- I'm Coyote Peterson, this is Kate Bimrose.
And today we're gonna be exploring the Bolinas Lagoon,
a unique ecosystem that's part of the Greater Farallones
National Marine Sanctuary.
(dramatic music)
As the sun breaks through the morning clouds,
we slowly cross the harbor
and land on the shore of Kent Island.
Welcome to the Bolinas Lagoon,
an internationally recognized wetlands
that is perfectly tucked into the hills
of West Marin, California.
This thousand acre tidal estuary
is a protected refuge, and home to a variety
of animal species.
Today I will be heading off trail
with lagoon restoration coordinator, Kate Bimrose.
Her field of expertise is environmental management.
And for the past five years,
she's been working with the Greater Farallones Association,
a non profit whose goal is to protect
the lagoon's native planet and animal species.
My goal is see what kind of animals
inhabit this island.
And we didn't have to travel far
before we came across our first creature.
- [Kate] What have we got?
- [Coyote] Oh right there, look at that.
Oh, you know what that is,
that is a black widow.
This is not a spider you wanna get bitten by,
that's for sure.
It's a big female right there.
Got her.
- [Kate] Wow.
- Whew, and that's about as close as you
would ever wanna get to a black widow spider.
One of the most venomous spider species
here in the United States.
So you guys are out here all the time then,
picking plants, flipping logs,
and building piles of stuff.
You know what you're also doing?
Creating perfect habitat for the black widow.
- [Kate] Absolutely. - [Coyote] My goodness--
- [Kate] I didn't realize that.
- That is one of the biggest female black widows
I think I've ever seen.
Look at the size of her abdomen.
I'm assuming you've never been bitten
by one of these, right?
- I've never been bitten by one.
I've never even seen one on the island, actually,
so this is a first for me.
- [Coyote] So this is a new find, all right.
- [Kate] It is, yeah.
- [Coyote] Breaking ground here.
- [Kate] Absolutely.
- This spider has no interest in biting you.
The only reason it would bite
is to protect itself from getting squished and killed.
I love getting to explore uninhabited
expanses of wilderness.
And as we moved across the island,
we soon came upon signs
of one elusive little mammal.
- So, one of the little rodents we have out here
on Kent Island is the salt marsh harvest mouse,
which is actually endemic
to the San Francisco Bay Area.
They're so tiny though, what they do
is they kind of grab one of these stalks,
they pull it down,
and then they kind of bite it off,
and they eat the seeds inside.
So they end up leaving these little piles
of match sticks around.
You can see where they've sort of been eating
and getting their meals before they bury down
into their tunnels and move to the next spot.
- All right well, we'll keep our eyes peeled,
and maybe we'll see one of these cute little mice.
All right, let's keep moving,
see what else we can find.
- [Kate] All right.
- As we crested the north end of the island,
we eventually came upon a place
where the land meets the sea.
And there hunting along the shoreline
we were witness to hundreds of birds.
The Bolinas Lagoon is famous for being a stop over point
on the Pacific Flyway,
which makes it a perfect spot for birders
hoping to observe migrating species.
From gulls and terns, to egrets, cormorants,
pelicans, herons,
and one really cool looking sandpiper,
we saw more birds than we could ever present
in a single episode.
Moving back inland,
we suddenly came across Kate's archenemy,
and the most notorious invader of Kent Island.
What are we looking at here?
- We're actually looking at ice plant right here,
which is originally from South Africa.
- [Coyote] So this is an invasive species right here?
- [Kate] Yes, exactly.
- [Coyote] That's too bad 'cause they are so cool looking.
I assume this is some sort of a succulent, right?
- [Kate] Yeah, exactly.
And when you open it up here,
you can kinda take a look inside,
and it's sort of crystallized.
It almost looks like ice.
- [Coyote] Oh wow, it really does.
- Yeah.
Actually one of the ways that we are getting
rid of this plant is by pumping salt water
onto the island 'cause these are salt intolerant.
So when they soak up all of that salt water,
they start to dry out, and the nutrients
run out of the plant.
And they go from this healthy green
to a more unhealthy red or yellow color.
And then they're easier to pull up
out of the ground.
- Kate spends the majority of her days
protecting Kent Island against the ever invasive ice plant.
And while we could have battled these invaders forever,
it was time to continue our search
for animal inhabitants,
where I finally found and managed to capture
exactly what I had been chasing after.
I got a mouse, I got a mouse.
Ah, hold on.
I gotta get him by the scruff of his neck,
gotta be as gentle as possible.
OK, what you're looking at there
is the salt marsh harvest mouse.
I have been trying all day to capture
one of these little mice.
And these are the ones that are making
the little piles of match sticks, right?
- [Kate] They sure are, absolutely.
- [Coyote] Now, they're actually helping the ecosystem
because they're distributing seeds, right?
- Correct, and they're also a really great food source
for some of the land and bird species we have out here.
- I've got a gentle hold on the back of his neck,
just by the scruff, which is the safest way
to hold this mouse.
Not causing him any injury,
just gonna enjoy his company for a minute here,
and then let him back off into the wild.
Look at his pudgy little belly there.
You see they've got a real short little tail for a mouse.
At first I thought it was a vole
until I actually got my hands on him.
Got these nice springy back feet,
and they are incredibly quick.
And they have burrow systems
all over the island, don't they?
- [Kate] Absolutely.
- Every board or log that we have flipped up
looking for creatures has had a burrow underneath it.
So these mice are pretty much running the show around here.
- Yeah, absolutely.
So, they're a protected species.
And we're really lucky that we caught one today.
And like Coyote said, they have a whole system of tunnels,
so as soon as they see some sort of a predator,
they're outta there in a flash.
- All right, we're gonna let this little guy
go back off into the wild so he can continue
distributing seeds here in the lagoon.
Wow Kate, what an awesome adventure.
Thank you so much for having us today
out in the Bolinas Lagoon.
We saw some great creatures
and learned all about this ecosystem.
I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave,
stay wild, we'll see you on the next adventure.
The protection and restoration of the Bolinas Lagoon
is an ongoing effort.
And if it wasn't for environmental activists like Kate
and organizations such as the
Greater Farallones Association,
these beautiful ecosystems would be lost
from the world forever.
To get involved, make sure to visit the
Greater Farallones Association website, www.farallones.org.
If you enjoyed this adventure,
make sure to check out the time I helped stamped
northern elephant seals.
And don't forget, subscribe to join me and the crew
on this season of Breaking Trail.