• David Gray will continue to operate under his current name and brand
• Gryphon is headquartered in San Francisco and invests in the middle market
• The private equity company was founded in 1997

Southern Home Services, backed by Gryphon Investors, has acquired David Gray Electrical, Plumbing, Heating & Air, a Florida-based HVAC company. No financial details were disclosed.

Southern Home Services is an operator of home service businesses.

“We are thrilled to welcome David Gray Electrical, Plumbing, Heating & Air to our family,” Bryan Benak, CEO of Southern Home Services, said in a statement. “This partnership not only expands our reach, but also enhances our ability to provide unparalleled service and expertise to the Jacksonville community.” This acquisition aligns with the mission of Southern Home Services, the leading provider of comfort, safety and To be energy solutions for homeowners.

David Gray will continue to operate under his current name and brand.

Gryphon is headquartered in San Francisco and invests in the middle market. The private equity company was founded in 1997.

The post Gryphon-backed Southern Residence Providers acquires HVAC agency David Grey appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — In an apparent crime spree in San Francisco, several homes in different neighborhoods across the city were targeted by home invasion robbers within a few hours involving a gray Infiniti.

William Ton was at home with his mother on Jan. 4, when would-be intruders tried to break in through the front door on 31st Avenue in the Outer Richmond.

READ MORE: School Officials Appeal Court Ruling Freezing Enrollment at UC Berkeley

“As you can see their goal was to get in through the lock opening here,” said Ton, showing KPIX 5 a photo of the damage.

Ton believes his dog Chewy ultimately deterred the crooks.

“He was barking and yelping the whole entire time and usually when he does that, we thought he was trying to bark at other dogs,” he said.

Around the same time, a neighbor’s ring camera a few houses down captured a gray Infiniti parked out front. A person gets out and walks up to the door and knocks.

“I could hear tools clanking in his jacket,” said Tom Hsieh said. “He went up and knocked on our neighbor’s door and this was all on our video. Thankfully, he didn’t get in, because they’re elderly shut-ins, they’re a great couple, but they’re old. They must have come to the door, because he went back to his car, and then hit our neighbor four or five doors up.”

“I’m shocked, around this neighborhood, it’s usually very quiet,” Ton said. “People around here are great, and for these guys to just come around and do what they please, and get away with it, it’s just crazy.”

READ MORE: San Francisco Teen Eileen Gu Wins Silver; Navigating Two Cultures, Judged By Both Of Them

Security video just one street over on 30th Avenue and Fulton Street shows a gray Infiniti backing into the driveway of an apartment complex about 10 minutes later before noon.

Using what appears to be a tool, two suspects break the gate and then a third one follows. A resident who was home at the time said they hit three units in about 10 minutes. Video shows the suspects rushing out of the complex with bags in hand.

Earlier that same morning, about five miles away in the Outer Mission / Ingleside neighborhood, a gray Infiniti is seen backing into the driveway. Two sisters were inside at the time. The suspects broke the metal gate and forced their way in.

“I hid in the closet because I didn’t really know what to do. I was really scared,” said one of the sisters, who declined to give her name for privacy reasons.

Video shows three suspects wearing what appears to be the same clothes running into the getaway car with stolen items.

“They’re going into our homes like they’re going into our parked cars in the middle of the night, except they’re doing it in broad daylight,” said Hsieh. “They don’t care if we’re in those homes or not, they don’t care if there are seniors there or children there. They’re just going in and taking things. This is not acceptable at all at any level and San Francisco – all of us have to say enough is enough.”

MORE NEWS: Local Artist Highlights San Francisco’s Black History With Posters Along Market Street

KPIX 5 have reached out to SFPD to see if they’re investigating these crimes as being related.

The post San Francisco Dwelling Invasion Crime Spree Involving Grey Infiniti Stuns Residents – CBS San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Image courtesy of Andreas Strandman / Unsplash

Between the pastel tones and gold leaf decorations, one can see more and more a striking juxtaposition: 125-year-old houses painted in the tones of a nuclear warhead from the Cold War or a dormant cinder cone. In neighborhoods like Mission and Haight, this phenomenon reads for some residents as the eradication of the Latino community or the ongoing counterculture. – The guard

Gentrification has fundamentally changed what New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio once called the “crisis of desirability”.

