The early part of LaBarbera’s Sunday shift is peacefully spent capturing, banding and releasing birds in what they call a “little oasis of trees.” But around 9:00 am every week, their team of volunteers hears a cacophony of car horns from I-880, less than half a mile to the east.

“You become really aware of the noise when you get away from it for a little bit,” said LaBarbera, a science director at the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory.

The Bay Area is a permanent or temporary home for 250 different species of resident and migratory birds. Noise can affect their stress response, interfere with their ability to listen for predators and prey, and alter their vocalizations. But for conservationists striving to preserve the region’s threatened bird populations, disturbance from traffic, airplane and other noise is an unavoidable backdrop—and one that, until recently, has been little studied.

“I realized we knew hardly anything about how birds respond to noise pollution,” he says.

Scientists’ understanding of the impact of urban noise on birds advanced during the COVID-19 pandemic, however. When the Bay Area shut down in March 2020, researchers like Jennifer Phillips — then working with Francis through a National Science Foundation Fellowship — had been studying the songs of white-crowned sparrows in San Francisco and Richmond. They were able to record how the songs changed when the noise subsided. In a paper published in Science magazine, they reported that male sparrows sang more quietly and used lower frequencies when not having to compete with traffic noise.

But the pandemic’s muting of urban noise is long gone. And while the wetland birds of the South Bay don’t sing, they have to compete with urban sounds when they use vocalizations to communicate with each other and ward off predators.

The South Bay’s Salt Pond Restoration Project — the largest tidal restoration effort on the West Coast — provides habitat to the threatened Ridgway’s rail, an elusive species of bird that spends most of its time hiding in the tidal marsh where it nests. The project area also hosts about 10 percent of the population of endangered western snowy plovers. These tiny shorebirds now depend on the salt ponds and tidal flats — as well as on their normal habitat of sandy beaches — for nesting and foraging.

But the salt ponds are located directly under flight paths from Oakland Airport and Moffett Federal Airfield. Nearby highways and Union Pacific railroad tracks mean birds in the project area are constantly impacted by noise from planes, trains and automobiles.

Chronic noise “shrinks an animal’s perpetual word,” Francis said. When noise increases, the distance over which birds can hear sounds reduces.

While the effect of noise on rail species has not been studied directly, they vocalize at fairly low frequencies, which transportation noise tends to drown out.

Plovers, on the other hand, may be more sensitive to sudden noises. A large truck zooming by an otherwise quiet area, a barking dog or a cellphone ringing can create the illusion of a threat, causing birds to react.

“Episodic or intermittent noise is, I think, a bigger deal for wildlife than something steady or constant like highway noise or a data center or whatever else,” said Dave Halsing, project manager of the Salt Pond Restoration Project.

Francis recalls baby plovers on the Oceano Dunes near Pismo Beach on the Central Coast spending their nights darting away from their habitats, disturbed by off-road vehicles. The inexperienced chicks interpret the noise as an immediate threat and expend energy trying to evade it.

Still, Bay Area ornithologists and bird lovers are preoccupied with addressing more immediate threats of habitat destruction from further development, which means noise pollution is a lower priority.

“In conservation, we’re usually worried about the absolute emergency situation,” LaBarbera said.

Urban noise isn’t going away, but small changes can make a difference. Francis points to the growing number of cities enacting leaf blower regulations, which while they are often aimed at curbing emissions also help to reduce noise pollution. Switching to electric vehicles, choosing tire materials that generate less road noise, and adopting quieter jet engines can all help.

Managers of the Salt Pond Restoration Project are doing their part, taking steps to reduce noise in their own construction work when making trails or fortifying levees to reduce flood risk. They try to use less intrusive construction equipment, such as vibratory pile drivers. Halsing said the project is also required to implement buffer zones of several hundred feet between their construction work and certain species, including rails.

It’s a time-honored practice in conservation: Working for wildlife, while keeping one’s distance.

The holiday season will soon come to a close, but the busiest time of the year for product returns is just beginning.

The National Retail Federation estimates 17% of holiday purchases will be sent back this year. More retailers are reporting extended return windows and increased holiday staff to handle the rush this year.

A major driver for returns is uncertainty. When we buy for other people, finding what they want is a bit of a guessing game. Online purchases have higher return rates because finding the right size and color is tough when you’re just staring at images on screens.

