest of it.” Lopez said he is “very grateful” that the two properties will no longer be threatened by the development of luxury housing or golf courses. “We have a good relationship with POST,” he said. “So we’re hoping that we can find a way to have access and do some stewardship up there.” On the prospect of the Amah Mutsun someday owning some significant portion of Sargent Ranch, Lopez said “it would take a miracle” given the tribe’s limited resources. “Our prayers and our efforts aren’t for ownership,” he said. “Our prayers are for the protection of the land, and for the opportunity to restore it back to the important spiritual location that it was during our ancestors’ time.”

The island that banned hives: can honeybees actually harm nature?

On a tiny Italian island, scientists conducted a radical experiment to see if the bees were causing their wild cousins to declineOff the coast of Tuscany is a tiny island in the shape of a crescent moon. An hour from mainland Italy, Giannutri has just two beaches for boats to dock. In summer, hundreds of tourists flock there, hiking to the red and white lighthouse on its southern tip before diving into the clear waters. In winter, its population dwindles to 10. The island’s rocky ridges are coated with thickets of rosemary and juniper, and in warmer months the air is sweetened by flowers and the gentle hum of bees.“Residents are people who like fishing, or being alone, or who have retired. Everyone has their story,” says Leonardo Dapporto, associate professor at the University of Florence.Giannutri island’s remote location made it a perfect open-air laboratory for the bee experiments. Photographs: Giuseppe Nucci Continue reading...