As in the Big Apple, many high-paid workers have begun to return to their former wasted enclaves, contrary to a trend that initially seemed to shrink the city’s tech population significantly due to the pandemic, leading to even more reluctance among the locals.

“I’m not moving. I’m not going anywhere. I have my roots,” a lifelong resident told the Guardian. “Working with kids, teaching kids music without asking for money. It’s about giving back to the community. Latin- Rock music originated here in the mission district, so my aim is to keep it alive. “

Related Articles About Archinect You May Be Interested In …

The post ‘Gentrification grey’ is the most recent design pattern sweeping San Francisco’s as soon as colourful rowhouses | Information appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

R.Ichard Segovia’s house is as loud as the Latin rock music he teaches kids in his basement studio. With colors ranging from jungle green and royal blue on the sidewalk to a red and yellow sunburst on the ridge, the otherwise humble Spanish-style house is essentially a giant mural, a crowded portrait of long deceased musicians, Segovia’s family members, social activists, various psychedelics and one or the other jungle animal.

Segovia has lived in the Mission District of San Francisco since 1963 and sees itself as the guardian of the district’s culture, especially as the birthplace of Latin rock. (Carlos Santana, a family friend, grew up nearby.) But increasingly, the 68-year-old “Mayor of the Mission” is faced with a stark display of all the colors that have been bled from the city in successive waves of technology-driven ones Gentrification.

“I walk through the neighborhood every day and see all these gray houses,” says Segovia. “It’s like a cemetery.”

From the International Orange of the Golden Gate Bridge to the intricately carved and painted facades of the Painted Ladies in Alamo Square, vivid colors have long been the grammar of San Francisco’s native architecture.

Richard Segovia stands in front of his brightly painted house in San Francisco. The house next to his is painted gray. Photo: Talia Herman / The Guardian

But between the pastel tones and the gold leaf decorations you can see more and more a conspicuous juxtaposition: 125-year-old houses painted in the tones of a nuclear warhead from the Cold War or a dormant cinder cone. In neighborhoods like Mission and Haight, this phenomenon reads for some residents as the eradication of the Latino community or the ongoing counterculture. Gentrification gray houses have become a totem of wealthy intruders. The rush of wealth to central cities is global in scope, but its impact has been particularly pronounced in San Francisco – all the more as the city is known to value its own uniqueness.

Some of these homes have accents of black or darker gray. Some are just the color of a stranded humpback whale. Many have the crispy oxidized planters full of succulents or geometrically austere horsetail plants straight from a dwell magazine page, while others feature brightly painted doors in the same off-neon palette as athleisure clothing.

To their proponents, they’re sleek and contemporary, with paintwork that can take a punch without ever looking dirty. To their critics, they’re unimaginative, historically inaccurate deviations that a wealthy biotech CEO who wears a gray Patagonia fleece vest every day will appreciate – or worse, real estate agents are pushing to add some appeal to a potential investment property in the country nobody is allowed to live.

“I had some concerns about painting our house gray, even though it’s a symbol of gentrification in the Mission,” says Kate Shaw, who lives with partner Dav Rausch in a Mission Victorian they bought in 2012. But the couple, a professional designer and a designer by Hobby, say gray was a “jumping off point” in “reinventing” the “shape” of their pre-1900 home.

A calendar shows a home with a color scheme on historic buildings in the Bay Area designed by Bob Buckter, an independent color consultant. Photo: Talia Herman / The Guardian

“Going towards monochrome might be interpreted as lazy, but getting those colors right is his own business. It’s an art in itself, ”she said of Facetime during a tour. “Color emphasizes the shape and not the other way around.”

“We hired a Latino crew led by a Latino who was laid off from my company,” added Shaw. “People said, ‘Hire him! He’s great and we want to make sure he’s looked after and cared for. ‘ His crew said, ‘We’re used to so much more color and we love that!’ They placed it at the top of their website as what they were most proud of. “

The notion that Victorian houses were traditionally polychromatic is as much a myth as is our contemporary notion of ancient Roman cities like Bone White. As a form of civic improvement, Roman buildings were brashly – garishly decorated by most modern standards – while San Francisco’s Victorians were likely relatively drab when first built.

