Bay Nature cleaned up nicely in the science and environment categories at SPJ NorCal. Here's a little backstory on our winners.

These chinooks are likely hatchery strays. But they are still an ecosystem boon—and flaming-bright symbols of restoration at work.

The first update to a local State of the Birds report in 14 years shows restoration working—and some puzzling declines.

The indicators are the visible, measurable bits that scientists can count, test, and track over time: bird counts, acreage of ...

On a waterlogged highway, cars drive into the sea. Truck cabs and bus windows poke up above the waves; sedans are fully submerged, burbling through the water like schooling fish. This is not a scene ...

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 ...

Lifelong San José resident Apollo-Genesis Braddock-Layton has fished the Pacific Coast’s shore for as long as he can remember—catching horseshoe crabs, smelt, and stingrays while listening to his ...

Pastures are visible from a derelict milking barn at the historic D Ranch, founded in 1870 and abandoned after the creation of Point Reyes National Seashore. (Lisa M. Krieger) In the gently rolling ...

During the Bay Area’s damp winters, we can’t afford to be fair-weather hikers. Fortunately, some hikes in the Bay Area are best enjoyed in the rainy winter months. While vistas might be engulfed in ...

In the shallows of south Lake Tahoe, diver Brandon Berry is slurping up clouds of algae with an underwater vacuum cleaner. Snorkeling above, I can hear his Darth Vader breaths better than I can see ...

In dense fog 30 miles out from the Golden Gate Bridge, the 50,000-pound humpback whale’s leap out of the water is almost totally silent, maybe 300 feet away. Its motion is as smooth and natural as an ...

On a gray early March morning in Sonoma County, everything is dripping. Somewhere, out of sight, in hollow trees and rocky caves, tiny American black bear cubs nurse in the dark. Born at less than a ...