“Clothing and footwear, as you can imagine, because fit is such an important criteria, they have higher rates of returns,” said Saskia van Gendt, chief sustainability officer at Blue Yonder, which sells software designed to improve companies’ supply chain management.

Returns come with an environmental cost, but there’s a lot consumers and companies are doing to minimize it.

The impact of returns

If a company sells a thing, it’s probably packaged in plastic. Plastic is made from oil, and oil production releases emissions that warm the planet. If that thing is bought online, it’s put on a plane or a train or a truck that usually uses oil-based fuel.

If you buy a thing and return it, it goes through most or all of that all over again.

And once those products are back with the retailer, they may be sent along to a refurbisher, liquidator, recycler or landfill. All these steps require more travel, packaging and energy, ultimately translating to more emissions. Joseph Sarkis, who teaches supply chain management at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, estimates that returning an item increases its impact on the planet by 25% to 30%.

Roughly a third of the time, those returns don’t make their way to another consumer. Because frequently, it’s not worth reselling.

If, for example, you get a phone, but you send it back because you don’t like the color, the seller has to pay for the fuel and equipment to get the phone back, and then has to pay for the labor to assess whether it has been damaged since leaving the facility.

“It can be quite expensive,” said Sarkis. “And if you send it out to a new customer and the phone is bad, imagine the reputational hit you’ll get. You’ll get another return and you’ll lose a customer who’s unhappy with the product or material. So the companies are hesitant to take that chance.”

Something as expensive as a phone might get sold to a secondary or refurbishment market. But that $6 silicone spatula you got off Amazon? Probably not worth it. Plus, some stuff — think a bathing suit or a bra — is less attractive to customers if there’s a chance it’s been resold. The companies know that.

And that’s where the costs of returns are more than just environmental — and consumers wind up paying. Even free returns aren’t really free.

“Refurbishment, inspection, repackaging, all of these things get factored into the retail price,” said Christopher Faires, assistant professor of logistics and supply chain management at Georgia Southern University.

What consumers can do about it

If you want to reduce the impact of your returns, the first move is to increase their chances of resale. Be careful not to damage it, and reuse the packaging to send it back, said Cardiff University logistics and operations management lecturer Danni Zhang.

If you have to return something, do it quickly. That ugly Christmas sweater you got at the white elephant office party has a much better chance of selling on Dec. 20 than it does on Jan. 5. Zhang said it’s not worth the cost to the company to store that sweater once it’s gone out of season.

Another tip: in-person shopping is better than online because purchases get returned less often, and in-person returns are better, too — because those items get resold more often. Zhang said it reduces landfill waste. Sarkis said it reduces emissions because companies with brick-and-mortar locations spread out across the country and closer to consumers thus move restocked goods shorter distances.

“If I can return in-store, then I definitely will,” Zhang said. “The managers can put that stuff back to the market as soon as possible.”

Obviously the best thing consumers can do is minimize returns. Many shoppers engage in “bracketing behavior,” or buying multiple sizes of the same item, keeping what fits, and returning the rest.

“This behavior of bringing the dressing room to our homes is not sustainable,” said Faires.

If you’re buying for someone else, you can also consider taking the guesswork out of the equation and going for a gift card.

“I know we do really want to pick up something really nice to express our love for our friends or our family. But if we are more sustainable, probably the gift card will be much better than just purchasing the product,” Zhang said.

What businesses can do about it

Sarkis wants to see companies provide more information in product descriptions about the environmental impact of returning an item, or how much of the purchase price factors in return costs.

“But I don’t know if they want to send a negative message,” he said. “If you’re telling someone to stop something because of negative results, that’s not going to sell.”

Sarkis and Zhang both say charging for returns would help. Already Amazon is requiring customers pay in certain situations.

On the tech side, Blue Yonder’s recent acquisition of Optoro, a company that provides a return management system for retailers and brands, uses a software to quickly assess the condition of returned products and route them to stores that are most likely to resell them.

“Having that process be more digitized, you can quickly assess the condition and put it back into inventory,” said van Gendt. “So that’s a big way to just avoid landfill and also all of the carbon emissions that are associated with that.”