“When these Victorians started they didn’t have that many color options – usually white or gray, lead-colored. You didn’t pick out the moldings, ”says architect David Baker, who lives in a gray house himself. “I think we shouldn’t take it seriously – it’s just color.”

But for Bob Buckter, known as Dr. Color, it is anything but just color. He has worked as an independent color consultant on historic buildings in the Bay Area for more than 50 years – around 18,500 by his count.

“I talk to people, find out what their taste is, what they like, what they don’t like, whether they are wild or conservative, whether they like dark blue or dark gray or polychrome, how they are dressed, how they design their interiors” he says in his gray-purple office with aubergine-colored curtains and hand-painted ceiling medallions.

Many Buckter customers return for a second or third treatment – in some cases a fourth. He takes a straightforward approach of giving the customer what he wants and tries not to impose his own taste on people. But the usual result is a uniquely harmonious mixture of colors, so that a monochrome, matte exterior appears contradicting his practice. Is it simply a taste preference or the mutilation of an irreplaceable treasure from an old sequoia tree?

“All of that. I’ve spent my life taking care of the architectural details of historic houses and other architectural things, and I want to find out the purpose that they let me in and make color. Whether the market is selling the building or Proud of ownership, I have to take care of all of that in my design, “says Buckter, who thinks I’ve done something.”

After consulting with so many homes and getting enough attention that his work has resulted in copycat jobs, it’s likely that Buckter shifted collective tastes in a certain direction. Consequently, the rise of the gray Victorian could be a reaction against his aesthetic.

Bob Buckter, known as Dr. Color, has consulted on nearly 18,500 historic buildings in the Bay Area – including his own home in the Mission. Photo: Talia Herman / The Guardian

“That can be part of it,” says Buckter. “I think the main reason is a trend towards simplicity and modernity. They are fed up with the polychrome look, some of these people. This trend has been noticed by others and some people just ride the wave of this trend. “

The lack of color annoys some longtime residents whose love for the sedate San Francisco homes has never diminished.

“I wish they’d make me the color officer for San Francisco so that people would check with me what colors they were using,” says artist and photographer Liz Mamorsky. “Some people try to do something good and restore a Victorian style, but they don’t quite get the colors right. You want that retinal flash that you get by having two complements of the same shade. “

Fred Messbarger, a 15-year-old homeowner in Mission, calls the gray trend “heartbreaking,” saying that the “beauty of San Francisco resides in the Victorians and Edwardians, and the contrast of the houses and the curves and the details – and that too.” Neighbors”. . One house could have completely different colors than the others. “

Messbarger had his Italian house repainted in turquoise, navy blue and white around 1870, with gold details and a neon green door. Everyone in the family had input and the response was positive.

“When I work outside in the garden or even leave the house, I keep getting comments and compliments,” says Messbarger. “It’s nice to hear because it took us five years to decide what to paint.”

“I didn’t think we were brave,” he adds. “I just thought we were bringing back color. The door is bold, but that’s our son’s fault. “

But sometimes gray is what happens when a diverse group tries to make a decision.

Eric Carlson owns a condominium in a four-story building that is home to a Latino family, a Greco-American family, and another single man. When it came time to repaint the “deep pale pink with white moldings” on the exterior, these very different people found it difficult to come to an agreement. After six weeks of looking at Swatches, everyone made lists of their top 4 and their two “absolutely not”. The result? Homburg Gray, with parchment white trim.

“I would have been fine with a much more expressive color,” says Carlson. “I was also aware that this had to be a consensus and that these were acceptable colors. Do i love her No. But does it look a lot better than what we had before? By and large, life is about compromise. I knew that by the early 20s there would be no appetite for a historically accurate color. “

If nobody really loves it, then why does gray seem to dominate?

“I think we’re in a strange place where this slate gray looks like a popular color and so is self-reinforcing,” says Carlson. “We are used to this dull palette of modern architecture, and it is boring. We are not exactly in the Baroque era of architecture. “

For some brokers, a dull tungsten gray coat can do more than just dampen the look. When a luxury real estate company bought the house next to Segovia and painted it gray, Segovia tried to put down the real estate agent and tell him that whoever bought the house would have a rock musician as a neighbor.

