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It's good to be a California beaver. Again.

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Tuesday, January 7, 2025

For the first time in 200 years it’s great to be a beaver in California. In a show of unanimous bipartisan support, the state Legislature voted this summer to pass Assembly Bill 2196, which codifies the state’s Beaver Restoration Program at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The law gives the program, which implements beaver-assisted environmental projects, protection from state budget cuts and political upheaval, and it stands as a rebuke to the Supreme Court’s devastating ruling in 2023 that removed up to 70% of the nation’s waterways and wetlands from Clean Water Act protections.California environmental activists, biologists and Indian tribes have been advocating for beavers for more than two decades, launching an extensive education campaign that included having to convince authorities that beavers are a native species throughout the state. Now the restoration effort will add to California’s “30x30” goals — the national effort to set aside and protect 30% of U.S. lands and coastal waters by 2030.A beaver management plan is underway, and $2 million has been allocated to develop statewide coexistence strategies and help relocate beavers from where they cause problems to where they can solve them. Finally Castor canadensis, long maligned as a pest, is getting a rebrand as an ecological hero.“I’m really proud of the transition we’ve made from laggard to leader on beavers,” said Wade Crowfoot, California’s secretary for natural resources. “While there’s no silver bullet solutions to environmental restoration, beavers are a keystone species, and an important part of the puzzle to restore our ecosystems in California.”Beavers, once plentiful, were wiped out of most of their range in California by 1900, hunted by fur traders and chased out by development. Those that were left often annoyed landowners who didn’t want their trees gnawed down to the ground and carted off to build dams, or who found their farmland or roadways inundated when a beaver colony moved in nearby. “Nuisance” beavers were killed. And yet California needs beavers — they are nature’s superlative ecosystem and water engineers.Climate change has fundamentally altered California’s hydrology, delivering more rainwater and less snowmelt, exacerbating wildfire, drought and the depletion of groundwater and aquifers. When beavers move into a stream or creek and begin building their damming complexes, the ponds and wetlands they create are an antidote to all these problems.The water swelling out of a beaver pond is just the beginning. Beaver ponds slow rivers and streams, storing an average of three times the water that’s visible by creating what are essentially huge underground sponges that can keep things flowing in dry summers and during drought. In times of flood, those same sponges soak up some of the excess, creating resiliency.Studies have shown in stark terms how beavers fight fire. Satellite photos of the aftermath of the massive Manter fire in 2000 in Tulare County show a charred landscape except for a line of healthy green where beavers had built dams. Before and after data convinced the researchers that “Smokey the Beaver” was a low-cost creator of “ribbons” of fire-resistant habitat.Beavers are critical to healthy rivers and our future water supply. The wetlands ringing a beaver pond sequester carbon and clean the water, filtering out pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus. Beaver “engineers” build dams and canals that create connectivity between land and water; these beaver wetlands function as vital biodiversity hubs for plant and animal species, including many that are endangered. River wetland systems with beavers have 30% more animal and plant species than those without.In recent years, studies have established the dollar value of having beavers in the landscape. The University of Helsinki, for instance, estimated the savings at $500 million annually for the Northern Hemisphere alone.Molly Alves, a senior environmental scientist who joined the California Department of Fish and Wildlife this past summer as the Beaver Restoration Program supervisor, is mapping watersheds and collecting data so she can move nuisance beavers to where they can do the most good.“We are looking at the landscape as a whole,” she said. “Where is the greatest wildfire risk? What areas are most impacted by drought? Where is erosion?” She is also working on a progress report of current translocations.Last year, beavers were returned to two sites on the traditional lands of Indigenous Californians, the Mountain Maidu and the Tule River Indians.On land the Maidu call Tásmam Koyóm, 2,000 acres near the headwaters of the Feather River, seven beavers joined a single resident in October 2023. In June of 2024, the Fish and Wildlife department announced that another group of beavers was translocated to the south fork of the Tule River, in Sequoia National Forest east of Porterville, Calif.In both cases, the releases were true homecomings. Researchers found remnant beaver dams in the mountain meadow Tásmam Koyóm streams, and in the southern Sierra, as Kenneth McDarment, the range manager for the Tule River Tribe, puts it, “There are beaver in our [ancient] pictographs.”Tribal leaders worked with scientists, nonprofits and the state to prepare beaver-friendly habitat, planting willows and other plants beavers eat and installing human-made beaver dam analogs to bring enough water to the area that beavers could survive to establish colonies.The Maidu want Tásmam Koyóm to be a showcase for traditional ecological knowledge. “Bringing the beaver back,” said Lorena Gorbert, a spokesperson for the Maidu Consortium, “was bringing back more balance to the area, putting it back … the way it should be.”As for the Tule River site, as McDarment explains, “We were in a drought in 2014 and the river was drying up. We said, ‘Why not bring beaver home?’ When the Supreme Court narrowed the definition of waterways covered by the Clean Water Act, it denied protection from development, pollution and destruction to “noncontinuous” rivers and streams — these include tributaries and wetlands, the exact waterways that beavers help construct, maintain and keep healthy. We’ve already destroyed more than 50% of our national wetlands, even more in California. With pilot beaver relocations and the codification of the restoration project, California is pushing back against that history and the Supreme Court’s dangerous shortsightedness. It’s showing the nation how political engagement with nature-based solutions can create environmental and economic resiliency. All eyes are on California now … and its beavers.Leila Philip is the author of “Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America.” She is a professor at the College of the Holy Cross, where she holds a chair in the humanities.