Clothing is returned most often. Many sizes do not reflect specific measurements, like women’s dresses, so they vary a lot between brands. Zhang said better sizing could help reduce the need for returns. On top of that, Sarkis said more 3D imaging and virtual reality programs could help customers be more accurate with their purchases, saving some returns.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The 23-year-old served 14 days for her Oct. 29 felony conspiracy conviction stemming from incursions in 2023 at Petaluma Poultry. Although sentenced to 90 days, Rosenberg was released early as part of California’s half-credit for good behavior.

She will serve the remaining 60 days of her sentence on strict house arrest beginning Jan. 14.

“The court hoped jail would teach me a lesson,”  Rosenberg said in a statement emailed to The Press Democrat. “It has, but perhaps not the one intended. Two weeks spent in solitary confinement have given me a glimpse into how it must feel to be an animal trapped in a cage.”

Rosenberg’s case was the most high-profile prosecution to stem from a series of demonstrations and farm breaches over several years targeting Petaluma-area poultry plants and farms for what DxE alleges is inhumane conditions at the company’s farms and processing facilities.

Members of the group also supported an attempt at the ballot box to outlaw Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, in Sonoma County, which voters overwhelmingly rejected during the 2024 election.

Farm operators have staunchly rejected activists’ claims and had pressured the District Attorney’s Office to prosecute Rosenberg and other involved Direct Action Everywhere members.

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office did not comment on her release but said, “…If you choose to come into our county and commit a crime, we will investigate it and arrest those involved.”

Despite the recent legal setbacks, the group has remained undeterred and said Sonoma County will continue to be a frontier of their protest efforts.

“I am more determined than ever before to see a world where every animal is safe and free,” Rosenberg said in the statement.

When the board was fixed, he loaded the plastic into the blue recycling bin outside of his house, but the next morning the bin had not been emptied. The city recycling plant wouldn’t accept the material because it was a non-recyclable kind of plastic.

“I started talking to my buddies and we realized this was an industry-wide problem. There’s so much waste generated from building surfboards,” said Guerrero, who is now CEO at Swellcycle, a Santa Cruz company that creates 3D printed surfboards from renewable materials.

Guerrero has always been interested in building environmentally friendly products. In high school, he converted a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle into an electric vehicle. Later he gained a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in design and manufacturing. Guerrero 3D-printed his first prototype board less than a year after his surfboard broke, marking the beginning of what would become Swellcycle, which aims to turn the tides on surfing’s harmful impact on the planet.

Traditionally, surfboards begin their lives as a large rectangular block of rigid polyurethane foam — a type of plastic made from fossil fuels that can’t be easily recycled. The blocks are carved away to form the desired surfboard shape, generating a large amount of waste.

Oil-based plastics like polyurethane are terrible for the environment. In fact, the carbon emissions from manufacturing a typical six-foot surfboard are equivalent to one person flying 1,005 miles on a long-haul flight, according to a 2022 report from Wavechanger, an Australian organization dedicated to reducing the harmful environmental impacts of surfing.

Some newer foam materials that use fewer fossil fuels have gained popularity, but these alternatives break down easily into tiny pieces of plastic that can harm ocean wildlife.

“Imagine the contents of a beanbag,” said Tom Wilson, founder of Wavechanger. “If you break a surfboard in half and rub it just slightly, the beads fall off.”

Those beads can be swallowed by seabirds and other marine animals, leading to internal injuries, intestinal blockages, and even death.

“You see photos of birds that have their stomachs opened after they pass away, and they’re full of plastic,” Wilson said.

Instead of nonrenewable materials, Swellcycle boards are built from polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable plastic made from fermented corn starch and sugarcane. In addition to being eco-friendly, surfboards made from PLA are stronger and lighter than typical foam boards.

To combat the waste created by the typical carving process, Swellcycle uses specialized 3D printers to print their boards with the minimum amount of PLA. The company builds its own printers — giant rectangular boxes standing taller than their operators — to methodically print the boards layer by layer.

The cores of the boards are printed using a lattice pattern, strengthening the board while keeping it light enough to maneuver easily. Once the day-long printing process is finished, the only excess material created is the support that props up the board, which the company recycles into new products.

Traditional surfboards are simply thrown away once their time is done, but with Swellcycle boards, the PLA is ground into pellets which can be used to make new products.