Cousins ​​Maggie Guillen, 12, left, and Noe Zuleta, 14, sit on the front steps of their home in the Mission District. Photo: Talia Herman / The Guardian

“He wouldn’t pay any attention to me. So I said, ‘I’m going to take revenge on these fools.’ ”Segovia put his speaker system against the wall and slammed Metallica during the open house.

Eventually, the real estate company spent $ 40,000 to soundproof Segovia’s home studio so they could offload their property – to people who paid $ 750,000 and then four years later for $ 1.7 million to the current owner sold.

Segovia has been offered $ 2.5 million in cash for his home so many times that he threatened an aggressive agent with legal action.

“I’m not moving. I’m not going anywhere. I have my roots,” he says. “Working with kids, teaching kids music without asking for money. It’s about giving back to the community. Latin rock music is Made here in the mission district, so my aim is to keep that alive. “

As for the ongoing cruelty, “There should be a law,” says Segovia. “Enough is enough. For me they are prison colors.”

The post ‘It’s like a cemetery’: the development turning San Francisco’s colourful homes ‘gentrification grey’ | San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

San Francisco is perhaps best known for two things: its infamous dripping fog and colorful houses painted in all shades from daring to pastel hues of the rainbow.

Today, San Francisco’s Victorian and other colorful homes face an increasing threat: the popularity of gray, a trend that threatens to inundate the city’s unique architectural heritage.

But before we go gray, our story begins in the late 19th century, when colorful, sumptuous, ornate Victorian houses were still popping up all over town.

The vast majority of Victorian homes were built between 1870 and 1905, many by large construction companies, some of which were on loan to potential home buyers, according to Tanu Sankalia, a professor of architecture and urban studies at the University of San Francisco. Many of these builders marketed their houses to the city’s rising middle class. While the rich lived on Nob Hill and Pacific Heights as they do today, everything west of Van Ness Street, including Western Addition, attracted people with more modest needs.

One of these builders was John C. Pelton, who began building Petons Cheap Dwellings across the city in the 1880s. According to the book “In the Victorian Style” by Randolph Delehanty and Richard Sexton, the houses could be built for as little as $ 585. About $ 130 went to the “carpenter, work, and nails.”

Pelton had three versions of apartments, delimited by the numbers one through three. Dwelling One was a three-room cottage that cost just under $ 600. Apartment Two was $ 854.25 while the more highly decorated Apartment Three was $ 1,140.

Houses were built quickly, but some had an overarching problem: They looked too similar. To differentiate between the houses, color came into play.

“This is one of the first cases where colors show up,” said Sankalia. “Because they were so similar, the question was how do you tell them apart?”

According to Delehanty and Sexton, the original Victorian paint scheme was “pretty simple”. The Victorians have not yet experienced a color boom.

“White lead paint was used on the body of the building and all of its ornaments, no matter how elaborate,” they write. Other colors like black, green, and even terracotta would have been used solely for the window sash.

And now back to gray. According to the authors, even this dark hue was “another preferred exterior color of the San Francisco Victorian style,” while the “richer colors” were reserved for the interiors of the houses.

But that wasn’t necessarily the case with all Victorians. In the book “Painted Ladies: San Francisco’s Resplendent Victorians”, authors Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen explain that “painters in the latter half of the [the 19th century] uses different colors to highlight the different parts of the house. ”

“Some houses looked like they were painted in stripes: the first floor should be one color; the second story is a different one; trim, another; Roof, another; and so on, ”write the authors.

At the end of the 19th century, Victorians were reluctant to go out of style.

“In the 1920s, the word ‘Victorian’ was a term of contempt,” write Delehanty and Sexton. “Victorians were seen as ‘monstrosities’.”

But changes in the city were brewing. During the war, “there was a strange shift,” said Sankulia. “There was a lot of excess navy gray paint – battleship gray – going around,” he said, and the brightly colored Victorians and row houses began to turn solid.

“There was the Great Depression, the wartime austerity measures, and there was already a supply of excess inventory,” said Sankulia. “So it became the choice of color.”

Over the years, San Francisco’s old homes, especially the scolded Victorians, fell into disuse and deteriorated. The paint was peeling off, the bars cracked, the windows shattered and more and more people moved into the chic high-rise buildings around the city center.