California has by law acknowledged beavers, nature's preeminent water and environmental engineers, as partners in environmental restoration.

California environmental activists, biologists and Indian tribes have been advocating for beavers for more than two decades, launching an extensive education campaign that included having to convince authorities that beavers are a native species throughout the state. Now the restoration effort will add to California’s “30x30” goals — the national effort to set aside and protect 30% of U.S. lands and coastal waters by 2030.

A beaver management plan is underway, and $2 million has been allocated to develop statewide coexistence strategies and help relocate beavers from where they cause problems to where they can solve them. Finally Castor canadensis, long maligned as a pest, is getting a rebrand as an ecological hero.

“I’m really proud of the transition we’ve made from laggard to leader on beavers,” said Wade Crowfoot, California’s secretary for natural resources. “While there’s no silver bullet solutions to environmental restoration, beavers are a keystone species, and an important part of the puzzle to restore our ecosystems in California.”

Beavers, once plentiful, were wiped out of most of their range in California by 1900, hunted by fur traders and chased out by development. Those that were left often annoyed landowners who didn’t want their trees gnawed down to the ground and carted off to build dams, or who found their farmland or roadways inundated when a beaver colony moved in nearby. “Nuisance” beavers were killed. And yet California needs beavers — they are nature’s superlative ecosystem and water engineers.

Climate change has fundamentally altered California’s hydrology, delivering more rainwater and less snowmelt, exacerbating wildfire, drought and the depletion of groundwater and aquifers. When beavers move into a stream or creek and begin building their damming complexes, the ponds and wetlands they create are an antidote to all these problems.

The water swelling out of a beaver pond is just the beginning. Beaver ponds slow rivers and streams, storing an average of three times the water that’s visible by creating what are essentially huge underground sponges that can keep things flowing in dry summers and during drought. In times of flood, those same sponges soak up some of the excess, creating resiliency.

Studies have shown in stark terms how beavers fight fire. Satellite photos of the aftermath of the massive Manter fire in 2000 in Tulare County show a charred landscape except for a line of healthy green where beavers had built dams. Before and after data convinced the researchers that “Smokey the Beaver” was a low-cost creator of “ribbons” of fire-resistant habitat.

Beavers are critical to healthy rivers and our future water supply. The wetlands ringing a beaver pond sequester carbon and clean the water, filtering out pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus. Beaver “engineers” build dams and canals that create connectivity between land and water; these beaver wetlands function as vital biodiversity hubs for plant and animal species, including many that are endangered. River wetland systems with beavers have 30% more animal and plant species than those without.

In recent years, studies have established the dollar value of having beavers in the landscape. The University of Helsinki, for instance, estimated the savings at $500 million annually for the Northern Hemisphere alone.

Molly Alves, a senior environmental scientist who joined the California Department of Fish and Wildlife this past summer as the Beaver Restoration Program supervisor, is mapping watersheds and collecting data so she can move nuisance beavers to where they can do the most good.

“We are looking at the landscape as a whole,” she said. “Where is the greatest wildfire risk? What areas are most impacted by drought? Where is erosion?” She is also working on a progress report of current translocations.

Last year, beavers were returned to two sites on the traditional lands of Indigenous Californians, the Mountain Maidu and the Tule River Indians.

On land the Maidu call Tásmam Koyóm, 2,000 acres near the headwaters of the Feather River, seven beavers joined a single resident in October 2023. In June of 2024, the Fish and Wildlife department announced that another group of beavers was translocated to the south fork of the Tule River, in Sequoia National Forest east of Porterville, Calif.

In both cases, the releases were true homecomings. Researchers found remnant beaver dams in the mountain meadow Tásmam Koyóm streams, and in the southern Sierra, as Kenneth McDarment, the range manager for the Tule River Tribe, puts it, “There are beaver in our [ancient] pictographs.”

