California Department of Fish and Wildlife

It's constrained on both sides by development and agriculture, as well as just the landscape.

And so this is the place where they're going, right? This is I think that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife called it rare and essential habitat, right? This has to be protected.

Right.

And that's why all these land trusts are really focused in this area.

and then identifying what part of that each of the partners could deliver on.

And Granite Rock was right there in the room with partners like POST and Sempervirens.

You know, a dozen representatives of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife were there, right? There are several different regions of that agency that are active in that region.

Caltrans is there, right? So everybody who needs to play a role in delivering the outcome that we need to see needs to be at the table at every single stage of the development of the plan.

But too many of our California politicians remain silent.

The only comment I got on the topic was from the CDFW, where communications manager Steve Gonzalez said, quote, "CDFW has been clear with the federal government that border wall construction poses serious risks to protected wildlife, including bighorn sheep.

This is another tragic reminder of those concerns." Of course, there's money to be made destroying what should be preserved for all of us.

Just like the hide hunters who killed the buffalo to sell their robes, or the fur traders who pursued the wolves to near extinction in much of the West.

The next day, he reportedly bought 14 gallons of gasoline and then vanished off the face of the earth.

The only clue would come five weeks later, when California Fish and Game officers found Whipkey's abandoned vehicle in a remote, forbidding region of Death Valley, 15 miles away from the main road, and 400 miles from where he had begun his strange journey in Fort Ord.

Whipkey's dog tags, suitcase, and other personal belongings were found within, but there was no sign of where he had gone.

The Army claimed he had deserted and died after wandering in the desert.

The unprecedented nesting of Olive Ridley sea turtles at Seal Beach in Huntington Beach and an impending monster storm created what marine life specialists are calling a remarkable and unique egg rescue.

NOAA, California Fish and Wildlife and US Fish and Wildlife Service got together and determined that the best chance of survival for these two clutch of eggs in these nests would be to excavate those eggs before these swells happened.

Inside the rehab center at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, 204 eggs are quietly incubating.

At the break of dawn, marine life experts went to gather them.

The first thing to answer is, like, how would I know what's actually allowed at a specific marine protected area? There are 124 marine protected areas in the network in California.

So just to, to give you how you can find that information, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife maintains the authoritative current maps and regulations for every MPA in the state on its own MPA programs pages.

We'll link to that in the show notes.

And it matters because, like, the news coverage of a decision stops after-- once they tell the listener.

I covered this on, uh, either on the podcast or on Ocean Decoded.

I'm not sure, on my YouTube channel.

MPA Watch is a thing, statewide citizen science network coordinated with the California Ocean Science Trust and supported by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

It trains ordinary volunteers to walk designated stretches of coastline and record human activity in and around the MPAs.