Friends of Gualala River Protecting the Gualala River watershed and the species living within it

Historically, the Gualala River was home to abundant coho salmon and steelhead trout populations that numbered in the tens of thousands. Today, the endangered coho salmon are all but gone and threatened steelhead are struggling to survive in the home river they evolved and adapted to over millennia. The dwindling salmonid population is a critical indicator of the declining health …

Excerpted from “The effects of timber harvest versus forest protection in JDSF [Jackson Demonstration State Forest]” by John O’Brien, PhD. Dr. O’Brien has a doctorate in climate and atmospheric science from U.C. Santa Cruz, and lives adjacent to JDSF, but his comments on logging and climate change are relevant to similar redwood forest lands on the northern California Coast. Executive …

Did you miss Jeanne Jackson’s Mendonoma Sightings Conservation Conversation hosted by the Mendocino Land Trust on April 29th? If so, you’re in luck. Here is this wonderful presentation full of gorgeous photos of the wildlife and native plants along the Mendonoma coast:

Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) is pleased to publish a new issue of our monthly publication, “FoGR Monthly,” detailing different places along the Gualala River to visit.  This month’s feature is the Gualala Bluff Trail. Each month will have a participation feature like a contest or list an upcoming event. It will feature different types of outdoor activities and where …

Redwood Coast Land Conservancy and Friends of Gualala River invite you to participate in the 2021 Gualala City Nature Challenge on Saturday May 1, 2021 from 10 am to noon. Visit Cooks Beach, Hearn Gulch, the Gualala Bluff Trail. Take a few photos of special natural features & enter them into the iNaturalist app. Between 10 am & noon on …

Compiled by Alan Levine   California Forest Management Practices And The Conservation Of Anadromous Salmonids https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=30710 by Stephen Swales Ph.D., Fisheries Branch, Wildlife and Fisheries Division, California Department of Fish and Game, November, 2010 In California and the Pacific Northwest, widespread declines in the abundance of anadromous salmonids over the last several decades have been attributed largely to the loss …

Video: Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) celebrated Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, 2021, with a free webinar on salmonids presented by Dr. Jacob Katz, senior scientist with California Trout. California Trout is a non-profit dedicated to protecting and restoring the state’s 32 species of salmonid fish. Dr. Katz directs the organization’s Central California region where his work focuses on redesigning …

Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 7pm via Zoom* *See instructions below on how to participate via Zoom   Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) will celebrate Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, 2021, with a free webinar on salmonids presented by Dr. Jacob Katz, senior scientist with California Trout. California Trout is a non-profit dedicated to protecting and restoring the state’s 32 …

The Case for Establishing an Independent Forest and Resource Management Agency to Secure Healthy Forests in California Excerpted from: Richard A. Wilson and Sharon E. Duggan, WHY IT IS TIME FOR A “CALFIRE DIVORCE”: THE CASE FOR ESTABLISHING AN INDEPENDENT FOREST AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AGENCY TO SECURE HEALTHY FORESTS IN CALIFORNIA, 12 Golden Gate U. Envtl. L.J. 1 (2020). https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/gguelj/vol12/iss1/2 …

There is no more bittersweet moment than when Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) pauses to remember and thank those who gave a portion of their lives over to the river. Such a friend to the river was Jim Biller.   Jim passed away in December, 2020, after a valiant battle with lung cancer. Together with his wife, Susan-Marie Hagen, from …

Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) is pleased to publish a new issue of our monthly publication, “FoGR Monthly,” detailing different places along the Gualala River to visit.  This month’s feature is Gualala Point Regional Park. Each month will have a participation feature like a contest or list an upcoming event. It will feature different types of outdoor activities and where …

Photo Contest Winner: March, 2021 — Female Merganser, by Chris Beach

by Mary Callahan, The Press Democrat, March 28, 2021 [excerpt:] A legal battle over plans to log in the lower Gualala River flood plain is heading into a fifth year, despite a recent victory in state appeals court by Gualala Redwood Timber and Cal Fire which first approved the project back in 2016. The fight over the 342-acre timber project …

PRESS RELEASE Contact Information: Friends of Gualala River Charles Ivor, President (707) 337-0147 cfifish@mac.com or info@gualalariver.org For Immediate Release, March 22, 2021 Endangered Species Act Lawsuit Advances The Endangered Species Act [ESA] lawsuit filed by Friends of Gualala River [FoGR] and the Center for Biological Diversity [CBD] against Gualala Redwoods Timber [GRT] was given approval to move forward last Thursday. …

by John Dunlap, member of the Guerneville Forest Coalition This op-ed was published in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat on March 7, 2021 Reprinted with permission of the author A plan to log 224 acres of redwood and Douglas fir trees along the Russian River in Guerneville is just one of several timber harvests proposed or scheduled to take place …

FoGR is excited to tell you about a new monthly publication, “FoGR Monthly,” that will detail different places along the Gualala River to visit. Each month will have a participation feature like a contest or list an upcoming event. It will feature different types of outdoor activities and where you can do them. Click on the image below to download …

Save the Redwoods League press release Feb. 9, 2021 [excerpt:] Save the Redwoods League today announced the successful protection of Mailliard Ranch, a 14,838-acre property in southern Mendocino County and the largest coast redwood forest left in private family hands. The $24.7 million project secures three conservation easements across the entire property, which safeguard the land from subdivision and development, …

Drone video of ocean waves, estuary and river mouth opening after atmospheric river dropped several inches of rain on the Gualala River watershed. Video created by Mike Nelson; used with permission.

  The mouth of the Gualala River opened to the ocean on Sunday, Dec. 27, 2020 at ~11:30am, reconnecting the important lagoon fish rearing habitat for out-migrating salmonids, synchronized with suitable stream conditions for returning spawners. This is a high tide, high swell, low-energy breach condition in the photos. When the lagoon is full and it breaches on a low …

When we think of timber road runoff threats, we habitually think of fine sediment, indirectly affecting coho (and steelhead) by habitat degradation. But this is direct acute mortality by rubber tire chemicals. A new wrinkle on wheeled vehicles operating on rough, abrasive gravel haul roads. – FoGR by Erik Stokstad Science  04 Dec 2020: Vol. 370, Issue 6521, pp. 1145 …