Tribal leaders worked with scientists, nonprofits and the state to prepare beaver-friendly habitat, planting willows and other plants beavers eat and installing human-made beaver dam analogs to bring enough water to the area that beavers could survive to establish colonies.

The Maidu want Tásmam Koyóm to be a showcase for traditional ecological knowledge. “Bringing the beaver back,” said Lorena Gorbert, a spokesperson for the Maidu Consortium, “was bringing back more balance to the area, putting it back … the way it should be.”

As for the Tule River site, as McDarment explains, “We were in a drought in 2014 and the river was drying up. We said, ‘Why not bring beaver home?’

When the Supreme Court narrowed the definition of waterways covered by the Clean Water Act, it denied protection from development, pollution and destruction to “noncontinuous” rivers and streams — these include tributaries and wetlands, the exact waterways that beavers help construct, maintain and keep healthy.

We’ve already destroyed more than 50% of our national wetlands, even more in California. With pilot beaver relocations and the codification of the restoration project, California is pushing back against that history and the Supreme Court’s dangerous shortsightedness. It’s showing the nation how political engagement with nature-based solutions can create environmental and economic resiliency.

All eyes are on California now … and its beavers.

Leila Philip is the author of “Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America.” She is a professor at the College of the Holy Cross, where she holds a chair in the humanities.

Read the full story here.

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Related News

Why Is That Woodpecker White?

For years, the author has gathered photographs of local leucistic birds: white (or whitish) woodpeckers, hummingbirds, sparrows, turkeys, bald eagles, and more. The post Why Is That Woodpecker White? appeared first on Bay Nature.