Every part of a Swellcycle board can be recycled, apart from the resin used to coat the boards and make them durable. When heated, resin burns instead of melting, so the Swellcycle team is now working on methods to convert excess resin into fins, which jut out on surfboards to help with steering and control.

“We used to see trash as just a problem, but trash is so precious. We can make so many things if we are creative,” said Lili Van Hassel, sustainability and operations lead at Swellcycle.

Swellcycle’s zero-waste approach combats what’s known as the “surfer’s paradox,” in which surfers, who are often avid environmentalists, actively participate in practices that harm the natural world.

“Before Swellcycle, there was a disconnect between surfers that love the ocean and want to protect it from pollution and climate change, but the equipment that they were riding was directly contributing to the very thing they’re trying to prevent,” Guerrero said.

The true test for a surfboard is how it performs on the waves, however. At one of the company’s “demo days” in October, where local surfers tested out the boards for the first time in Santa Cruz, they held their own.

“It was very cool. I like that it was stiff, had a lot of drive, and went fast,” said Jason Glickman, a Santa Cruz resident who has been surfing for more than 30 years.

Ricardo Urbinas, another local surfer, urged the surfing community to take a more active part in protecting the oceans that they love.

“We really have to be good stewards of the ocean,” Urbinas said. “As much as we like to surf, I think we all understand some of the impact that building surfboards has.”

Swellcycle’s boards were recently named “Earth & Sea Invention of the Year” by the Seymour Marine Discovery Center at UC Santa Cruz. Guerrero hopes that other sports manufacturing companies beyond surfing see Swellcycle’s success as a blueprint of how to reduce the environmental impact of equipment production.

“Our wish is that people are excited about this as we are and we can do this all over the world,” Guerrero said.

While smoke hung in the air in Los Angeles, some politicians and political commentators were already stridently proclaiming that these fires prove we need more intensive forest management to stop such blazes and protect communities. People were mourning, and confused, and much was still unknown about the circumstances of the fires. Many, in shock, were looking for easy answers. Congress responded by passing the “Fix Our Forests Act” (H.R. 471) through the House on Jan. 23 while the fires still burned.

After the smoke cleared, and people had an opportunity to take a closer look at the facts surrounding the fires, and a closer look at the legislation, a very different picture emerged. Neither of the Los Angeles fires was a forest fire. The fires burned through grass and shrubs, not forests. The homes were not destroyed by walls of flames but, rather, by firebrands, blown for miles by fierce winds, showering down by the millions like an ember rain.

Many soon realized that the Fix Our Forests Act contained no provisions to help communities become fire-safe through proven, highly effective measures like home hardening, defensible space pruning and evacuation planning and assistance. Instead, it quickly became clear that the act was simply a logging bill that would override bedrock environmental laws to facilitate taxpayer-subsidized timber sales on remote, backcountry public lands under deceptive euphemisms like “thinning” and “fuels reduction.” The bill contains no limits on the percentage, size or age of trees that would be cut down, killed and hauled off of public lands by logging corporations.

Perhaps it was understandable why many members of both political parties voted to pass the Fix Our Forests Act through the House back in January. When so little was known or well-understood. When the fires still burned and the pain of loss, and the fear, were so fresh. Perhaps. But not now.

Heedless of the facts and impervious to evidence, however, the full Senate may vote on a similar version of the Fix Our Forests Act (S. 1462) early next year. Logging industry contributors to congressional reelection campaigns would benefit; everyone else would lose. In fact, if the Senate passes the Fix Our Forests Act, it would increase the threat of wildfires to communities, putting homes and lives in greater danger.

Abundant research finds that removing trees changes the microclimate of forests, reducing the cooling shade of the forest canopy and increasing sun exposure, which can intensify fires. Faster wildfire speed is most strongly associated with large losses of homes and lives. Removing trees reduces a forest’s natural windbreak, increasing windspeeds and causing fires to spread more rapidly. This means fires would reach communities much faster, giving people less time to safely evacuate, and giving first responders less time to arrive and help.

As over 200 ecologists and climate scientists recently warned Congress, “We have watched as one large wildfire after another has swept through tens of thousands of acres where commercial thinning had previously occurred … .” Will Congress listen?