But change is brewing again. By the mid-1970s, San Francisco property prices had more than doubled on a now familiar topic, such as “Victorian Style.” People started paying attention to the faded Victorians again, shifting their focus to restoring them rather than building new houses.

“Another part of that process was the migration of young gay men to San Francisco,” write Delehanty and Sexton. “They found that they could make a living buying Victorians, restoring, and then selling them, only to buy another house to save to keep the process going.”

At the same time, the colorist movement overtook San Francisco and its mundane Victorians. The colorist movement was led by a group of artists who carried their love for the psychedelic movement into their homes.

One such artist was Maija Peeples-Bright, who, according to SF Heritage, painted an ornate Victorian townhouse at 908 Steiner St. in a rainbow of bright colors.

“Maija and I are very beige,” SF Heritage quotes Peeples-Bright’s husband. “She has dedicated her life to painting luminous animals, all different and unique, on every handy surface. … Beige has no chance against them. ”

Other artists and colorists, including Butch Kardum and Bob Buckter, joined the trend.

Buckter, who previously spoke to SFGATE, introduced the new colorful trend to the psychedelic movement.

“[The psychedelic movement] changes the way you perceive things and how you want your home to look, ”he said. “I think that’s how it started. And then a few pioneers like me started going out and putting things together. And then people started taking note of it, and then more and more people did it, and then it just grew. “

But there is more to it than trends. According to Sankulia, new colors with lighter shades were also developed in the 1960s. Color also served as a visual sign of the resurrection.

“You could revive some of these buildings with paint,” he said. “It’s a different way of saying, these are really cool buildings, it’s also a way of getting listed.”

Sankulia argued that in the context of urban renewal, “monument protection was given an additional urgency”.

“Color became another way of preserving these houses and making people aware that this is a built environment with architectural heritage and that the heritage of the city should be preserved,” he said. “What better way to do that than to celebrate it with color?”

Now that we know the houses in San Francisco to be colorful, their bright colors have become a part of this city and its history. The preservation of the houses – and their colors – is a reminder of this.

But back to the gray tones. Buckter said he thinks the latest desire to paint San Francisco’s once-vibrant homes gray is just a trend.

“It ignores or ignores your architecture,” he said. “But you know what? It’s a free world, and if you like it, do it.”

The post San Francisco’s colourful properties had been as soon as painted grey appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Gray whales have begun their winter migration along the California coast and offer Bay Area residents numerous opportunities to observe the majestic marine mammals for the next several months.

There’s just one catch: perhaps the best onshore location to see the migrating whales is closed for construction.

The historic lighthouse and observation deck at the westernmost tip of Point Reyes National Seashore – known among whale enthusiasts and amateurs as the best vantage point for spotting whales rounding the Bay Area waters – are banned because Sir Francis Drake Boulevard is one Major is going through overhaul.

Despite the closure, there are plenty of other places to spot the whales on their southern streak from the arctic waters of Alaska to the shallow lagoons of Baja California, said Carlo Arreglo, a park ranger at Point Reyes.

“This is the time of year to see these charismatic superstar mammals,” he said.

From Bodega Head to Muir Beach Overlook and Point Bonita in the Marin Headlands, the north coast offers numerous elevated vantage points. Within the city limits, Fort Funston and the Lands End Lookout have good ocean views to spot spouts.

To the south, the parking lots on either side of the Devil’s Slide Trail provide accessible whale watching. The beaches at Point Reyes have less visibility, but visitors can peek at some spills – and see giant elephant seals in their winter mating season.

Hundreds of gray whales pass through the Bay Area every day at the height of the south migration in January. Pregnant whales, due to give birth in the warm waters of the Baja, are the first to migrate, followed by thousands more in pods of two to five individuals. In spring, the whales begin their journey back to Alaska with their newborn calves.

Elevated lookouts offer the best chance of spotting whales in the water. Bodega Head and Point Reyes are good bets as the whales use the protruding geography to navigate the coast, but the whales are visible from other coastal areas as well.

First, said Arreglo, scan the ocean for clouds of steam – these are the whales that exhale when they emerge for breath. The blowhole is the first part of the body to rise out of the water, followed by the back and tail as the whale dives beneath the surface in one graceful motion.

“Bring binoculars, it’ll help,” said Bill Keener, a whale researcher at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito.