For several years in my garden, one of the harbingers of spring would be the arrival of the white-headed girl. This bird was a female house sparrow, normal except for her bright white cap. She stood out: field guides describe these birds’ caps as “drab,” meaning grayish-brown. Not white. So the first time I saw her, I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. That became clear about a month later on a trip to the Sierras. As the sun was setting, the trip leader spotted two red-tailed hawks perched on top of a distant barn. At first glance, they didn’t look like a pair—one’s head seemed encircled by a saintly halo. A look through a spotting scope and a word from the trip leader clarified that the bird was leucistic. Now that I knew what I was seeing, I started noticing leucistic birds elsewhere, and I began collecting photographs of them from local Bay Area bird photographers. Photographer Alan Krakauer captured this partially leucistic white-crowned sparrow at his home in Richmond. Like my white-headed girl, he says that this bird returned annually for several years: “This bird was the VIB [very important bird] of our backyard and we always particularly loved finding it in with the other white-crowned and golden-crowned sparrows.”Photographer Marty Lycan took this photo in January 2023 at Shadow Cliffs Regional Park in Pleasanton. This particular bald eagle had been reported at several other hot spots continuing in 2024, and then into the new year.Mark Rauzon describes these photographs: “Bishop Ranch, San Ramon is a steep hill of super sticky mud, pockmarked by cattle hooves, that make for a challenge as you listen for the ‘haha’ laughing acorn woodpecker, hoping to see a white blur fly by. With patience, especially sitting quietly by the acorn granary, soon a normal and a white bird with a vermilion cap will drop by. Pretty much every bird photographer has made the pilgrimage to see them and take their best shot.” These birds were first reported in the summer of 2023. As of October 1, 2026, Mark thinks there might be as many as five. I love this particular photograph for showing both a typical acorn woodpecker and a leucistic one.Leucism is a rare condition in which a bird’s plumage has white feathers that aren’t normally white. Data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Feederwatch Program estimates that one in 30,000 birds has leucistic or albinistic plumage. Among those, most are leucistic, as opposed to albino. The difference is often—but not always—clear-cut: albino birds have no melanin, the pigment responsible for color, turning their plumage pure white, their eyes pink or red, and their legs and bills pale. Leucistic birds, instead, have normal eyes, bills, and legs for their species. And their whiteness comes in varying degrees. Some leucistic birds—like my white-headed girl—have white patches where they shouldn’t have them. Others will have plumage that looks faded—half way between its normal color and white. And in the most extreme cases, the bird’s feathers are completely white. This Anna’s hummingbird appeared in photographer Alan Bade’s garden for a few weeks in the springtime, but avoided his hummingbird feeders, perhaps avoiding competition with other birds, Alan speculates. He added that it seemed “a little timid and more delicate than our normal hummers. It goes away for a few days and then shows up again, like a ghost.” When Alan sent a picture of the bird—which he thought was leucistic—to expert Sherri Williamson, she replied that its “‘washed-out’ appearance” is “suggestive of one of the less extreme forms of albinism.” Her prognosis for the bird, however, was hopeful: “Though severe pigment abnormalities can make a bird more vulnerable to excessive plumage wear, sunburn, disease, and predation, there are some cases of ‘pigment-challenged’ Anna’s hummingbirds living to adulthood and breeding successfully. Here’s hoping that this will be one of those success stories.”Photographer Keith Malley is part of a regular crew at the Presidio’s Battery Godfrey who watch for seabirds and birds on migration. They observed this turkey vulture recently as it rose up behind their position at the ocean’s edge, then coursed along the bluff for about an hour before crossing north into Marin.Photographer Marty Lycan captured this almost completely leucistic white-crowned sparrow in winter several years ago while walking his dogs near a baseball field adjacent to Sycamore Valley Park. Was the location coincidental? The bird is about the size and color of a baseball showing a few scuff marks. It had been reported there the previous year, too, and then reappeared the following two winters. Sparrows seem to do this.Photographer Mark Rauzon found these finches in Panoche Valley, San Benito Co. where large flocks of house finches and various kinds of sparrows congregate in winter. Mark notes, “Obviously one stood out as it perched on the farming equipment.” Most often, a genetic defect causes leucism, by preventing pigment from moving into the feathers during development. Genetic leucism can result in birds that have patches of white (sometimes called piebald) or that are completely white. But various environmental factors can also contribute to leucism. Poor diet can lead to a loss of pigments, producing gray, pale, or white feathers. So can exposure to pollutants or radiation. Birds that lose feathers through injury sometimes replace the lost ones with new ones that lack pigment, regaining normal color only after the next molt’s feathers come in. And, like humans, birds can experience “progressive graying,” in which cells lose pigment as they age. Mark Rauzon seems to attract leucistic birds. He described this yellow-rumped warbler, at the Las Gallinas Sanitation Ponds in San Rafael, as “a butterbutt with mayo” or, alternately, “an Audubon warbler piebald with splotches of white and yellow, gray and gray.” (Audubon is a subspecies of yellow-rumped warbler). Photographer Becky Matsubara took this picture of this bird at Marta’s Marsh in Corte Madera a couple of summers ago; it was among 12 other northern mockingbirds. It had first been reported in April and stayed around until at least August. It reminds me of the mockingbird fledglings that descend on my backyard each summer, eating all of my blueberries. While leucistic birds can be a source of wonder for us humans, the abnormal coloration can cause problems for the birds themselves. A bird’s appearance is often critical in its ability to find a mate, and a bird that looks like a snowball instead of a rainbow might have problems getting a date. A bird’s color can camouflage it from predators, but, again, all of that white can be like a painted target. Melanin not only provides color in feathers but it also provides structural integrity, making feathers more durable. And finally, a lack of melanin can affect a bird’s ability to thermoregulate—lighter feathers may absorb less light and heat, so birds might struggle to stay warm in cold temperatures. I heard about this turkey from some friends who had said it had been hanging out with three “normal” turkeys (is there such a thing?) in the grassy center divider of Sacramento Avenue in Berkeley for a few days. When I went to find it, the three turkeys were about four blocks away from the leucistic bird. The leucistic turkey disappeared a few days after I photographed it. The others, six months later, are still hanging around (I had to chase them out of my driveway last month!) (Eric Schroeder)At the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, photographer Rick Lewis remembers: “It was early morning, the sun was rising, no other vehicles in sight; I was driving solo and immediately recognized the silhouette as a black phoebe. Very exciting as I focused my binoculars and realized that it was leucistic.”Although there have been no large studies that show leucism is on the rise, human activity leads me to believe there are more odd-colored birds around.Some of that increase is intentional: Hummingbird expert Sherri Williamson points out that humans sometimes selectively breed for rare qualities like albinism, meaning we’ve created “hundreds of fancy varieties of poultry, pigeons, and cage birds.” But other increases in leucistic birds are accidental: One study done in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster revealed that there was a tenfold increase in the number of leucistic barn swallows locally. With habitat loss (and degraded avian diets resulting from this), human influences, and other environmental factors, the numbers of leucistic birds are bound to increase. That might not always be a good thing, as we’ve seen. A bird hotline—in the pre-listserv and eBird days—alerted photographer Bob Lewis to this American robin about a decade ago, on a garage roof in a Berkeley neighborhood. It hung around the neighborhood for several days before disappearing. When I asked him what he thought happened to it, he said he suspected “something ate it.”Photographer Torgil Zethson found this western sandpiper on the Newark Slough Trail at the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge in the South Bay. Because this almost pure-white bird was so striking, he suspected that it might be the same one photographed a week earlier in Monterey County or even a bird seen in Coos Bay, Oregon ten days before that. (Torgil Zethson)But of course, the other explanation is that perhaps what’s increasing isn’t leucistic bird numbers, but rather the number of people watching and photographing birds. And I’m encouraged—as are the other Bay Area birders who’ve watched them—by those individual birds that keep showing up year after year, like my white-headed girl once did. After four years of backyard visits, she disappeared. Still, eight years later, when spring rolls around, I keep an eye open for her—or perhaps her offspring. Leucistic acorn woodpeckers. (Mark Rauzon)

Nature

With Dams Removed, Spawning Salmon Are Heading Up Alameda Creek

These chinooks are likely hatchery strays. But they are still an ecosystem boon—and flaming-bright symbols of restoration at work. The post With Dams Removed, Spawning Salmon Are Heading Up Alameda Creek appeared first on Bay Nature.

