But a bill proposed in the California State Assembly this year could make it easier for those with furry friends to find a place to rent.

“Like it or not, humans have pets, they always have and they always will,” Assemblymember Matt Haney, a San Francisco Democrat who proposed the bill, said in a statement. “Blanket ‘no companion pet policies’ are causing landlords to miss out on good tenants who get rejected without even getting a chance to apply for a place to live. The current system is bad for everyone.”

About 57% of households in California own a pet, according to a 2019 survey by the American Veterinary Medical Association. Thousands more adopted pets during COVID. Yet in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, just one in five apartments currently on the market allows for large dogs, while about two in five allow for small dogs and cats, according to a review by this news organization of Zillow listings.

In Oakland, Nina Foo, 30, has been searching for six months for a one-bedroom apartment in the Rockridge neighborhood that will accept her mini goldendoodle, Poppy.

“It’s been impossible to find something,” she said, holding a shaking Poppy — who becomes nervous around strangers — in her arms.

As many reasons as there are to love pets, property owners have plenty of their own for banning them in their buildings. Barking dogs can be a nuisance to neighbors. Unclipped claws can damage wooden floors. Too many cats can leave lingering odors. Owners who don’t pick up after their pets’ messes create extra work for maintenance staff. Lingering pet dander in carpets can make a unit uninhabitable in the future for someone with severe allergies.

“When you try to mandate sweeping legislation for inclusion of pets in a community, you have to think of the whole of the community — and that includes other renters,” said Derek Barnes, executive director of the East Bay Rental Housing Association, which opposes the bill.

The full text of the bill is still in the works, and its chances of becoming law are unclear — but Haney has said landlords would be exempted from the ban if they provide a reason for excluding pets from their property, such as concerns over health or nuisances, so long as they can provide documentation to a rent board if a tenant pushes back.

Krista Gulbransen, executive director of the Berkeley Property Owners Association, said the ability to ban pets, or certain types of breeds, helps landlords to mitigate their risk — whether that’s damage to the unit or potential issues with neighbors.

“While there are plenty of pets that are fine and don’t do damage, there are a few that aren’t that way,” she said. An animal-lover herself, Gulbranson allows pets in most of the units she manages — but it’s a decision that has come back to bite her on occasion, such as when she had to rip out new carpeting after a tenant’s cat seemed to pee “everywhere but the litter box.”

Plus, California law already requires landlords to accept emotional support and service animals without charging an extra fee, she said.

Owners of “companion animals” don’t have the same protection, though, and restrictions on pets can push them out of their homes.

That was the case for Tran Nguyen, a 26-year-old software engineer who decided to adopt a cat in 2020. A few months after she and her boyfriend brought Jules, a grey and white Ragdoll kitten, into their Menlo Park apartment, Tran took another look at her lease and spotted a clause that forbade pets. Worried that Jules’ loud meowing might tip off their property manager, Tran and her boyfriend decided to break their lease and move so they could keep Jules.

“There was a big fine if we did violate our lease, so we didn’t want to deal with that,” Nguyen said. They ended up finding an apartment building in San Mateo that allowed cats but charged an additional $60 per month in pet rent.

In other cases, people wanting to move may decide to stay put rather than brave a housing market unfavorable to pets.

Pali Boucher, who founded Rocket Dog Rescue, has lived in the same apartment in San Francisco for 22 years. The place needs work, and she sometimes wishes her landlord would be more responsive, Boucher said, “but I moved in here because they accepted my pets.”

Along with several birds, she also owns five dogs, including a Doberman and a pit bull mix — two of the most notorious breeds among landlords, as many insurance companies won’t cover a unit where one is living.

Some of the biggest supporters of opening up more rentals to pets are California’s animal shelters, which end up with many of the animals people are forced to give up when they can’t find a home that includes them.

“Housing issues are the number one cited cause of people surrendering their pets to shelters,” said Jill Tucker, CEO of the California Animal Welfare Association. “It’s devastating to the people and to the animal.”

Such animals make up just a portion of the animals at shelters, though — many are stray animals brought in by animal control or found by neighbors. Some families who need to re-home their pets can no longer count on shelters, as many of them have stopped taking “surrendered” animals, citing overcrowding and limited resources, Tucker said.

On Wednesday at the East Bay SPCA Oakland Adoption Center, several dogs abandoned by previous owners were still waiting on a new home, said Karalyn Aronow, the shelter’s vice president of operations. They include Lola, a pit bull whose owner had given her up when she moved to a new house, and Legend, a husky-shepherd mix whose owner, facing homelessness, wasn’t able to find a rental that would accommodate such a large breed.

