What to Find at Point Reyes

May 11


Back in 1579, as Sir Francis Drake would have just finished sailing the Golden Hind along the western shore of the continent all the way up to Alaska then back south due to impassable ice, he would have settled into a bay at Point Reyes utterly teeming with wildlife.  There had been very good reason that the ancient Miwok people of

the Bay area had settled here and thrived – we might even say, happily as a civilization (compared to the Spanish and English conquerors who brought military domination, forced religion, and exploitation of resources) – because of the abundance.  Grizzly bears were then bountiful in this region, attracted to the open range unlike their counterpart the black bear, which likes the thicker forest.  Deer of

all sorts, bobcats and mountain lions, not to mention surfacing whales, clumps of beached seals,

and even the occasional southern roaming great white shark.  And although they may not have witnessed this, about 20 miles offshore from the Point Reyes Lighthouse lies an underwater island called Cordell Bank, which sits on the tip of a long granite peninsula.  The island, including some 526 square miles around it, has been since deemed a sea life sanctuary.  Extreme shipping frequency in the ocean and extreme habitat loss on land has transformed what was once one of the more prolifically abundant landscapes on earth to something that reveals only small parts of its former glory.