Nearly a dozen chinook salmon have swum the 12 miles upstream from the San Francisco Bay through Alameda Creek into Niles Canyon—likely the first salmon to spawn there in 30 years, according to Jeff Miller, founder of the Alameda Creek Alliance. From its mouth in the East Bay, between the San Mateo and Dumbarton bridges, Alameda Creek leads forty miles east into the Sunol Wilderness through abundant potential spawning grounds. But dams, pipelines, bridges, and other human structures in the creek blocked fish from that potential paradise in 1967. Since 1998, the Alameda Creek Alliance, a grassroots advocacy group, has worked alongside agencies, nonprofits, and community members to take down these barriers one by one. Two multimillion-dollar fish ladders opened the route to Niles Canyon in 2022. This September, the mainstem creek’s last remaining barrier, a concrete mat over a PG&E gas pipeline, was removed. Bay Nature featured the watershed moment—and the decades of advocacy that led up to it—in a May 2025 story, “After 28 Years, Alameda Creek Opens Up to Fish.” Claire Buchanan, CalTrout’s central California regional director, says that on Wednesday environmental consultants spotted two chinooks that went even farther—they were crossing the former pipeline, some 20 miles upstream from the mouth. These chinooks are likely hatchery strays, says Miller. But they are still an ecosystem boon, bringing nutrients into the stream. They also serve as flaming-bright symbols of restoration-at-work to the public—proof that salmon can find their way to new spawning grounds. Chinook salmon males redden as they prepare to spawn and develop a characteristic hooked jaw. Volunteers spotted both males and (hopefully egg-laden) females crossing the former barriers on the lower creek last week. Volunteers with the Alameda Creek Alliance as well as agency staff are watching the creek for salmon and trout—and now looking for where they might have spawned. (Left, David Young; right, Dan Sarka) As the fish now swim up through Niles Canyon, the females will search for quiet spots to lay their eggs, which males will then fertilize. This part, Miller doesn’t worry about helping along. “They’re pretty good at what they do,” he says.

Nature

Water

Nature recovery plan in England hit by clause allowing contracts to end with a year’s notice

Conservationists say changes, coupled with underfunding, will curb take-up and leave less land protected for natureUK politics live – latest updatesAn ambitious scheme to restore England’s nature over coming decades has been undermined after the government inserted a clause allowing it to terminate contracts with only a year’s notice, conservationists have said.The project was designed to fund landscape-scale restoration over thousands of hectares, whether on large estates or across farms and nature reserves. The idea was to create huge reserves for rare species to thrive – projects promoted as decades-long commitments to securing habitat for wildlife well into the future. Continue reading...

