News roundup

Nice article about the beautiful and endangered San Francisco garter snake in the Chron. CGF Board Member Chris Powell has a quote in the article about the importance of small animals to the environment.

The Mercury News has two articles of interest: first, that the landslides that destroyed homes in Southern California are equally a threat up here, which is still more reason for protecting hillsides and ridgelines from development. Also, a sad article on the loss of vineyards in San Jose. We may have some concerns about planting new vineyards that remove natural habitats, but long-established vineyards are certainly far better than sprawl. The article says you can't stop progress, but we question what they call progress, and we know that if we try, we can stop sprawl.

And not quite in Santa Clara County but I'm reporting it anyway: just south in Pinnacles National Monument is one of the world's bee biodiversity hotspots. “The Pinnacles has about one-thousandth of 1 percent of land mass of the contiguous United States, and we have 10 percent of U.S. bee species.”

-Brian