“We’re hopeful that some sort of bill will be crafted that’s going to work out in the best interest of people and their animals, as well as the property owners,” Tucker said. “There’s got to be a path forward, because something has to give at this point.”

They come bearing binoculars, telephoto lenses and a shared mission: To catch sight of “BB.”

That’s the name birders have bestowed on an elusive broad-billed hummingbird that is now calling Kristin Joseph’s flower-filled front yard home.

He might not be quite as eye-popping as the snowy owl that  captivated people for several weeks in January of 2023 after it veered off course and nested in north Orange County. But since BB’s variety of petite, fast-flying hummingbirds are usually only found in the canyons and woodlands of Mexico and southern Arizona, not Glendora, they can be tricky for local enthusiasts to check off their birding bucket lists.

“This is one that you don’t typically get to see in our area,” said Evelyn Serrano, director of the Audubon Center at Debs Park in Montecito Heights.

Joseph credits the fact that she and her husband have spent the past couple of years converting their yard into a paradise for pollinators. And while BB is definitely their most famous guest to date, she said they’ve enjoyed a steady parade of new visitors ever since they traded their thirsty lawn for drought-tolerant native plants.

“We’ve gotten so many new different species of butterflies. We’ve had grasshoppers, which I hadn’t seen in years. I had praying mantises, which I had not ever had,” Joseph said. “And I have a plethora of birds in my yard all day long.”

With BB, Joseph said she heard the difference even before she could see it.

As an amateur birder, she always pays attention to the visitors that wing through her yard. So when she noticed a bird humming an original tune, distinct from the familiar song she hears whenever Anna’s variety hummingbirds drop in for a drink, Joseph grabbed her binoculars.

The tiny bird’s bright red beak was the next clue. Joseph’s birding books told her she was looking at a broad-billed hummingbird, and, based on its coloring, very likely a male. So two weeks ago, she logged the sighting on eBird, a popular online database run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Someone from the lab contacted her, asking for pictures to verify the sighting. She loaded two photos on the site Feb. 11 and said people quickly began reaching out to ask if they could come see BB’s red beak, dark tail and iridescent body for themselves.

Since then, dozens of photos of BB sipping on native plant nectar in Joseph’s yard have been uploaded to the eBird site.

“It’s just been the nicest group of people,” Joseph said. “Someone left a whole thing of sugar on my porch to make more hummingbird food. A few people have left gift cards and thank you notes. They have just been so thrilled to see this bird.”

One woman told Joseph she was supposed to go with a group to Arizona to try to see a broad-billed hummingbird recently but missed the trip because she was sick. So when she heard about BB sightings not far from where she lives, Joseph said she showed up wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with a picture of a hummingbird.

“They’ve been very respectful and very happy to see that I had transformed my yard, because it’s kind of like a little habitat.”

The transformation started a couple years ago, when Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the city of Glendora were offering residents rebates if they removed turf from their property. Joseph’s long, narrow front yard had been entirely grass ever since her family moved in nearly two decades earlier. So they first spent the rebate money replacing that lawn with succulents and hardscape materials.

Many water districts also offer free classes on drought-tolerant yards. And Audobon has an online database of native plants for birds, Serrano noted, where people can enter their zip code and get advice about what plants might attract particular visitors.

Residents don’t have to transform their entire yard, Serrano pointed out. “Every little bit is helpful, not just for the birds but for insects and biodiversity.”

One of Serrano’s personal favorites is black sage, which she said is hardy, doesn’t grow too big and is popular with a variety of pollinators.

Joseph’s yard is still a work in progress, as she aims to mix in enough variety of native plants that something is blooming and feeding visitors all year. But unlike with lawns and other types of landscaping, she said once the planting is done, there’s very little maintenance with native gardens.

Neighbors have been stopping by for months to admire her new yard and to ask advice about doing something similar. Joseph gladly shares what she’s learned.

“I hope it can inspire more people because we don’t live in a fancy area of Glendora. We don’t have a gigantic yard. But anybody can do this.”

In recent weeks, Joseph said neighbors also have been coming by to ask why people have been hanging out in her driveway, pointing binoculars and cameras into her yard.

After she tells them about BB, she said some have come back with their kids and grandkids, clutching brand-new binoculars of their own.

Our pets are our cute, lovable companions, and just like everyone else under our roof, they come with their share of expenses. However, unlike a roommate, you can’t expect your pet to help foot its share of the bills.