An ambitious scheme to restore England’s nature over coming decades has been undermined after the government inserted a clause allowing it to terminate contracts with only a year’s notice, conservationists have said.The project was designed to fund landscape-scale restoration over thousands of hectares, whether on large estates or across farms and nature reserves. The idea was to create huge reserves for rare species to thrive – projects promoted as decades-long commitments to securing habitat for wildlife well into the future.Conservationists have warned these changes, as well as underfunding, will lead to low take-up and less land protected for nature. They say allowing contracts to be ripped up after a year is unworkable, as it would leave landowners with rewilded land they can no longer farm and too little time to reconvert it.Landscape recovery is the most ambitious part of the environmental land management schemes (Elms), which were introduced by the previous Conservative government to replace EU farming subsidies.Initially, the schemes were to be split into three strands, with landscape recovery receiving a third of the £2.4bn a year funding pot. But this week, the environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, announced the projects would be given only £500m over 20 years.Jake Fiennes, the director of conservation at the Holkham estate, one of the government’s first pilot schemes for landscape recovery in 2022. He has been creating more than 2,000 hectares (4,940 acres) of wildlife-rich habitat along the north Norfolk coast, including restoring wetland that has already attracted thriving bird life such as the return of rare spoonbills.Fiennes said: “£500m over 20 years is sod all. It was supposed to be a third of the [farming] budget – we could have worked with that. If you’re the person in the street, £500m sounds like the most enormous amount of money. But if you understand the environment and food budget is £2.4bn annually, this is a fifth of that over 20 years. A tiny fraction of it for the most ambitious nature schemes.”Spread across the landscape recovery schemes, it will amount to only a few million pounds a year. But what is being asked of the landowners is incredibly expensive and ambitious, Fiennes says.“Some of the pilots are asking so much more than that as they understand the value of land, and if you put it into permanent land use change, you permanently remove its value. Then it’s implementing your scheme, like re-meandering a river and completely redesigning a landscape. That costs money,” he added.The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has claimed the funding shortfall could be topped up with private investment. However, farmers say this is unlikely while schemes remain vulnerable to being scrapped with only a year’s notice.The president of the National Farmers’ Union, Tom Bradshaw, said: “Defra’s plans for landscape recovery projects under the [environmental improvement plan] involve combining government funding with private investment.“However, experience shows that attracting private investment has been challenging, raising concerns about how farmers can confidently engage their businesses in the projects.”Toby Perkins, the chair of the environmental audit committee, said: “Do the government’s commitments match its ambition? The £500m for landscape recovery is much needed but, at £25m a year, I am very sceptical that it offers anything like adequate funding.”The government’s environmental improvement plan, announced this week, has watered down the overall ambition for nature on farmland.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionAlice Groom, the head of sustainable land policy at the RSPB, said: “In just two years, we’ve gone from needing 65–80% of farmers to manage 10% of their land for nature, to a new target of just 41% of farmers managing only 7%. That is a huge step backwards.“The science is unequivocal: on-farm habitat must be high-quality, the right mix and in the right places to support thriving wildlife populations. Government is simply wrong to suggest that getting 41% of farms to manage 7% of land under almost any [sustainable farming incentive (SFI)] option will be enough. It won’t. And it risks locking in further decline. “The falling numbers of species like corn buntings and turtle doves tell us something deeper that pollinators, beneficial insects, soils and climate-resilient landscapes are under stress.”Farmers and other landowners who signed up to the scheme found that their contracts allowed the government to terminate them for convenience – with no fault attached – with just 12 months’ notice.Fiennes said that he would not sign up to the new schemes yet and hoped to renegotiate with the government.He added: “Some of the legal advice says don’t sign because the government can end the scheme in 12 months. If you’ve done potentially irreversible land use change, you are up a creek without a paddle. Pension funds, banks – if they know there is a commitment from government for a set period, they will top this up, but at the moment it can be struck off in a year.”The nature-friendly farming schemes have been beset by difficulties and delays. Under the Labour government, funding was cut by £100m and the SFI was abruptly frozen, locking farmers out. Ministers say they plan to reopen the SFI in the new year.A Defra spokesperson said: “The £500m for landscape recovery projects is a downpayment which will go a long way to protecting and restoring nature across England.”

Nature

Conservation

Government

Why Is That Woodpecker White?