While whale runs can be spotted at any time of the day, Keener prefers to set off in the morning hours when the sun is angled off the water. Direct sunlight can make the whales difficult to spot.

The fact that gray whales can still be seen on the California coast – let alone in their thousands – is a small miracle, according to experts. The 40-ton marine mammals were near endangered by the 1930s, but their numbers began to recover with the decline in commercial whaling. Gray whales are now protected by international protection measures.

“California is one of the few places in the world where you can see multiple species of whales,” said Keener. “It’s an amazing wildlife opportunity right off our coast.”

Some local families have turned to whale watching, said Nancy Black, a marine biologist who runs the Monterey Bay Whale Watch. The company has done tours at half capacity, wiped surfaces, and practiced social distancing.

“It’s great – people usually get bored at home,” said Black.

Black noted that whale migration began a few weeks later that year, a trend she believes was due to climate change. Scientists studying gray whales say the warming of the arctic waters could change the whales’ feeding and migration habits. Climate change has also been cited as a possible culprit for the mass extinction, which resulted in an unusually high number of whale victims last year when more than a dozen carcasses washed up on the shores of the Bay Area.

Boats pass each other near Bodega Head in Bodega Bay, California on Wednesday, December 23, 2020. Bodega Head is a popular place for whale watching.Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

Changed marine ecosystems worry Keener and his colleagues at the Marine Mammal Center. The harmful algae that thrive in warmer waters could pose problems for all marine life, he said, not just gray whales. Therefore, he feels compelled to raise awareness about the whales in order to protect them from future damage.

“These are some of the largest animals that have ever lived on the planet,” he said. “They live a different life than land mammals. They give birth underwater. They have big brains. They have these amazing migrations, ”said Keener.

Arreglo is also impressed by the mysterious mammals that live mostly invisible under the sea surface and pass giants that endure even though humans have hunted them almost to extinction.

“These massive creatures have a sense of mystery,” he said. “There is something to be said to have a secret in our life.”

Nora Mishanec is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: nora.mishanec@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NMishanec

If the Point Reyes lighthouse and observation deck are closed, here are 10 alternative locations in the Bay Area where you may be able to catch gray whales that are migrating this season:

Muir Beach overlooks the Golden Gate National Recreation Area

Point Bonita in the Marin Headlands

Mori Point in Pacifica

Fort Funston in San Francisco

Devil’s Slide Trail off Highway 1 between Pacifica and Montara

Bodega Depart from Bodega Bay on the Sonoma County coast

Limantour Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore

Drakes Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore

North Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore

Lands End Lookout in San Francisco

See morecollapse

The post With traditional lookouts closed, listed here are the most effective Bay Space spots to catch migrating grey whales appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Worrying gray whale deaths along the Pacific coast two years ago appear to have continued into 2020, raising concerns that the ocean giants’ celebrated boom may not be safe.

Once near extinction, the whales are dying from a combination of killer whale attacks, ship attacks and starvation. Scientists aren’t sure why these hazards led to a sharp increase in deaths, but they believe this is related to disruptions in marine conditions caused by climate change.

As the whales swim past California this winter, marine biologists are watching an unprecedented migration between the Arctic and Mexico to see if the worrying trend will continue for another year. Some fear that ocean changes will pose an ever greater challenge to the cherished Titan, and could affect its future in the long term.

“We may have a few years where the death rate is lower,” said Pádraig Duignan, chief pathologist at the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands who performed necropsy of the whales. “But I expect such events to happen more often than in the past.”

In 2020, 172 whales were found washed up on beaches along the west coast of North America, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 79 were in the United States, 88 in Mexico, and five in Canada. The numbers were only slightly lower than the 214 in 2019.

While some stranded whales are common during the annual whale migration, the recent numbers are not normal. For every whale found dead, the scientists estimate that five to ten more whales die unnoticed. Most sink to the bottom of the ocean or decompose without landing.

In 2019, when the surge in deaths was first observed, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an “Unusual Mortality Event,” a label that money and researchers pointed to the problem. A team of federal and academic investigators continues to try to learn more about why the whales are dying.

Gray whales were once common in the northern hemisphere. Today they are found in only two different population groups: a small group on the coasts of China, Korea and Russia and the recreational group that travels up and down the west coast every year.