Insurance is a tool to help insulate you from unexpected or large expenses. You insure your car in part because it’s legally required, but also because it’s typically more manageable to pay a few hundred dollars a month than it is to cover the higher costs of vehicle damage and injury after a serious accident. Likewise, you may insure valuable jewelry to protect yourself from financial loss if it is damaged or stolen.

Like these examples, pet insurance requires you to make regular payments, in the form of premiums, in exchange for the potential coverage of larger expenses. But also like these examples, the decision to sign up for pet insurance should come after careful consideration of your needs and coverage options.

Here are four times it may make sense to sign your furry friend up for coverage:

1. You anticipate your pet needing more than routine care

More than 2 in 5 pet owners (42%) with pet insurance say they have it because their pets often need care covered by their policy, according to the survey. If you anticipate ongoing covered expenses, the monthly premium of insurance coverage can help smooth your costs. Some breeds may be more prone to medical problems than others, for example, so look into the traits of your specific pet type when evaluating the potential costs of care.

However, pet insurance rarely covers pre-existing conditions. This means pet insurance probably won’t pay for ongoing kidney problems or cancer treatments, for instance, if your pet had those conditions before you got the policy. Also not likely covered: routine care and spay and neuter procedures, unless you pay extra for preventive care coverage.

For these reasons, budgeting for routine expenses is a good idea whether or not you get a pet insurance policy. Carefully read the details of any policy you’re considering to determine just how often you’re likely to file successful claims.

2. Your pet is accident-prone

Some pet insurance carriers offer accident-only coverage. Maybe your dog has a habit of getting loose and you’re worried about it getting hit by a car, or it tends to eat things it’s not supposed to. If so, an accident policy could cover the emergent costs associated with these events. Accident-only pet insurance is generally cheaper than more comprehensive policies.

3. You can’t pay the covered expenses out of pocket

If you’re able to pay cash for the care your pet needs, buying insurance coverage may be unnecessary. You’re paying for the insurance service, not just the veterinary care. Ask yourself: If your dog needed an expensive procedure, could you afford to cover a few thousand dollars in surgery expenses? If so, insurance may not be a good value.

While 40% of pet owners with pet insurance have a policy to keep their costs down, having insurance doesn’t mean you won’t have any out-of-pocket expenses. Like human health insurance, pet insurance typically comes with deductibles and coverage limits. For example, with a $500 annual deductible, you’ll have to cover the first $500 of vet bills in the year before your insurance policy begins covering costs. And then, it may only pay a portion.

Bottom line: Read the policy details to find out what you’re truly getting in exchange for the premium. You may find it simpler and more cost-effective to build a separate emergency fund just for unexpected pet care expenses.

4. The peace of mind is worth the premium

Well over half (57%) of pet owners with pet insurance say they have it for “peace of mind,” making that the most commonly cited reason for having such a policy, according to the survey. The costs of pet care can be significant, and 13% of pet owners say those costs are a source of financial stress. If the thought of a big emergency vet bill makes you anxious, a monthly pet insurance premium may seem like a fair price to pay for a sense of financial and emotional security.

The complete survey methodology is available in the original article, published at NerdWallet.

The article Nearly 25% of U.S. Pet Owners Insure Their Pets. Should You? originally appeared on NerdWallet.

Today, adoption-first programs like theirs exist throughout the region, which is a good thing, especially given the post-pandemic uptick in the number of cats who need homes.

Oakland’s Cat Town was inspired by Ann Dunn, an Oakland animal shelter volunteer, who launched it as a fostering program based loosely on the concept of Japan’s cat cafes, group cat homes that people can visit. (The cafe part is a bit of a misnomer; Cat Town offers espresso drinks and vegan snacks onsite at its RAWR Coffee Bar, but other cat cafes are primarily focused on the cats.)  While many of the residents of Japan’s cat cafes spend their lives onsite, the cats at Cat Town and similar locations are there only temporarily. The digs are more comfortable than what they’d have at an animal shelter, where they’re likely kept in crates in high-stress environments, like near barking dogs.

Cat cafes are a helpful part of the animal services ecosystem, says Kiska Icard, division manager of the City of San Jose’s Animal Care & Services department. “Shelters are stressful places for cats,” she says. “Many cats do not show well in shelters – it’s an unnatural environment. Cat cafes allow the cats to gradually acclimate to their surroundings and interact with people as they choose.”

