Healthy coral reefs are a beautiful sight to behold and we shall have the opportunity to view some wonderful undersea photographs taken by Dr. Luiz Rocha. Regretfully the wonderfully productive ecosystems coral reefs create are under attack, being severely damaged, and declining. Join us for an illuminating talk on the reefs with a world renowned scientist and an elite deep water scuba diver.

Biologist and entrepreneur, Zara McDonald heads Felidae and The Bay Area Puma Project research programs. She will talk about mountain lions in the Bay Area, their biology and the recent changes our study has uncovered about these shy and elusive animals living at the urban edge.

Join us for Dr. Tiffany Yap’s lecture on the importance of wildlife corridors and habitat connectivity for native animals.

Join us for Dr. Ellen Natesan’s lecture on our water supply system, the natural resources found in the Peninsula Watershed, and how global warming is affecting this very important system.

Thanks to the S.M. Co. Parks Foundation, we were able to secure this great Wildmind program on large reptiles: The Mojave tortoise, an awesome monitor lizard, a not-tiny alligator, a boa constrictor, and a bonus tarantula.

Join us at 3pm on Saturday, February 15, for Morgan Stickrod’s program on the ecosystems of these craggy islands. In his own words: “A mere 30 miles offshore from the bustling metropolis of San Francisco, the Farallon Islands can seem more wild and remote than some of North America’s most geographically isolated wilderness areas.

Dr. V. Thomas Parker, who presented a program on the effects of climate change on California plants one year ago, will present again at 3pm on Saturday afternoon, the 25th of January. This time he will explore in some detail how wildfires have been a major ecological process in the “Golden State” for millennia, and how our state’s plants have adapted to it.

Once again, Corky Quirk will bring live bats, disabled ones, to our Visitor Center, this time on Saturday, Nov. 9, at 3pm. However, they will still have the same voracious appetite that the flyers in the darkness have, as you will see when she dangles mealworms in front of their jagged-toothed mouths, realtime, on our screen.