Both populations were critically endangered a century ago, but international protection and the ban on commercial whaling are credited with saving the species. It is believed that the North American group has now grown to nearly 27,000 animals. The 50-foot beasts, which weigh 90,000 pounds and can live for 80 years, have become a popular spectacle for coastal visitors to the Bay Area.

The concern, however, is that increasing disruption to the marine environment could undo decades of progress.

“When the population changes, it can happen dramatically and quickly,” said Duignan. “The whales are fine now, but if something more drastic happens the population could crash.”

Observations and autopsies by Duignan and other scientists reveal a handful of causes of death for the whales. However, poor nutrition often underlies the animal’s condition, and when it did not result in death, it sometimes contributed to it.

For example, if a gray whale succumbs to a killer whale, it could be that the whale is not healthy enough to defend itself or its calf, Duignan said. A collision with a ship could be the result of a whale moving to new places to find food, such as San Francisco Bay, where it is more likely to be exposed to human activity.

This breach was discovered in 2017 by a gray whale just off the coast of Moss Beach on the coast of San Mateo County during a whale watching trip from Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay.

Chris Biertuempfel / Oceanic Society 2017

Most of the scientists’ observations and autopsies were conducted in 2019. The coronavirus pandemic limited research and collaboration over the past year. However, those involved in the work say their thinking stays the same: the whale’s poor health is likely linked to stress caused by the ocean caused by climate change.

The biggest problems are in the Arctic, where the whales spend their summers feeding.

There they rely on shrimp-like crustaceans known as amphipods, which they eat from the sea floor. However, these amphipods can become less numerous and less nutritious. The algae that the amphipods eat and that grow on sea ice before falling to the seabed become scarcer as the ice retreats in warmer temperatures. As a result, the amphipods are not as robust and the whales are not getting the meals they are used to.

Higher ocean temperatures in the Pacific have also changed the distribution of the whale’s other prey, which includes plankton, ghost shrimp and crab larvae, and fish that share their prey. Both affect a gray whale’s diet.

“Warmer water is generally not good for productivity,” said Sue Moore, a University of Washington scientist who studies whales in the Alaskan Arctic and is part of the team that studies deaths. “The (new) prey may have less fat and may be less nutritious. The whale’s body condition will show signs of it and if they are female they may not be able to give birth to a calf. “

The whales’ weakened condition also makes them more prone to disease, Moore said.

“Is that enough to trigger the (mortality) event? I don’t know, ”she said.

Fortunately, the whales are very resilient, added Moore. They are able to switch to new food sources and change their migrations to look for food. This helps them withstand the changing ocean and hold out on their 10,000 mile round trip that takes them back to the Baja California lagoons, where they give birth and spend part of the winter.

The deaths eerily resemble a spike in whale deaths two decades ago. In 1999 and 2000, more than 600 whales were reported stranded on the west coast. Scientists estimate that 20% of the total gray whale population has been lost. However, in 2001 the numbers stabilized and so far there has been no significant decrease.

John Calambokidis, senior research biologist at the Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, Washington and part of the team studying whale deaths, says the current episode may just be another correction in the population.

“There are still many puzzles as to why we saw such a dramatic increase in mortality,” he said. “If we see mortality continuing into 2021, I will become increasingly concerned – and possibly alarmed.”

Kurtis Alexander is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander

The post Grey whale die-off pushes into second yr. Can the giants survive? appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Four dead gray whales washed ashore on the beaches of San Francisco Bay in nine days. Experts announced that two of the giant aquatic mammals have died from ship attacks and the other two are under investigation on Saturday.

Biologists from the nonprofit Marine Mammal Center in California said in a press release Saturday that two dead whales washed ashore in the Bay Area on Thursday, joining two more whales discovered dead on the area’s beaches since March 31 were.

Of the four animals, two died of blunt violent trauma from ship attacks, the center said.

“It is alarming to be responding to four dead gray whales in just over a week as it really puts the current challenges facing these species into perspective,” said Padraig Duignan, director of pathology at the center, in a press release.

Other common causes of gray whale death include starvation and complications from entanglement in deep-sea fishing nets and other equipment, the center said.

Biologists from the California Academy of Sciences came to the center’s experts to perform the autopsies.

