A California prionus beetle. Sounds sort of like a fuel-efficient car made jointly by Toyota and Volkswagen, doesn’t it?
I found this huge beetle (more than two inches long) near my woodstove a couple of weeks ago, and Inverness Park biologist Russell Ridge identified it for me. The prionus beetle is usually described as a “boring insect,” not because it’s mundane but because its larvae feed on the roots of trees, often killing them. The larvae can reach four inches long and be as big around as your finger.
Among the trees they attack are oaks, populars, black walnut, some fruit trees, and some conifers. Their range extends from Central California to Alaska.
Western gray squirrels are common sights on this hill, but they disappear so fast when they see a human that it took me months of trying before I managed to photograph one.
Except in stands of redwoods, gray squirrels can be found in trees throughout Marin County. This one is on my deck.
Gray squirrels breed in early spring and have a gestation period of approximately two months. Although females typically give birth in hollow trees or other hidden spots, they move their young into nests of leaves and twigs (called dreys) within a few days.
Dreys such as this one on the property of neighbors George Stamoulis and Carol Waxman are often lined with grass or moss.
In late fall and early winter, squirrels hide acorns in a variety of places to feed on during lean months. However, not all the hidden acorns are recovered, and gray squirrels are often credited with inadvertently planting oaks around the West.
Young raccoons up a tree.
These kits are about four months old, and every night their mother leads them on hunts around my cabin. Because I see them only after dark, I have to use a flash to photograph them. The raccoons don’t seem to notice the flashes, but my results nonetheless have been uneven.
For most of my 35 years as a newspaper man, I shot photos with film, and I’m still learning the fine points of digital photography.
In recent months, two problems in particular been been bugging me: white specks caused by shooting through windows and digital “noise,” tiny dots of color where there should be none.
Fortunately, I’ve become friends with a San Francisco photography student, Jasper Sanidad (right), who contributes to The Point Reyes Light, and he is now my coach.
For example, when I had been photographing nocturnal creatures, I’d usually tried to remain unseen behind closed windows, but Jasper noted that dirt on the windows was a large part of my problem.
In addition, he told me, I’d been depending too much on my camera’s zoom to show the critters up close.
Because my flash was too far from the animals, Jasper explained, my camera wasn’t picking up enough color detail, and the noise in my photos resulted from the digital system trying to provide what wasn’t there.
What I needed to do, he added, was to get closer to the creatures myself and keep my zoom at a wide angle. That would eliminate the noise.
As it’s turned out, Jasper was right, but what a surprise! I was able to shoot my nightly raccoons at close range, I discovered, mainly because they walked right in the kitchen door when I left it open to avoid shooting through the glass.
Notwithstanding the crisp images I could get by having the raccoons so close at hand, I didn’t really want them in the house. So I threw some bread out the door, and they went back outside to get it.
The federal investigation was launched in April 2007, the Inspector General wrote, shortly after oyster company owners Kevin and Nancy Lunny wrote to us requesting an investigation into the actions of Point Reyes National Seashore Supt. Donald Neubacher. Specifically, the Lunny family alleged that Neubacher had undermined and interfered with the family’s business and had slandered the family’s name.
“Our investigation determined that in this report and in a newspaper article, Point Reyes National Seashore senior science advisor Sarah Allen had misrepresented research regarding sedimentation in Drakes Estero completed in the 1980s by US Geological Survey scientist Roberto Anima.
And where did this “information contrary to her characterization of Anima’s findings” come from? Both a fisheries biologist with the National Park Service and an environmental scientist with the California Department of Health Care Services.
The Department of Health Services environmental scientist said he told Allen in a telephone conversation in approximately October 2006 that Anima had not tested any correlation between sediment and oyster feces in Drakes Estero.
Allen, for example, had cited the assessment in blaming oyster growing for invasive species showing up in Drakes Estero. Dr. Elliott-Fisk, however, told investigators that although any introduction of an invasive species to the estero was “bad,” researchers could not definitely attribute the invasive species to the mariculture operation.
Going even further in his criticism was John Wullschleger, a fishery biologist with the National Park Service in Fort Collins, Colorado. The fisheries biologist had provided “technical oversight” for the UC Davis’ assessment of Drakes Estero, and he didn’t consider the assessment thorough enough on some matters to be cited as authoritative on key claims in Allen’s Sheltered Wilderness Report.