Off the coast of Tuscany is a tiny island in the shape of a crescent moon. An hour from mainland Italy, Giannutri has just two beaches for boats to dock. In summer, hundreds of tourists flock there, hiking to the red and white lighthouse on its southern tip before diving into the clear waters. In winter, its population dwindles to 10. The island’s rocky ridges are coated with thickets of rosemary and juniper, and in warmer months the air is sweetened by flowers and the gentle hum of bees.“Residents are people who like fishing, or being alone, or who have retired. Everyone has their story,” says Leonardo Dapporto, associate professor at the University of Florence.It was Giannutri’s isolation that drew scientists here. They were seeking a unique open-air laboratory to answer a question that has long intrigued ecologists: could honeybees be causing their wild bee cousins to decline?To answer this, they carried out a radical experiment. While Giannutri is too far from the mainland for honeybees to fly to it, 18 hives were set up on the island in 2018: a relatively contained, recently established population. Researchers got permission to shut the hives down, effectively removing most honeybees from the island.When the study began, the island’s human population temporarily doubled in size, as teams of scientists fanned out across the scrubland tracking bees. Then came the ban: they closed hives on selected days during the peak foraging period, keeping the honeybees in their hives for 11 hours a day. Local people were sceptical. “For them, we were doing silly and useless things,” says Dapporto. But the results were compelling.“‘Wow,’ was my first response,” says the lead researcher, Lorenzo Pasquali, from the University of Florence. When the data came together, “all the results were pointing in the same direction”.The findings, published in Current Biology earlier this year, found that over the four years after the honeybees were introduced, populations of two vital wild pollinators – bumblebees and anthophora – fell by “an alarming” 80%. When the honeybees were locked up, there was 30% more pollen for other pollinators, and the wild bee species were sighted more frequently. Scientists observed that the wild species appeared to take their time pollinating flowers during the lockups, displaying different foraging behaviour. “The effect is visible,” says Dapporto.Global bee battleIn terms of sheer abundance, the western honeybee (Apis mellifera) is the world’s most important single species of pollinator in wild ecosystems.Originally native to Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe, honeybees have been shipped around the planet by humans to every continent except Antarctica. The battles playing out on this small Italian island are likely to be echoed in ecosystems everywhere.While the number of honeybees is increasing (driven by commercial beekeeping) native pollinators are declining globally due to habitat loss, climate breakdown and use of chemicals in farming. But we are only beginning to understand how the great honeybee boom could also take a toll on wild pollinators.In southern Spain, where honeybee numbers have more than tripled since the 1960s, research shows managed honeybees spilling into flower-rich woodlands after the orange crop has bloomed. The result: increased competition with wild pollinators.During California’s annual almond bloom, about 90% of the US’s managed honeybees are recruited in to pollinate, with beekeepers trucking hives across the country to meet demand. “For this approximately month-long period, the impact of honeybees on native pollinators is likely huge,” says Dillon Travis from the University of California San Diego. During the off season – when honeybees are less in demand – beekeepers often keep them in wild ecosystems. “Native pollinators need to compete with millions of honeybees for limited food sources.”If conditions are right, honeybees go feral and set up colonies in the wild. A 2018 study looking at the presence of honeybees in natural ecosystems found them in 89% of sites.In California, feral honeybees are increasingly turning up in vast numbers in natural ecosystems hundreds of miles away from the almond fields.Honeybee takeoversEach spring, after the winter rains, San Diego’s coastal scrub landscape bursts into life. Sagebrush, white sage and buckwheat unfurl their leaves, throwing sweet aromas into the hot air. These sights and smells greeted graduate student Keng-Lou James Hung when he started studying this area of southern California in 2011, aged 22, after a well-regarded biologist told him it was one of the richest bee habitats on Earth.The landscape has all the hallmarks of a pristine ecosystem: no tractor has tilled the land, no cattle grazed it; few humans tread here. “You can equate it to primary growth Amazonian rainforest in terms of how intact and undisturbed the ecosystem is,” says Hung.It’s like a local grocery store trying to compete against Walmart. Once they’ve escaped there’s little we can do to stop honeybeesWhen Hung began his research, however, what