Climate change can affect water temperatures, which affects the availability of food for the whales. These can grow up to 50 feet long and migrate approximately 10,000 miles each year between foraging areas in the cold waters of the North Pacific and breeding areas in warm water lagoons on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.

The species is not currently considered endangered, but is protected by the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Department keeps track of whale populations. The last published study in 2016 found a population of 27,000 gray whales. Data from a 2020 study is still being analyzed, according to the NOAA website.

Reporting from Rich McKay in Atlanta; Adaptation by Andrea Ricci

The post Ship Strikes Kill Grey Whales In San Francisco Bay appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

SAUSALITO, Calif. (AP) – Three more dead whales have been spotted in San Francisco Bay in the past few days, making a total of eight this year, experts said on Friday.

The gray whales were found washed ashore in Tiburon on April 27, in Oakland Harbor on Monday, and in Angel Island State Park north of San Francisco on Tuesday, according to the Marine Mammal Center.

The Tiburon whale, which later drifted into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, had previously been seen alive but was underweight. According to the mammal center, the animal appeared to have spent 47 days scouting the bay before dying.

Tissue samples were taken from the three whales, but scientists were unable to perform autopsies to determine how the whales died because the carcasses were in locations that were unsafe, inaccessible, or with changing tides, the center said.

Four more gray whales have been found dead in the Bay Area since early April, along with a fin whale. A dwarf sperm whale was found on a Sonoma County beach in February.

“Malnutrition, entanglement and trauma from ship attacks have been the leading causes of whale deaths studied by the center’s research team in recent years,” the center said.

According to experts, about 20,000 gray whales migrate from Baja California, Mexico to the arctic summer foraging areas near Alaska.

In recent years, the migratory whales appear to be making extended stops in the Bay Area, said Kathi George, director of field operations at the mammal center.

“These whales are at increased risk from human activity,” she said. “That’s why we’re striving to better understand the ongoing challenges and threats these animals face so we can safely share the ocean and bay with them.”

Five dead gray whales were found in the Bay Area from March to May last year, while 13 were found in 2019.

Since 2019, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been investigating what it calls an unusual mortality event due to higher numbers of gray whale stranding in poor body condition across their migratory area, according to the Mammal Center.

The post three extra useless grey whales noticed in San Francisco Bay Space appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

SAN JOSE (CBS SF) – It’s been years since the Bay Area faced drought conditions. While some counties are trying to introduce water use restrictions, some communities are looking for creative ways to recycle water.

When Ashley Shannon does a load of laundry, her garden and fruit trees get super soaked.

CONTINUE READING: SF Designer transforms struggling family cleanings into an artistic hangout during the pandemic

“I like the fact that I use it once to wash my clothes and then a second time so I essentially make more life out of it,” she said.

Shannon is a Santa Clara Valley Water District employee who recently installed a gray water system in her washing machine. Outlet pipes that would normally take wash water into the sewers have been rerouted to lead outside and around their garden. Valves installed in the ground let the water seep out to irrigate your plants and trees.

It’s a simple but effective system. According to Shannon, there are many benefits including saving water and saving money over time while keeping her landscape getting the water it needs.

“I use soap that is biodegradable. I use no fragrance soap, not a lot of salts. The soap I use is gray water system grade and easy to find, ”said Shannon.

CONTINUE READING: Alameda Police released bodycam video of the fight that led to Mario Gonzalez’s death in custody

Their system only cost $ 750 to be installed by a contractor and did not require approval from the City of San Jose.

There are many home improvement plans and videos available online. Other systems that also plug into sinks and showers can cost up to $ 5,000 and require approval because they modify the home’s plumbing.

“It’s a matter of people choosing it because it just makes sense,” said Alan Hackler, a landscaping contractor who installed Shannon’s system.

According to Hackler, the return on investment is better when more people live under one roof.

“Some houses have multi-generation families, they have grandparents and children who live there. These are perfect scenarios because they generate tons of gray water,” Hackler said.

MORE NEWS: I-280 southbound will reopen in Daly City after the incident is resolved with police

Currently, the Santa Clara Valley Water District has incentives, including a $ 400 discount on laundry for scenic gray water systems.

The post As Communities See Water Points, Some Reuse Grey Water – CBS San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.