Each cat cafe has its own vibe. Take Mini Cat Town, which was started in 2015 by San Jose sisters Thi, Thoa and Tram Buithree. Mini Cat Town has four Bay Area locations that offer cat visits at regional shopping hubs, giving shoppers a break from the mall and a chance to spend some quiet time with a few fluffballs that are available to take home.

San Jose’s nonprofit The Dancing Cat adds interesting community-oriented activities to the mix, from candlelit yoga sessions alongside the resident cats to meditation lessons, a monthly reading session and craft classes. Their cat lounge offers a space for well-socialized cats to interact with each other and visitors, and represents a great way for people who can’t adopt or foster cats of their own to get their feline fix, says lounge manager Anastasia Peterson.

Meanwhile, San Francisco’s KitTea Lounge offers Saturday “Meow-vie” nights and “Purrlates” classes, as well as cat cuddling opportunities.

If You Go

The Dancing Cat ($15) opens at noon Thursday through Sunday at 702 E. Julian St. in San Jose; thedancingcat.org.

Mini Cat Town ($15) is open from noon to 7 p.m. daily at 1 Stoneridge Mall Road, Space D122A, Pleasanton; 2200 Eastridge Loop, Suite 1076 in San Jose; and 447 Great Mall Drive, Space 121 in Milpitas; minicattown.org.

KitTea Lounge ($28) is open from 1 to 6 p.m. weekdays and from 10 a.m. on weekends at 1266 Valencia St. in San Francisco; kitteasf.com.

Then there are elephant seals.

Once on the brink of extinction, elephant seals are expanding north into new breeding grounds along the California coast, turning long-empty beaches into a ruckus of roars, grunts, chirps and moans.

“It’s a conservation success story,” said zoology Professor Dawn Goley of Cal Poly Humboldt. “They were in dire trouble.”

On Thursday, Goley’s team hiked 10 miles and crossed a raging river to count and tag pups at the state’s newest and northernmost colony on Humboldt County’s Lost Coast, near Punta Gorda. They tallied 265 pups, up from only nine seven years ago.

Scientists attach tiny colored tags on flippers to identify a seal’s birthplace: yellow for Santa Barbara’s Channel Islands, white for San Luis Obispo’s San Simeon, green for San Mateo’s Año Nuevo State Park, pink for Marin’s Point Reyes National Seashore — and blue for members of Humboldt’s young colony, in the King Range National Conservation Area.

The tags make it possible to trace the origins of a group as they pick a breeding ground. For instance, it’s known that newborns on the Humboldt beach descend from animals who ventured north from Point Reyes, but also Año Nuevo and San Simeon.

“As they expand at sites, they fill up the space,” said marine ecologist Sarah Allen, former science adviser at Point Reyes. “Then females and juveniles start looking for some other place to get established.”

While this year’s storms have claimed some young lives, an estimated 200,000 animals are breeding and giving birth this season in the five National Marine Sanctuaries along the Pacific coast, covering nearly 15,000 square miles.

They’re all related, descendents of a tiny colony in Mexico — which once numbered fewer than 100 animals — that escaped the violence of 19th century hunters.

Massive and magnificent, elephant seals are famed for their extraordinary physiological abilities, which allow them to endure environmental extremes. They spend most of their lives at sea, migrating twice a year as far north as Alaska before returning to California beaches to molt and reproduce.

Their distant ancestors were wanderers, venturing from warm Caribbean waters through an ancient sea that once separated North and South America.

Hunted for oil-rich blubber in the 1800s, “few or none can be found north of San Diego” by 1868, natural historian Titus Cronise wrote. The species was presumed extinct by the late 1870s.

Remarkably, a small cluster of animals survived in Baja California.

With legal protection from further hunting, six pups were reported in 1911. As the colony grew in the 1920s, animals began to depart for nearby islands.

Experts now estimate more than 40,000 births annually.

Populations of California’s other pinniped species, such as harbor seals and sea lions, also have rebounded to healthy levels since passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, said Allen. But elephant seals are the most successful because they are not dependent on the California Current, which is influenced by El Niño conditions, for their food. Instead, they dive deep off the continental shelf into a different ecosystem.

But there are long-term concerns. The species suffered a genetic “bottleneck” at their remnant Mexican colony, due to inbreeding, with worrisome consequences, according to a study published this week by scientists at England’s Durham University and UC Santa Cruz. The team’s analysis of 270 modern animals discovered reduced genetic diversity in key genes that are linked to reproductive success and the seals’ ability to dive and forage efficiently.