he discovered flummoxed him. “I got to my field sites and all I was seeing were honeybees,” he remembers. “Imagine as an avid birder: you get to a pristine forest and all you are seeing are feral pigeons. That’s what was going on with me when I set foot in this habitat. It came as a shock.” Honeybees were everywhere – nesting in utility boxes, ground squirrel burrows and rock crevices.In July, Hung – now an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma – published a paper finding 98% of all bee biomass (ie, the weight of all bees) in that area were feral honeybees. They removed about 80% of pollen during the first day a flower opened, according to the paper, published in the journal Insect Conservation and Diversity.Such high rates of pollen extraction leave little for the more than 700 species of native bees in the region, which need pollen to raise their offspring. Some of those species have not been seen for decades.Hung believes honeybees’ social structure gives them the edge. Using the “hive mind”, they communicate the locations of plants and remove most of the pollen early in the morning before native bees begin searching for food. Most other bees operate as single agents, making decisions in isolation.“It’s like a local grocery store trying to compete against Walmart,” says Hung. “Once they’ve escaped and established themselves there’s very little we can do to really stop honeybees. They’re very powerful and resilient creatures.”In 1956, some experimental “Africanised” honeybees were accidentally released from a research apiary in São Paulo, Brazil, spreading out across south and Central America and into California. Their expansion has been described as one of the “most spectacular biological invasions of all time”.Wider ecological effectsHabitat fragmentation, chemical use in farming and rising temperatures are key drivers of pollinator declines, but in areas such as in San Diego it is likely honeybees are also a significant contributing factor. “It is very difficult to imagine a scenario where a single species can remove four-fifths of all the pollen … without having too much of an impact on that ecosystem,” says Hung.Not only is it bad for native wild bees, it can have effects throughout the ecosystem.Studies have confirmed that plants in San Diego county are less healthy when pollinated by non-native honeybees. Potential impacts include fewer seeds germinating, and those that do may be smaller and produce fewer flowers. “This may create an ‘extinction vortex’,” says Travis, where less-healthy plants breed over generations until they can no longer survive. “I am unaware of any studies that determined that honeybees are beneficial where they are not native, excluding agricultural areas,” he says.In some parts of Australia and America – where honeybees are not native – they can reach densities of up to 100 colonies per square kilometre. In regions such as Europe, where they are native, the picture is different.There are about 75,000 free-living honeybee colonies across the UK, according to research last year, which was the first to quantify the density of these colonies. Based on these estimates, more than 20% of the UK’s honeybee population could be wild-living. “In Europe, the honeybee is a native species and low densities of wild-living colonies are natural components of many ecosystems,” says researcher Oliver Visick from the University of Sussex.Visick has found densities of up to four wild-living colonies per square kilometre in historic deer parks in Sussex and Kent. “At these densities, wild-living colonies are unlikely to have a negative impact on other wild pollinators,” he says.In ecosystems where honeybees are introduced, scientists say there should be more guidance on where large-scale beekeepers keep their hives after crops have bloomed to reduce their impact on native species. In other areas, such as islands, relocation or removal may be feasible.The honeybee-free islandOn Giannutri, when researchers told national park authorities their results they banned bee-keeping on the island.The island, which is part of the Tuscan Archipelago national park, has been honeybee-free for more than a year and may now serve as a cautionary tale to other protected areas planning to introduce honeybees. Since the hives were removed, at least one of the species scientists have been monitoring appears to have slightly increased.The story unfolding on this little Italian island and the scrublands of San Diego shows that honeybees may not be the universal environmental stewards we paint them to be, and challenges the popular view that they are the best way to save nosediving pollinator numbers. Unchecked, they can cast a long shadow over fragile ecosystems that some might believe they help preserve.When the scientists returned to Giannutri, “It was a bit weird to go back to the island this year without the honeybees around. We were used to seeing them everywhere all over the island,” says Pasquali. “I was happy to observe the island in this new condition.”Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage

Strange Mars Mudstones May Hold the Strongest Clues Yet of Ancient Life

NASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered mysterious mudstones in Mars’ Jezero Crater that contain organic carbon and strange mineral textures. These features, possibly shaped by redox reactions similar to those fueled by microbes on Earth, may represent potential biosignatures. Perseverance Rover Uncovers Organic-Rich Mudstones Images and measurements from NASA’s Perseverance rover indicate that recently identified rocks [...]

An image of the rock named “Cheyava Falls” in the “Bright Angel formation” in Jezero crater, Mars collected by the WATSON camera onboard the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. The image shows a rust-colored, organic matter bearing sedimentary mudstone sandwiched between bright white layers of another composition. The small dark blue/green to black colored nodules and ring-shaped reaction fronts that have dark rims, and bleached interiors are proposed to be potential biosignatures. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSNASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered mysterious mudstones in Mars’ Jezero Crater that contain organic carbon and strange mineral textures. These features, possibly shaped by redox reactions similar to those fueled by microbes on Earth, may represent potential biosignatures. Perseverance Rover Uncovers Organic-Rich Mudstones Images and measurements from NASA’s Perseverance rover indicate that recently identified rocks in Jezero Crater are composed of mudstones containing organic carbon. According to a study published in Nature, these rocks underwent chemical reactions that produced colorful and unusual textures, which may represent possible biosignatures. The research, led by Joel Hurowitz, PhD, an Associate Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook University, builds on studies carried out since the rover touched down in 2021. The work focuses on reconstructing Mars’ early geological history and gathering samples that could eventually be transported back to Earth. NASA’s Perseverance rover used its Mastcam-Z instrument to capture this 360-degree panorama of a region on Mars called “Bright Angel,” where an ancient river flowed billions of years ago. “Cheyava Falls” was discovered in the area slightly right of center, about 361 feet (110 meters) from the rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSSGeological Survey of the Bright Angel Formation When Perseverance reached the western edge of Jezero Crater, it examined distinct mudstone outcrops in the Bright Angel formation. The Mars 2020 science team performed an in-depth geological, petrographic, and geochemical analysis, uncovering carbon material along with minerals such as ferrous iron phosphate and iron sulfide. Although the researchers are not announcing the discovery of fossilized Martian life, they note that the rocks display features that might have been shaped by living organisms – what scientists call potential biosignatures. A potential biosignature is any element, compound, structure, or pattern that could have originated from past biological activity, but which could also arise without life. The team emphasizes that further evidence is needed before determining whether microbes played a role in forming the textures seen in these mudstones. A Window Into Mars’ Ancient Environment “These mudstones provide information about Mars’ surface environmental conditions at a time hundreds of millions of years after the planet formed, and thus they can be seen as a great record of the planetary environment and habitability during that period,” says Hurowitz, who has been involved with Mars rover research since he was a graduate student at Stony Brook University in 2004. “We will need to conduct broader research into both living and non-living processes that will help us to better understand the conditions under which the collection of minerals and organic phases in the Bright Angel formation were formed,” he explains. Untangling Biological vs. Abiotic Origins More specifically, the researchers concluded the following during their analyses: The organic carbon detected appears to have participated in post-depositional redox reactions that produced the observed iron phosphate and iron sulfide minerals. And these reactions occurred in a sedimentary rock environment at low temperature. Redox reactions are a type of chemical reaction that all living things derive energy from, and in low temperature sedimentary environments on Earth, these redox reactions are commonly driven by microbial life. A review of the various pathways by which redox reactions that involve organic matter can produce the observed suite of iron, sulfur, and phosphorus-bearing minerals reveals that both abiotic (physical not biological) and biological processes can explain the unique features observed in the Bright Angel formation. Their observations in the Bright Angel formation challenge some aspects of a purely abiotic explanation, and thus the researchers suggest that the iron and sulfur and phosphorus-bearing nodules and reaction fronts should be considered a potential biosignature. Next Steps: Unlocking Secrets on Earth Continued research will be done to assess the rocks and mudstone features. For the time being, the researchers ultimately conclude that analysis of the core sample collected from this unit using high-sensitivity instrumentation on Earth will enable the measurements required to determine the origin of the minerals, organics, and textures it contains.” Explore Further: NASA Perseverance Rover’s Stunning Find May Be Mars’ First Sign of Life Reference: “Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars” by Joel A. Hurowitz, M. M. Tice, A. C. Allwood, M. L. Cable, K. P. Hand, A. E. Murphy, K. Uckert, J. F. Bell III, T. Bosak, A. P. Broz, E. Clavé, A. Cousin, S. Davidoff, E. Dehouck, K. A. Farley, S. Gupta, S.-E. Hamran, K. Hickman-Lewis, J. R. Johnson, A. J. Jones, M. W. M. Jones, P. S. Jørgensen, L. C. Kah, H. Kalucha, T. V. Kizovski, D. A. Klevang, Y. Liu, F. M. McCubbin, E. L. Moreland, G. Paar, D. A. Paige, A. C. Pascuzzo, M. S. Rice, M. E. Schmidt, K. L. Siebach, S. Siljeström, J. I. Simon, K. M. Stack, A. Steele, N. J. Tosca, A. H. Treiman, S. J. VanBommel, L. A. Wade, B. P. Weiss, R. C. Wiens, K. H. Williford, R. Barnes, P. A. Barr, A. Bechtold, P. Beck, K. Benzerara, S. Bernard, O. Beyssac, R. Bhartia, A. J. Brown, G. Caravaca, E. L. Cardarelli, E. A. Cloutis, A. G. Fairén, D. T. Flannery, T. Fornaro, T. Fouchet, B. Garczynski, F. Goméz, E. M. Hausrath, C. M. Heirwegh, C. D. K. Herd, J. E. Huggett, J. L. Jørgensen, S. W. Lee, A. Y. Li, J. N. Maki, L. Mandon, N. Mangold, J. A. Manrique, J. Martínez-Frías, J. I. Núñez, L. P. O’Neil, B. J. Orenstein, N. Phelan, C. Quantin-Nataf, P. Russell, M. D. Schulte, E. Scheller, S. Sharma, D. L. Shuster, A. Srivastava, B. V. Wogsland and Z. U. Wolf, 10 September 2025, Nature.DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09413-0 Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.

At the bus stop, a living ad for nature

A movement is installing plants on bus shelters, providing habitats for pollinators and countering the urban heat-island effect.

Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. Please enable JavaScript for the best experience.Bus shelters tend to be practical, utility-oriented, no-frills structures. They offer protection from the elements. Seating for while you wait. Maybe an ad to grab your attention.But a green bus stop movement is seeking to make them something more: Antidotes to the heat-island effect. Habitats for native pollinators. Living advertisements for incorporating nature into the built environment.These installations were first popularized in the Netherlands, which has almost 1,000 of them. They have been sprouting across Europe, as well as in Japan, Singapore and Canada, among other countries. The biggest U.S. collection is in Boston, which fitted 30 bus shelters with green roofs last fall. This year, green bus shelters are planned for two Maryland towns, Bladensburg and Edmonston. There also have been proposals to install them in Arlington, Virginia, and New York.A bus shelter with a green roof in Utrecht, Netherlands. (Bauer Media Outdoor Europe)A green roof bus shelter in the Ville-Marie borough in Montreal. (CNW Group/École de technologie supérieure)Green roofs on buildings have become even more common in many cities around the world, and those larger surfaces stand to have more environmental impact than a relatively tiny bus shelter. But roof plantings are often out of view from the street. Cultivating a garden on a bus shelter can influence how people perceive the world as they make their way around town.Green bus shelters can also add up. The city of Boston estimates that if all 8,000 of its bus stops featured living roofs, it would amount to about 17 acres of green space — that’s the size of nearly 13 football fields.The ingredients of a green bus stopGreen bus shelters typically involve five key components.(The Washington Post; iStock)(Zachary Balcoff/The Washington Post; iStock)1: Rigid structureA green roof structure needs to be able to support a lot of weight — not just soil and vegetation, but water after a heavy rain.So retrofitting an old bus shelter roof may not be sufficient. “You don’t want to put a green roof on a roof that’s, say, 15 to 16 years old. Ideally, you want to put it on a brand-new roof,” said Chase Coard, founder and CEO of Ecospaces, a green roofing company in Washington.2: Root barrierNext comes the root barrier: an impermeable fabric, plastic or rubberized material that will restrict the downward growth of the plants.3: Drainage and retentionOn top of the impermeable layer is the drainage mechanism, designed to collect and store rainwater for the benefit of the plants and slowly release the excess in a way that doesn’t overwhelm city drains.4: SoilThe depth of this layer will determine how many native plant species can thrive and how heavy and costly the green roof will be. The soil for a green roof should be more lightweight and mineral-based than typical house plant soil, to increase rainwater retention, according to the National Park Service.5: VegetationNative plants can help support local biodiversity. Zoe Davis, senior climate resilience project manager for the city of Boston, said their selections have attracted butterflies, bees, birds and squirrels.Probably the most common green roof plants are sedums, which are lightweight succulents. “You can basically toss them into really extreme environments and somehow they’ve found a way to survive and thrive off of little soil and little water at times,” said Larry Davis of Green Mechanics, a Maryland company specializing in ecological design.The impact of green bus stopsOne key advantage of green bus shelters is as a counter to urban heat islands. Living roofs can provide more shade than glass roofs, and they don’t absorb and reemit heat the way a blacktopped roof would. Instead, they can hold water long enough for it to evaporate and have a cooling effect.Jean-Luc Martel, a professor at École de technologie supérieure in Montreal, measured temperatures inside traditional bus shelters and ones with green roofs and found a difference of as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit at peak times.Living roofs have been documented to reduce surrounding air temperatures by up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.A case study in CanadaA thermal-imaging camera deployed in Montreal shows a bus shelter with a green roof is significantly cooler than one without. This study was conducted in August 2024 as part of an experiment by École de technologie supérieure, a local university. (École de technologie supérieure)For Utrecht, a city in the Netherlands, a goal of building green bus shelters was to address a rapid decline in the bee population. Strategically placed living roofs created “bee lines” and helped keep pollinators fed.The installations may have contributed to a steadying of the bee population, as reflected in a “national bee census” (which involves citizens counting the bees in their gardens for 30 minutes on designated days each year).Some of the green bus shelters in the United States are really demonstration projects. In San Francisco, Philadelphia and East Lansing, Michigan, the idea was to provide information about green roof infrastructure that is often hundreds of feet out of sight.Those novelty installations may affect how people think about vegetation in their surroundings. But it’s when living roofs are installed on a larger scale that they may start to have real environmental effects.“It’s the accumulation of those small, small things you will be doing that will have an impact in the long run,” Martel said.About this storyDesign and development by Zachary Balcoff. Editing by Marisa Bellack. Design editing by Christine Ashack and Joe Moore. Photo editing by Dominique Hildebrand. Copy editing by Shibani Shah. Additional support by Emma Kumer and Carson TerBush.

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