Mother Nature

San Diego bug lovers, eucalyptus problems, Carrizo Badlands' beauty, West Nile mosquitos come here, ferret owner rebels

Author

By Various Authors

Publish Date

Sept. 14, 2015

West Nile mosquito. She’s turned left off Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach and parked her truck alongside gutter water running down Olney Avenue and turning onto Oliver Avenue. "You’d be surprised how much of this ‘drool’ is attractive to mosquitoes.”

I asked Parks what his favorite ant was. He didn’t like questions like this.

Everybody's Got a Favorite Bug

"I asked Bob Parks to name his favorite wasp. Ammophila: after all these years. Perhaps it was her (the wasp Parks was observing was a female) shape that first drew his attention. One naturalist has written: “…her abdomen looks like a pear on the end of a length of string. Nevertheless, she is graceful and svelte."

By Thomas Lux, April 11, 2002 | Read the full article

The carnivorous specimens can't tolerate the salts and other minerals in San Diego's tap water. (Alan Decker)

The Fall of King Eucalyptus

Plantsmen’s vision for a green future.

The Nothing That Is Not There And The Nothing That Is

The beauty of the Carrizo Badlands.

The person who'd led me into this cave was undoubtedly one of the premier natural scientists in San Diego, Jerry Schad. The woman, whose tone had turned faintly more confident in the wider, slightly brighter space — "We should have brought a flashlight" — was Schad's friend, Chong Yim.

By Geoff Bouvier, March 15, 2007 | Read full article

"if you have a green pool, and our helicopter spots it, and I find your house...."

Deadly Mosquitoes Breed in Our Urban Drool

West Nile virus hits 23 cases — a war fought one puddle at a time.

Of the 40 “sentinel chickens” used for early detection, 13 have converted to West Nile, including all 10 in Los Peñasquitos Lagoon, 2 in Oceanside, and 1 in the Tijuana River Valley. In the past, no more than 1 chicken had converted.

By Geoff Bouvier, Jan. 21, 2009 | Read full article

Ferrets Eat Babies. They Shred Human Tissue. They Drink Blood.

Pat Wright’s lonely fight for ferrets

Ferrets Anonymous leader says California won’t repeal or enforce the ban

The larger problem now is what Wright notes as a general tone of apathy among San Diego’s ferret keepers. “Since there’s been no enforcement — the last ferret bust in San Diego was over a year ago — no ferret owners are working for legalization.”

By Dave Good, May 9, 2012 | Read full article

Also fear-producing are the escalating recent sightings of Great White sharks, which feed on seals and sea lions. (Howie Rosen)

La Jolla Cove is becoming a sea lion cesspool

...and there’s not much to be done about it

By Caitlin Rother, Jan. 15, 2014 | Read full article

The small number of sea lions that swimmers used to enjoy watching frolic some years ago has turned into a colony of as many as 300, ranging in size from 100-pound females to 900-pound bulls