“So far, the species has recovered remarkably well, but these findings call into question how susceptible it might be to environmental stresses in the future,” Durham University molecular ecologist Rus Hoelzel wrote in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Currently, there are at least 25 breeding colonies along the Pacific coast. The largest is in Southern California’s Channel Islands. The fastest growing colony is at San Simeon near the Piedras Blancas lighthouse, where numbers exploded from only two dozen in 1990 to 17,000 today.

At Año Nuevo off the San Mateo coast, populations have peaked, and stabilized. But numbers at Point Reyes continue a general upward trend. In 1981, the park had one birth. Last year, there were 1,335.

Most animals stay tied to the beach of their birth, according to ecologist and evolutionary biologist Roxanne Beltran at UC Santa Cruz.

But overcrowded colonies can spell trouble for newborns, UCSC research found. With higher population density, there is more adult conflict — fighting females, tumultuous males. Pups, who get lost or waste energy trying to find their mother, tend to be smaller in size.

At Point Reyes, big storms seem to help drive the creation of new colonies, Allen said. The storms of 1982, 1996 and 1998 caused dramatic shifts in the locations of populations at Point Reyes, because pregnant females were washed off beaches.

“You can’t retain the social structure of the colony if you’re getting washed out all the time,” she said.

Beltran’s research has found that some Año Nuevo youngsters, dubbed “prospectors,” explore new sites during their annual migration. Monitoring 50 animals, she found that about three or four youngsters returned to a different colony.

“They came up north, and then more north, and more north,” she said. In 2009, a pup was born at Canada’s Great Race Rock Island, an ecological reserve southwest of Victoria. Since then, another three to five are born on the island every year..

“But how they find those other colonies — when they’ve never been there in their whole life — is a mystery,” she said.

The site is attractive for many reasons, said Goley. It features a wide beach and elevated “terraces.” Rocks help protect animals from sharks, storm surges and high tides. There’s a nearby deep sea canyon, for easy feeding. The only human access is along the Lost Coast Trail, a 24-mile beach trek that generally takes three days, requires a permit and is impassable during storms and high tides.

Initially, most of the mothers were newcomers, arriving from southern beaches.

But now Humboldt natives have matured and are returning to the beach to give birth, completing the cycle.

Protection and conservation “over generations, offers them a way to be successful,” said Goley. “It’s a real honor to be a part of that journey.”

Winegarner raced home and began looking for Talon, paying close attention to bushes and other concealed places close to the house. She let neighbors know he was missing and posted on websites like Nextdoor and local Facebook pages.

A friend spotted Talon darting across a busy street and frantically called Winegarner, who ran over with a crate. She spotted him hiding in the bushes and gave the cue for their well-practiced game of “Get in the bag!” Talon darted into the crate — and back to the safety of their home.

“Like many cats, Talon loves to dive into empty grocery bags,” Winegarner says. “I realized that I could replicate that with a crate, which would make transporting him to the veterinarian or in an emergency much easier. I started to use the verbal cue, “Get in the bag,” while crinkling up a paper bag by the crate and offering a treat. He quickly caught on, and soon he’d enter the crate by the verbal cue alone.”

Trying to get your escapee home safely is a great reason to crate train your cat. But just as important is during a disaster when you need to evacuate with your pets. The last thing you want to do in an urgent, stressful situation is try to stuff a fearful cat into a crate. Worse is trying to simply carry your cat in your arms. Many people have lost cats while trying to carry them to safety.

So, how does one crate train a cat? Pretty much how you’d train a dog. You want the crate to be associated with something positive — like treats or a tasty meal served in the back of the crate until they’re comfortable with it.

To begin, leave the crate door wide open. Every so often, when your cat’s not looking, toss a few treats around and into the crate so they can discover them. Use something your cat will love, like small pieces of chicken, cheese or freeze-dried liver. You can also leave an exciting new toy inside the crate. Periodically leave special treats in the crate throughout the evening and continue to every day or so for the next few weeks but don’t close the crate door. Once your kitty is comfortable with the idea of being in the crate while eating, close the door briefly. When they’re finished with their treat, open the crate door.

And, of course, be sure your cat wears a breakaway collar and is microchipped! Microchipping is the single most important thing you can do for your pet to ensure they’re reunited with you if you become separated. Thanks to a generous donor, Marin Humane offers free microchipping for cats. To make an appointment to have your cat microchipped, please call 415-883-4621.