National Seashore Supt. Neubacher (right) repeatedly comes off in the Inspector General’s report as deceitful, even in petty matters. For example, The Point Reyes Light on May 18, 2006, published an article that cited a UC Davis assessment of Drakes Bay in concluding that oyster farming was not harming Drakes Estero, prompting Allen to write the Sheltered Wilderness Report as a rebuttal.
The article, which also quoted Kevin Lunny (left), said the assessment showed that oyster growing “has no statistically significant effects on the estuary’s water quality, fish, and eelgrass.”
Even within the regional office of the Park Service, the National Seashore administration’s politicizing research bothered staff. Investigators reported, “A scientist for the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service opined that in the Sheltered Wilderness report, Allen and ‘probably her colleagues’ had drawn conclusions that simply cannot be sustained,” particularly since there was something a little bit sketchy about the [underlying Drakes Estero Assessment], “which ‘itself is overreaching.'”
After reading those articles, Anima told Allen that his report did not state that he had “collected sediment cores from the estero,” as she had claimed, investigators said. Nor had he “identified pseudo feces of oysters as the primary source for sediment fill.”
Further, Anima’s statements that the effects of oyster mariculture on sediment in Drakes Estero required further study were omitted from both versions of the Sheltered Wilderness reports that were released to the public.”
The Inspector General’s report also reveals that Neubacher shares Allen’s low opinion of The Light. A federal investigator said Neubacher had “opined” to him “that although The Point Reyes Light was not very objective, it carried a certain amount of weight in the community but not a lot.”
Although both the press and the park have focused their attention on Kevin Lunny, the entire Lunny family feels under attack. In a letter to the Inspector General’s Office, an investigator noted, Lunny complained that “Neubacher was… slandering the family name.”
A symbolic depiction by Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949) of official ‘Cruelty‘ toward common people.
The story begins in 2006. Lunny (left), who is active in Marin Organic, wanted to be able to promote the fact that as a rancher he is a good “steward of the land,” so he applied for certification from an organization called 
Lunny also claims Neubacher told Salmon Safe’s executive director, “This is my park, and you will not certify any ranch in this park without my permission.”
The park had complained about piles of plastic left over from covering fermenting silage, but Lunny pointed out that the plastic is hauled off and “recycled two or three times per year.”
And while he would not reveal his dealings with National Seashore Supt. Neubacher (above), Kent (left) on Monday noted, “This was the most politically charged Salmon Safe certification in 12 years and more than 300 site inspections.”
In trying to justify his nativistic eradication of un-American deer in the park, Supt. Neubacher’s administration, as most West Marin residents realize, fabricated the problems the deer were supposedly causing.
Park Service officials are accused of engaging in a campaign of intimidation and disinformation to damage the operation of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company. Investigators concluded there is no scientific evidence to support Park Service claims that the oyster company was responsible for pollution or damage to the environment.
In April 2007, Park Service officials had threatened to seek civil and criminal charges against the Lunnys, claiming that their oyster beds were harming seals, damaging eelgrass and polluting waterways. “Based on the research conducted by several scientists, the Inspector General concluded that the data used by the Park Service was flawed and unreliable,” said Mr. Singer.
Not only do the Knights of Malta have their own license plates, I read last week that they issue their own passports, have their own flag (right), stamps, and currency, actually are widely recognized as sovereign, and have diplomatic relations with 99 countries.
The Science Conservation Center in Montana, meanwhile, has written a rebuttal to the Audubon Society, saying that contraception would be better than killing to control the number of wild horses. But BLM itself, The Times reported, stands accused of having little interest in contraception.
All this commotion suggests that seeking solitude in nature to restore your soul can sometimes be more romantic than realistic — whether you’re wandering on Point Reyes or in Yosemite (right). Even without climbers and their fans, Yosemite’s wilderness is crawling with an estimated 500 black bears. If you don’t want your meditations disturbed, it’s better to follow the Savior’s advice (Matthew 6:6), and “when thou prayest, enter into thy closet.”
My kitchen door has become a regular stop on Mrs. Raccoon’s evening rounds.
Late in the evening, a male raccoon (left) sometimes shows up begging, but he’s more skittish and is easily intimidated by Mrs. Raccoon if she’s around. Which is probably why he usually waits until she’s gone.
Digging up the roses was an amazing experience. It took a pick, as well as a shovel, to free them, for they were not growing in topsoil, as you and I think of it.
