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A rash of mountain lion sightings near Eureka may be technology’s fault

A mountain lion was seen on a homeowner’s video camera last week near a residential area outside Eureka. The footage was shared on social media to alert neighbors.

The sighting adds to a growing number of reports along Humboldt County’s forest or greenbelt’s edge, where redwood habitat meets neighborhoods from Freshwater to McKinleyville. Mountain lions are native and typically avoid people, but officials say residents should take precautions and report unusual behavior.

“They’re very common in the northwest part of the state, and they always have been,” said Peter Tira, spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “What’s changed is the technology. Twenty‑five years ago, a lion could walk through someone’s backyard at three in the morning and nobody knew. Now everyone has security cameras, trail cameras, Ring cameras, and all these lions are being captured on video and shared on social media.”

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Record ocean heat off California coast echoes ‘The Blob,’ killing seabirds and reshaping weather outlook

Over the past several months, an intense marine heat wave has developed in the Pacific from Washington to Baja Mexico, with a particularly extreme hot spot between the Bay Area and San Diego. Ocean temperatures have spiked to as much as 7 degrees hotter than average, with many places breaking records for this time of year.

The heatwave off the California coast is already causing starving birds to wash ashore and could increase the risk of thunderstorms and dry lightning that could worsen the wildfire season, scientists say.

Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have recorded 38 days since Jan. 1 when the surface temperature off their La Jolla pier in San Diego broke records going as far back as 1916. On March 20, the ocean there reached 71 degrees, the hottest ever recorded in March and a level normally seen in August.

“It’s extreme,” said Melissa Carter, a Scripps oceanographer. “We have had heat waves in the past. But this is a record event for the duration and the intensity.”

Farther north, ocean temperatures also have broken records on 31 days this year off Newport Beach; 38 off Santa Barbara; 22 at Pacific Grove near Monterey; 9 days at the Farallon Islands off San Francisco; and 14 at Trinidad in Humboldt County.

Scientists say the heat wave, which appears to be related to changes in wind patterns that limit the extent cold water in the deeper depths can move to the surface, and the intense high-pressure system that caused record hot, dry temperatures over the land in March, could bring hotter, more humid temperatures to California this summer.

A similar marine heat wave, which became known as “The Blob,” affected California ocean temperatures in 2014 and 2015. During that event, normally chilly waters were balmy for beachgoers, swimmers and surfers. There were fewer foggy days at the beach. Humpback whales began feeding much closer to the coast, affording people amazing views of the animals — but also putting the whales in greater danger of collisions with ships and entanglement with fishing gear.

Huge blooms of algae emerged, shutting down crab and clam fishing for months. Salmon runs crashed. Ocean species normally seen in tropical waters began showing up much farther north along California, Oregon and Washington.

Closer to the shore, however, seabirds and young sea lions, who couldn’t get enough to eat because of changes in local fish patterns, began washing up by the thousands, malnourished and dead, along beaches. Wildlife rescue centers were overwhelmed.

“Sea lion pups were just starving,” said Dr. Cara Field, staff veterinarian at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, which treated 1,800 distressed seals and sea lions in 2015, triple the normal number. “At 6 months of age, they were at their birth weight. They were completely emaciated. Many of them were dying despite our best efforts. It was very difficult to keep up with.”

The Blob also did significant damage to California’s kelp forests. And although the sea lions and other species have since recovered, kelp forests in many places, including off the Sonoma and Mendocino coasts, are still struggling.

“We’re concerned that it could happen again,” said Anita Giraldo Ospina, a marine scientist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium. “Many of our kelp forests have not recovered.”

The 2014-15 marine heat wave also worsened California’s severe drought, which stretched from 2012 to 2016.

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Sewage Keeps Spilling Into Humboldt Bay. It’s Hurting Oyster Farmers

The oyster producing giant of Humboldt Bay comes to a grinding halt for weeks each year due to sewage overflows. And while emergency aquaculture closures keep the shellfish-dining public safe, oyster farmers say the situation is putting the industry on ice.

“When we are notified, everything stops,” said Todd Van Herpe, owner of Humboldt Bay Oyster Company, which farms on three acres in the north bay.

Affected farms are ordered closed by the California Department of Public Health’s Preharvest Shellfish Unit, and planned harvests come to a standstill. Sometimes, shipments have to be recalled.

For oyster companies, this means cancelled deliveries and triggers what Van Herpe calls a “cascading effect” that disrupts the careful timing of oyster seeds planted years in advance.

A closure from one overflow can last up to 21 days. And combined with mandatory harvest shutdowns during rain events, oyster farmers can go months in a year without harvest income.

Sometimes, Van Herpe said, the closures can be frustrating, especially when there’s a string of them in a row.

“I’m doing everything I can to play by the rules and do a good job, and do this in an ecologically friendly way and try and be an honest purveyor of oysters. And despite all that, something out of my control can shut me down and impact my business,” he said.

A California Department of Public Health spokesperson said it’s typical for Humboldt Bay to experience one to three sanitary sewer overflows per calendar year that cause a partial or full bay closure for oyster farming.

But why do the spills happen?

Overflows often happen during rainy weather, when sewage collection systems get inundated with water. Rain runoff and groundwater can get into aging pipes, compromised private laterals and illicit connections like rain gutters that feed into the sewage system.

Jen Kalt, executive director of environmental organization Humboldt Waterkeeper, said sewage systems locally and across North America aren’t ready for abnormal weather events, which are expected to become more frequent.

“The infrastructure is not built to accommodate the type of rain events that we’re seeing increasingly because of climate change,” she said.

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Oregon regulators hit Pacific Seafood with $3.2 million environmental penalty

Pacific Seafood has spent years delaying the deployment of pollution controls at its coastal processing plants, state regulators say, allegedly harming Oregon waters and giving the company an unfair advantage over competitors that play by the rules.

So the state Department of Environmental Quality said Thursday that it is levying $3.2 million in civil penalties against the Oregon company for alleged violations at three processing sites on the coast. Pacific Seafood has 20 days to appeal. The state said the company can still mitigate the penalties by installing pollution controls.

“Pacific Seafood’s repeated wastewater violations are polluting Oregon’s waters,” said Erin Saylor, who manages the department’s compliance and enforcement office. She said state regulators had an agreement in 2017 for the company to install pollution controls but that Pacific Seafood hadn’t done so.

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California salmon fishing poised to finally reopen. Can the industry recover?

After three years of unprecedented closures that devastated California’s fishing industry, commercial salmon fishing is poised to reopen this spring.

The return comes with a catch: Regulators at the interstate Pacific Fishery Management Council will strictly constrain fishing dates and impose harvest limits for both commercial and recreational fishing to protect the threatened California Coastal Chinook. The council is set to finalize the details this weekend.

It’s not the season the fleet had hoped for after years of closures. But those who survived the shutdowns fear a graver threat: state and federal decisions could reshape California’s water systems and rivers.

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