Want to learn more about training your cat? Visit marinhumane.org/oh-behave.

Lisa Bloch is the director of marketing and communications at Marin Humane, which contributes Tails of Marin and welcomes animal-related questions and stories about the people and animals in our community. Go to marinhumane.org, find us on social media @marinhumane, or email lbloch@marinhumane.org.

In 2016,“we had times when there were so many whales in front of us that it was difficult to count them all,” said Aimée R. Lang, research biologist at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

Not so much anymore.

Whale experts are anxiously awaiting the 2024 count, which could hold more bad news about migratory gray whales, whose population has been declining.

Last year’s gray whale count showed a sharp decline, a negative trend consistent with the past few years. The count could be low for plenty of reasons and none in isolation. It might be that the whales are migrating farther offshore, out of sight of the cliff-side counters. It’s possible the whales are delaying their migration to gain a little more winter weight. Or maybe, the population peaked too high, and the numbers are dropping to a level the waters along the Pacific coast can sustain.

Gray whales were the original “whale-watching whales.” The first-ever water-based whale watch in the United States took place in 1955 at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, when whale-spotting hopefuls paid $1 to catch some gray whale tail flips. In the 1960s and ‘70s, California fishermen often forfeited the off-season catch to profit from whale-watching tours during the winter, when the charismatic creatures make their 6,000-mile journey from their Arctic feeding grounds to give birth in the calm, protective lagoons of Mexico.

After they were nearly hunted to extinction by commercial whalers, gray whales were federally protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. From then on, the eastern gray whale population experienced turbulent but steady population growth and peaked in 2016 at 27,000. In 2023, the whale counters estimated the population at 14,500 — around the same abundance as when they were recovering from commercial whaling.

One fish, two fish

How do we know how many whales pass the bay? Binoculars and patience.

“It’s actually pretty simple. We have a team of two observers scanning the study area by eye and with binoculars, counting the whales as they go past,” said Lang, the research biologist at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

The team starts their survey at the end of December and watches until mid-February. At the end of the field season, they surmise how many whales likely swam past at night based on the day counts. During the northbound migration in the spring, counters specifically look for mother-calf pairs.

After the high 2016 count, NOAA did another survey in 2019. That year, the whale counters identified fewer animals. By the end of 2019, over 200 whales had stranded along the Pacific coast, which triggered the declaration of an Unusual Mortality Event (UME).

The population was down, and the remaining individuals were struggling.

“I’ll never forget in the 2019-2020 season, they were coming down from their feeding grounds, and they were very thin on the southbound migration,” said Colleen Talty, marine biologist at Monterey Bay Whale Watch. “Usually, we see thin whales on the Northbound migration because they’ve already fasted for four months. So that was super concerning.”

Instead of fat and happy whales bypassing San Francisco Bay to keep on toward Mexico, they were pitstopping in the Bay to feed on krill. “Basically, they were starving, so they were getting hit by boats more often because the shipping community wasn’t used to the gray whales going inside the Bay,” said Talty.

A January report by volunteers off the Palos Verdes Peninsula Coast indicated a 40-year low for the southbound population. Until the NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center’s official population count this winter, we won’t have a full picture of the current population. But there are a few potential reasons for this overall population decline.

Gray whales spend the summer eating in Alaska. They feed on amphipods, tiny crustaceans that eat algae off the underside of northern sea ice. As temperatures warm due to human-caused climate change, sea ice melts. Without a place for their food to grow, amphipods starve, so whales suffer, too.

Gray whales are known to fast during their migration, so ideally, they begin their journey with lots of winter weight. With a dwindling food supply, they might be starting their migration later to gain more winter weight.

“Over the last four or five years now, we’ve noticed it’s about three to four weeks delayed. They seem to be spending more time up in the feeding grounds before heading down to the breeding grounds in general,” said Talty.

It could also be that the gray whale population has reached carrying capacity—the number of individuals an environment can support. It’s possible that their 2016 abundance tipped the balance, and the Pacific coast simply can’t feed that many whales. But while carrying capacity is considered a natural limit, climate change is impacting it in an unnatural way, according to an October 2023 study published in Science.

But it’s not all bad news. Last year, there were fewer strandings in California and Mexico than in any year since 2019. Also, the 2023 calf count in the lagoons in Mexico was the highest in five years, which suggests a growing population.

It’s too soon to make a call about the status of the population, but so far in the 2024 migration season, NOAA’s raw whale counts are similar to, but slightly higher than they were last year at this time.