For several years in my garden, one of the harbingers of spring would be the arrival of the white-headed girl. This bird was a female house sparrow, normal except for her bright white cap. She stood out: field guides describe these birds’ caps as “drab,” meaning grayish-brown. Not white. So the first time I saw her, I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. That became clear about a month later on a trip to the Sierras. As the sun was setting, the trip leader spotted two red-tailed hawks perched on top of a distant barn. At first glance, they didn’t look like a pair—one’s head seemed encircled by a saintly halo. A look through a spotting scope and a word from the trip leader clarified that the bird was leucistic. Now that I knew what I was seeing, I started noticing leucistic birds elsewhere, and I began collecting photographs of them from local Bay Area bird photographers. Photographer Alan Krakauer captured this partially leucistic white-crowned sparrow at his home in Richmond. Like my white-headed girl, he says that this bird returned annually for several years: “This bird was the VIB [very important bird] of our backyard and we always particularly loved finding it in with the other white-crowned and golden-crowned sparrows.”Photographer Marty Lycan took this photo in January 2023 at Shadow Cliffs Regional Park in Pleasanton. This particular bald eagle had been reported at several other hot spots continuing in 2024, and then into the new year.Mark Rauzon describes these photographs: “Bishop Ranch, San Ramon is a steep hill of super sticky mud, pockmarked by cattle hooves, that make for a challenge as you listen for the ‘haha’ laughing acorn woodpecker, hoping to see a white blur fly by. With patience, especially sitting quietly by the acorn granary, soon a normal and a white bird with a vermilion cap will drop by. Pretty much every bird photographer has made the pilgrimage to see them and take their best shot.” These birds were first reported in the summer of 2023. As of October 1, 2026, Mark thinks there might be as many as five. I love this particular photograph for showing both a typical acorn woodpecker and a leucistic one.Leucism is a rare condition in which a bird’s plumage has white feathers that aren’t normally white. Data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Feederwatch Program estimates that one in 30,000 birds has leucistic or albinistic plumage. Among those, most are leucistic, as opposed to albino. The difference is often—but not always—clear-cut: albino birds have no melanin, the pigment responsible for color, turning their plumage pure white, their eyes pink or red, and their legs and bills pale. Leucistic birds, instead, have normal eyes, bills, and legs for their species. And their whiteness comes in varying degrees. Some leucistic birds—like my white-headed girl—have white patches where they shouldn’t have them. Others will have plumage that looks faded—half way between its normal color and white. And in the most extreme cases, the bird’s feathers are completely white. This bird appeared in photographer Alan Bade’s garden for a few weeks in the springtime, but avoided his hummingbird feeders, perhaps avoiding competition with other birds, Alan speculates. He added that it seemed “a little timid and more delicate than our normal hummers. It goes away for a few days and then shows up again, like a ghost.” When Alan sent a picture of the bird—which he thought was leucistic—to expert Sherri Williamson, she replied that its “‘washed-out’ appearance” is “suggestive of one of the less extreme forms of albinism.” Her prognosis for the bird, however, was hopeful: “Though severe pigment abnormalities can make a bird more vulnerable to excessive plumage wear, sunburn, disease, and predation, there are some cases of ‘pigment-challenged’ Anna’s hummingbirds living to adulthood and breeding successfully. Here’s hoping that this will be one of those success stories.” Photographer Keith Malley is part of a regular crew at the Presidio’s Battery Godfrey who watch for seabirds and birds on migration. They observed this bird recently as it rose up behind their position at the ocean’s edge, then coursed along the bluff for about an hour before crossing north into Marin.Photographer Marty Lycan captured this almost completely leucistic white-crowned sparrow in winter several years ago while walking his dogs near a baseball field adjacent to Sycamore Valley Park. Was the location coincidental? The bird is about the size and color of a baseball showing a few scuff marks. It had been reported there the previous year, too, and then reappeared the following two winters. Sparrows seem to do this.Photographer Mark Rauzon found these finches in Panoche Valley, San Benito Co. where large flocks of house finches and various kinds of sparrows congregate in winter. Mark notes, “Obviously one stood out as it perched on the farming equipment.” Most often, a genetic defect causes leucism, by preventing pigment from moving into the feathers during development. Genetic leucism can result in birds that have patches of white (sometimes called piebald) or that are completely white. But various environmental factors can also contribute to leucism. Poor diet can lead to a loss of pigments, producing gray, pale, or white feathers. So can exposure to pollutants or radiation. Birds that lose feathers through injury sometimes replace the lost ones with new ones that lack pigment, regaining normal color only after the next molt’s feathers come in. And, like humans, birds can experience “progressive graying,” in which cells lose pigment as they age. Mark Rauzon seems to attract leucistic birds. He described this yellow-rumped warbler, at the Las Gallinas Sanitation Ponds in San Rafael, as “a butterbutt with mayo” or, alternately, “an Audubon warbler piebald with splotches of white and yellow, gray and gray.” (Audubon is a subspecies of yellow-rumped warbler). Photographer Becky Matsubara took this picture of this bird at Marta’s Marsh in Corte Madera a couple of summers ago; it was among 12 other northern mockingbirds. It had first been reported in April and stayed around until at least August. It reminds me of the mockingbird fledglings that descend on my backyard each summer, eating all of my blueberries. While leucistic birds can be a source of wonder for us humans, the abnormal coloration can cause problems for the birds themselves. A bird’s appearance is often critical in its ability to find a mate, and a bird that looks like a snowball instead of a rainbow might have problems getting a date. A bird’s color can camouflage it from predators, but, again, all of that white can be like a painted target. Melanin not only provides color in feathers but it also provides structural integrity, making feathers more durable. And finally, a lack of melanin can affect a bird’s ability to thermoregulate—lighter feathers may absorb less light and heat, so birds might struggle to stay warm in cold temperatures. I heard about this bird from some friends who had said it had been hanging out with three “normal” turkeys (is there such a thing?) in the grassy center divider of Sacramento Avenue in Berkeley for a few days. When I went to find it, the three turkeys were about four blocks away from the leucistic bird. The leucistic turkey disappeared a few days after I photographed it. The others, six months later, are still hanging around (I had to chase them out of my driveway last month!) (Eric Schroeder)At the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, photographer Rick Lewis remembers: “It was early morning, the sun was rising, no other vehicles in sight; I was driving solo and immediately recognized the silhouette as a phoebe. Very exciting as I focused my binoculars and realized that it was leucistic.” Although there have been no large studies that show leucism is on the rise, human activity leads me to believe there are more odd-colored birds around.Some of that increase is intentional: Hummingbird expert Sherri Williamson points out that humans sometimes selectively breed for rare qualities like albinism, meaning we’ve created “hundreds of fancy varieties of poultry, pigeons, and cage birds.” But other increases in leucistic birds are accidental: One study done in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster revealed that there was a tenfold increase in the number of leucistic barn swallows locally. With habitat loss (and degraded avian diets resulting from this), human influences, and other environmental factors, the numbers of leucistic birds are bound to increase. That might not always be a good thing, as we’ve seen. A bird hotline—in the pre-listserv and eBird days—alerted photographer Bob Lewis to this bird about a decade ago, on a garage roof in a Berkeley neighborhood. It hung around the neighborhood for several days before disappearing. When I asked him what he thought happened to it, he said he suspected “something ate it.”Photographer Torgil Zethson found this western sandpiper on the Newark Slough Trail at the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge in the South Bay. Because this almost pure-white bird was so striking, he suspected that it might be the same one photographed a week earlier in Monterey County or even a bird seen in Coos Bay, Oregon ten days before that. (Torgil Zethson)But of course, the other explanation is that perhaps what’s increasing isn’t leucistic bird numbers, but rather the number of people watching and photographing birds. And I’m encouraged—as are the other Bay Area birders who’ve watched them—by those individual birds that keep showing up year after year, like my white-headed girl once did. After four years of backyard visits, she disappeared. Still, eight years later, when spring rolls around, I keep an eye open for her—or perhaps her offspring. Leucistic acorn woodpeckers. (Mark Rauzon)

