Learn about how creek flows affect restoring tidal marshes from Michael MacWilliams of FlowWest, who has modeled hydrodynamics where the Calabazas and San Tomas Aquino creeks meet the salt ponds in northern San Jose as part of Valley Water’s project to connect those creeks with Pond A4.
Learn about San Francisco Bay breeding waterbirds from USGS, which has looked at South Bay avocets, stilts and terns to understand how their abundance has changed since the inception more than 20 years ago of the Restoration Project, as well as the effect on birds of predators and of constructing nesting islands. (The talk may be rescheduled if needed based on agency staffing.)
In order to speed the growth of restoring tidal marsh at the Eden Landing Ponds near Hayward, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in late 2023 piled sediments off the Eden Landing shore for waves and tides to bring to the marsh.
Learn about the design and results of this Eden Landing Strategic Placement Project from Julie Beagle of the Army Corps and Jessie Lacy and Karen Thorne of USGS. (The talk may be rescheduled if needed based on agency staffing.)
Learn how wetland managers across the Bay Area are collaborating to conduct monitoring at a regional scale to save on costs and gain greater understanding of the factors affecting wetland restoration success. Christina Toms of the Regional Water Quality Control Board on June 10, 2025, joined Restoration Project Lead Scientist Donna Ball for a joint presentation on this Bay-wide collaboration, called the Wetland Regional Monitoring Program (WRMP).
You are invited to join Santa Clara County Parks Natural Resource Management team, in partnership with San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, in their efforts to restore the coastal habitat of Alviso Marina County Park.
Volunteers will assist in the removal of invasive plants and the spreading of mulch in preparation for the planting of native plants.
Youth and families are encouraged to participate.
Please bring sturdy gloves, closed toe shoes (boots if possible), and your can-do attitudes!
We share the Earth with millions of other species. But, our planet is experiencing a biodiversity crisis in which a significant portion of these species are in danger of extinction in coming decades. While the Earth has undergone mass extinctions in the past—such as when a meteor strike doomed the dinosaurs—the current mass extinction event is caused by humans. This loss of species is a tragedy for the Earth’s ecology and non-human inhabitants, but will also have significant impacts on human societies.
You are invited to join Santa Clara County Parks Natural Resource Management team, in partnership with San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, in their efforts to restore the coastal habitat of Alviso Marina County Park.
Volunteers will assist in the removal of invasive plants and the spreading of mulch in preparation for the planting of native plants.
Youth and families are encouraged to participate.
Please bring sturdy gloves, closed toe shoes (boots if possible), and your can-do attitudes!
You can come join Save The Bay at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Eden Landing Ecological Reserve to help restore former industrial salt ponds into healthy salt marsh habitat! This vision includes turning vulnerable fields of invasive mustard and thistle into resilient shoreline full of natives like California poppy, sticky monkeyflower and marsh gumplant. Restoration leaders hope you will enjoy giving their baby native plants the support they need to transform the land!
You can join the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO) to help set up the first national tagging study for threatened western snowy plovers! Volunteers will help do precision work in wet and muddy areas, carrying rebar and other equipment to set up electronic grids across two ponds at the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve in Hayward.
Learn about Save The Bay’s cost-saving methods to revegetate and restore wildlife habitat at the Restoration Project's recently completed Ravenswood Ponds restoration site in Menlo Park. Jessie Olson, Habitat Restoration Director at Save The Bay, discusses the techniques the non-profit has developed that can be scaled up while reducing costs and labor. Save The Bay planted on our newly constructed habitat transition zone slopes (also called “horizontal levees”) bordering restoring tidal marsh at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
You can join Save The Bay at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Eden Landing Ecological Reserve to help restore former industrial salt ponds into healthy salt marsh habitat!
This vision includes turning vulnerable fields of invasive mustard and thistle into resilient shoreline full of natives like California poppy, sticky monkeyflower and marsh gumplant. Save The Bay and the Restoration Project hope you will enjoy giving the baby native plants the support they need to transform the land!
You can join Save The Bay to help pull up invasive plants and maintain beautiful new native plants just planted over the winter! The organization planted a recently completed habitat slope as part of restoration and habitat enhancement at the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge Ravenswood Ponds near Menlo Park's Bedwell Bayfront Park.
Save the date for the Earth Month Kickoff at the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge's Environmental Education Center! We’ll have crafts, games, guided tours, and more in celebration of our wildlife and the environment they depend on.
Those interested in volunteering to help with activities, crafts, set up, clean up, and more can contact the San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society at [email protected].
Help improve the nesting success of threatened western snowy plovers at a Ravenswood habitat restoration event where you get to stomp around in the mud and throw around shells!
Volunteers can join San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO) staff at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Don Edwards Refuge in Menlo Park to carry and spread oyster shells for the benefit of plovers. These birds nest in salt flats, where their eggs and chicks can get eaten by predators. The oyster shells help camouflage nests, eggs, and chicks.
At this free virtual talk, Dr. Nathan Van Schmidt, Science Director at the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, will discuss the challenges of bird conservation, after birds displaced by development and human presence on beaches and former Central Valley wetlands have come to depend on man-made ponds in the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project lands.
Find out more and register here.
We have canceled the April Lunch and Learn. Please join us for the May presentation by Save The Bay on its work vegetating and restoring upland transition zones (also called horizontal levees)!
Scientist Nathan Van Schmidt of the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO) talks about his research on the challenges facing waterbirds of the Pacific Flyway within the Restoration Project.
Learn about water quality issues, such as low dissolved oxygen, that can arise in the complex environment of Lower South Bay sloughs and the Restoration Project’s gated and culverted pond habitats, as Ariella Chelsky of the San Francisco Estuary Institute discusses her research.
Learn the latest about one of the Restoration Project’s most charismatic megafauna, the threatened Western Snowy Plover, from Maddy Schwarz of the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO). Snowy plovers nest and raise their chicks on stretches of dry ponds, where their eggs and young are vulnerable to predators from the ground and above.