“We don’t know how that is going to translate to our abundance counts,” Lang said, “without doing all the math.”

It is rooting around in the grass (intensely), totally oblivious to people, bikes and, I assume, dogs (thankfully).This skunk also likes to hang out at the Model Airplane Park, along the path.

This is a first for me. Has it lost its mind, or have I?

— Sandy, Morgan Hill

DEAR SANDY: The good news is that neither of you have lost your minds. There are a few reasons for why the skunk may be loitering.

Its acceptance of people and dogs is a bit of a good news, bad news situation. Skunks only spray as a defensive method, so it’s good for us that it does not feel threatened and is not unloosing the unholy aroma.

It’s bad news for the skunk, however, as wildlife needs to have a healthy distrust of humans. When they become too friendly, they can end up in dangerous, often fatal situations.

Because the skunk is rooting around in the grass, it has probably found some food in that area — grubs, worms or insects. Or it may have discovered a cache of human food. Perhaps someone has been feeding it by putting out food for the skunk or for stray cats. Or a child might have spilled some Cheerios or other tasty treats.

Although skunks are nocturnal, it’s not unusual to see them out during the day, especially in February and March, which is mating season for skunks, and in the spring when they need to forage more to feed their families. As long as it’s not acting oddly, everything is OK.

If it’s a male skunk you’re encountering, you might catch a whiff of skunk perfume, released in an effort to attract a mate. You might also want to use additional caution around skunks during mating season, as they can be a bit touchy.

Whenever we encounter a skunk, we should move cautiously around them or avoid them all together. When you see one, stop and wait for the skunk to make the first move. It usually will amble away, but if it stomps its little feet and turns its back to you, run — or skedaddle — in the opposite direction. I love a good skedaddle.

The Big Fix

Pet Food Express has launched a new campaign, The Big Fix, dedicated to supporting spay and neuter initiatives in California. In the Bay Area, the campaign will benefit Valley Humane Society, Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority, Joybound People & Pets (formerly ARF), Berkeley Humane, Peninsula Humane Society, San Francisco SPCA, Napa Humane and SNIP, the Spay Neuter Imperative Project.

Funding comes through the sale of limited-edition toys from SnugArooz, known as Big Fix Friends, at https://www.petfood.express/bigfix and in stores. Half the purchase price of the toys, which cost $5.99 for cat toys and $9.99 for dogs, will go directly to the nonprofits to provide low-cost or sliding scale spay and neuter programs. The toys are available through the end of the year, or while supplies last.

Animal Life runs on Mondays. Reach Joan Morris at AskJoanMorris@gmail.com.

Despite how Wes Anderson-y that review on Google Maps sounds, it’s true: The Los Lagos Golf Course in San Jose is home to a community of hungry, thieving red foxes. Cute red foxes, though! They’ve been running around on the green since at least 2015, when Mercury News journalist Eric Kurhi noted that golfers who “focus too closely on their next shot are discovering their unattended carts are easy prey for these four-footed ninjas at the 18-hole course in the heart of Silicon Valley.”

Kurhi explained their historical presence thus: “Unlike gray foxes – such as those famously occupying the Facebook campus in Menlo Park – the red variety was brought to California for fur farming and hunting purposes in the 1800s. Foxes escaped (of course they did) and many were released when operations ceased. They first appeared around San Francisco Bay in the 1980s and were well established within a decade.”

“I was shocked that there was such cool wildlife in a golf course just 15 minutes from home,” Pourahmad says. “The foxes get their food by hunting the gophers on the course, which Los Lagos appreciates. They also steal food from golfers, such as sandwiches. Other people feed them, which isn’t a good idea. The alpha male fox is very used to humans and has begged me for food before. One interesting thing that the foxes do is stealing toys from golfers to play with. These range from stuffed animals to phones and wallets.”

The foxes are pretty easy to photograph, being used to humans, says Pourahmad. But it takes patience to capture them playing, fighting, eating or the pups roaming because they only come out of the den at sunset.

Then there’s the human factor. “Most of the golfers think the foxes are cool and stop to watch them,” he says. “But I have to be careful of golfers hitting at the hole I’m at.”

SAN DIEGO — China plans to send a new pair of giant pandas to the San Diego Zoo, renewing its longstanding gesture of friendship toward the United States after recalling nearly all the iconic bears on loan to U.S. zoos as relations soured between the two nations.