Nature

Birdgirl' marks decade of making nature accessible

Dr Mya-Rose Craig marks 10 years of Black2Nature and calls for wider access to nature across the UK.

'Birdgirl' marks decade of making nature accessibleOliver Edwards PhotographyDr Mya-Rose Craig says Black2Nature has helped hundreds of children over the past decadeAn environmental campaigner who founded a charity to help children from ethnic minorities access nature says the cultural landscape has "shifted" since she began her work a decade ago.Dr Mya-Rose Craig, 23, nicknamed 'Birdgirl', set up Black2Nature at the age of 13 to connect more children from Visible Minority Ethnic (VME) communities with the outdoors.Reflecting on the charity's 10th anniversary, she said the current environment feels "very different"; although there is still "a lot of progress to be made". "It's amazing to look back over the past decade of all the hundreds of kids that we've worked with," she said. "All the different activities, the lives we've changed."Dr Craig said that when she first began speaking about the lack of diversity in nature spaces, the reaction was markedly different."I remember when I first started having these conversations, people didn't want to have them with me," she said."It made them very uncomfortable. I think they didn't want to acknowledge that there was exclusion and racism. So much has shifted in the past decade. "For me, that is really exciting, because I think that is how you build a more sustainable environment, by getting everyone on board."Oliver Edwards PhotographyDr Craig says she has noticed a shift in the cultural landscape over the past decadeBlack2Nature runs camps, day trips and outdoor adventures designed to increase access for VME children, young people and families.The organisation also campaigns for greater racial diversity in the environmental sector and for equal access to green spaces.Dr Craig, who is from the Chew Valley in Somerset, said the idea to set up the charity came from a "very deep love of nature and the environment.""I strongly felt that nature was a very important resource for other kids to have access to in terms of mental and physical health," she said."A lot of these kids have never been to the countryside, so it's about breaking down those assumptions."For a lot of kids that we work with, they feel like the countryside is not a space for them."Research from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) shows that people from ethnic minorities have an average of 11 times less access to green space than others in society.For parents such as Kumar Sultana, 42, from Bristol, Black2Nature has provided opportunities her family would have otherwise missed."I'm a low-income parent and I can't afford things like camping," she explained.She added the activities have helped her children connect with the natural world and learn about sustainability.Black2NatureBlack2Nature runs camps and adventure trips for childrenMs Sultana, who has a Pakistani background, said she did not have those experiences growing up."We don't have camping in our culture and money is also a barrier to accessing it," she said."Some of the places we've been, I couldn't afford to take my kids."Black2NatureThe charity campaigns for equal access to green spacesTo mark its 10th anniversary, the charity will host a conference at the University of the West of England (UWE) on Wednesday, focusing on race equity, education and career pathways in the environmental sector.Looking ahead, Dr Craig said she hopes to see environmental organisations engage more meaningfully with diverse communities and for young people to be made aware of career prospects in that sector.She also wants wider access to nature across the UK."I'd love to see better quality of green spaces in cities. There's very often a class divide in terms of green spaces, where nicer neighbourhoods have nicer parks."

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