The China Wildlife Conservation Association has signed cooperation agreements with zoos in San Diego and Madrid, the Spanish capital, and is in talks with zoos in Washington, D.C. and Vienna, the Chinese organization said, describing the deals as a new round of collaboration on panda conservation.

San Diego Zoo officials told The Associated Press that if all permits and other requirements are approved, two bears, a male and a female, are expected to arrive as early as the end of summer, about five years after the zoo sent its last pandas back to China.

“We’re very excited and hopeful,” said Megan Owen of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and vice president of Wildlife Conservation Science. “They’ve expressed a tremendous amount of enthusiasm to re-initiate panda cooperation starting with the San Diego Zoo.”

Zoos typically pay a fee of $1 million a year for two pandas, with the money earmarked for China’s conservation efforts, according to a 2022 report by America’s Congressional Research Service.

In November, Chinese President Xi Jinping raised hopes his country would start sending pandas to the U.S. again after he and President Joe Biden convened in the Bay Area for their first face-to-face meeting in a year and pledged to try to reduce tensions.

China is considering a pair that includes a female descendent of Bai Yun and Gao Gao, two of the zoo’s former residents, said Owen, an expert in panda behavior who has worked in San Diego and China.

Bai Yun, who was born in captivity in China, lived at the zoo for more than 20 years and gave birth to six cubs there. She and her son were the zoo’s last pandas and returned to China in 2019.

Gao Gao was born in the wild in China and lived at the San Diego Zoo from 2003 to 2018 before being sent back.

Decades of conservation efforts in the wild and study in captivity saved the giant panda species from extinction, increasing its population from fewer than 1,000 at one time to more than 1,800 in the wild and captivity.

The black-and-white bears have long been the symbol of the U.S.-China friendship since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., in 1972, ahead of the normalization of bilateral relations. China later loaned pandas to zoos to help breed cubs and boost the population.

The U.S., Spain and Austria were among the first countries to work with China on panda conservation, and 28 pandas have been born in those countries, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said. The latest collaboration will include research on disease prevention and habitat protection, and contribute to China’s national panda park construction, it said.

“We look forward to further expanding the research outcomes on the conservation of endangered species such as giant pandas, and promoting mutual understanding and friendship among peoples through the new round of international cooperation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in Beijing.

Demands for the return of giant pandas, known as China’s “national treasure,” grew among the Chinese public as unproven allegations that U.S. zoos mistreated the pandas flooded Chinese social media.

Fears over the future of so-called panda diplomacy escalated last year when zoos in Memphis, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., returned their pandas to China, leaving only four pandas in the United States, all at the zoo in Atlanta. That loan agreement expires later this year.

Many loan agreements were for 10 years and often were extended well beyond. But negotiations last year to extend the agreements with U.S. zoos or send more pandas did not produce results. China watchers speculated that Beijing was gradually pulling its pandas from Western nations due to deteriorating diplomatic relations with the U.S. and other countries.

Then on Nov. 15, 2023, a week after the National Zoo’s pandas departed for China, Xi spoke at a dinner in downtown San Francisco with American business executives and signaled that more pandas might be sent. He said he learned the San Diego Zoo and people in California “very much look forward to welcoming pandas back.”

“I was told that many American people, especially children, were really reluctant to say goodbye to the pandas and went to the zoo to see them off,” Xi said.

The San Diego Zoo continued to work with their Chinese counterparts even after it no longer had any pandas.

Owen said China is particularly interested in exchanging information on the zoo’s successful breeding of pandas in captivity. Giant pandas are difficult to breed in part because the female’s reproductive window is extremely narrow, lasting only 48 to 72 hours each year.

Bai Yun’s first cub, Hua Mei, was also the first panda born through artificial insemination to survive into adulthood outside of China, and would go on to produce 12 cubs on her own after she was sent to China.

Bai Yun, meanwhile, remained at the zoo where she gave birth to two more females and three males. With cameras in her den, researchers monitored her, contributing to the understanding of maternal care behavior, Owen said.

“We have a lot of institutional knowledge and capacity from our last cooperative agreement, which we will be able to parlay into this next chapter, as well as training the next generation of panda conservationists,” she said.

Chinese experts would travel with the bears and spend months in San Diego, Owen said.

She said the return of the bears is not only good for San Diego but the giant panda’s recovery as a species.

“We do talk about panda diplomacy all the time,” Owen said. “Diplomacy is a critical part of conservation in any number of contexts. …. If we can’t learn to work together, you know, in sometimes difficult situations or situations that are completely out of the control of conservationists, then we’re not going to succeed.”

Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.