Chad Hanson, based in the Sierra Nevada, is a wildfire scientist with the John Muir Project and the author of the book “Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate”.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins filed a notice Friday to intervene in the utility’s bid to decommission its waterworks in the rural area. The structures include a century-old power plant that helps divert Eel River water into irrigation canals that support Potter Valley in Mendocino County and dump into the upper Russian River. The water recipients include customers in Marin County.

PG&E’s application to decommission the so-called Potter Valley Project is being considered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, which oversees licensing of the nation’s hydroelectric facilities.

“For generations, farmers here have put this water to good, productive use,” Rollins said in an announcement. “But under California’s radical leadership, the needs of hardworking families are being ignored while the needs of fish are treated as more important. That’s simply wrong.”

Rollins also filed comments urging FERC to reject PG&E’s application to surrender its license for the Potter Valley Project “unless significant deficiencies are addressed.”

PG&E is no longer interested in operating the system, which includes Scott Dam, at the base of Lake Pillsbury, and the smaller Cape Horn Dam, 12 miles downstream on the Eel, as well the nonoperational, 117-year-old powerhouse that used to generate electricity with a diverted share of the river’s flow.

Some agricultural interests and their allies have been pressing the Trump administration, almost since the day of its takeover early this year, to step in.

With her request to FERC, Rollins joined a crowded field of commenters. The commission has received more than 1,900 comments, letters and notices on the Potter Valley Project since Oct. 21, according to public data in the commission’s electronic library. More than 120 comments were posted on Friday alone.

Those messages are a mix of laudatory and critical, coming from a wide range of North Coast residents, farm interests, boaters, environmental stewards and anglers hoping to revive the area’s fisheries. And they expose some of the strange allegiances engendered by the controversial project, which would advance the nation’s next large dam removal project on California’s third longest river, historically a key waterway for once thriving runs of salmon and steelhead trout.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Butte County Republican, and Rep. Mike Thompson, a St. Helena Democrat, both filed comments questioning the project. LaMalfa urged FERC to reject PG&E’s application outright. Thompson asked for more analysis and more enforceable commitments from the public utility. Thompson represents Lake County, a staunch opponent of the decommissioning and dam removal plan. It would drain Lake Pillsbury, a seasonal destination within the rugged Mendocino National Forest and homebase for about 450 residents.

“I remain deeply concerned by the lack of detail, analysis, and specificity in PG&E’s surrender application, particularly with respect to the substantial impacts on water supply reliability, environmental restoration, wildfire resilience, and the economic well-being of affected communities,” Thompson wrote Friday to FERC chair Laura Swett.

It marked a rare moment of congruence between Thompson, one of the Bay Area’s more seasoned House Democrats, and an administration he is more apt to criticize.

On the other side of the issue is a dependable Thompson ally: Rep. Jared Huffman, the San Rafael Democrat who has been heavily involved in talks to orchestrate a solution to post-dam plumbing, water rights and fisheries restoration involving a host of counties, water managers, tribes, fisheries groups and farming interests.

Huffman, the ranking member for his party on the House Natural Resources Committee, could not be reached Friday for comment.

Earlier this year, the coalition he helped spearhead announced a long-term pact to govern water management in the two river basins, the Eel and the Russian, which are linked by a tunnel carved through a mountain saddle, allowing flows from the Eel to boost those in the drier Russian, a key irrigation supply for farms and vineyards and the main source of drinking water for 700,000 residents stretching from Mendocino County through Sonoma to Marin.

The deal has been a legal and political target ever since, with foes, especially farm interests, highly skeptical of terms that would limit diversions to periods when minimum flows are exceeded, raising uncomfortable questions for irrigators — and especially those in Potter Valley, which has relied on the diversions for decades as a lifeblood for the farms of its 1,200 residents.

Some there have accepted the decommissioning as inevitable, seeing no other parties — not the state or federal governments, nor any local water managers or companies — willing to take on PG&E’s waterworks, and their liability, to sustain the status quo.

Many others are determined to fight and their voices have a ready audience in the Trump administration, which has turned a critical eye on water policy and projects it sees as disadvantaging farmers.

As noted in the Department of Agriculture announcement, Rollins and seven other Trump agency heads received a letter of opposition written in late September and signed by 950 people.

“PG&E’s decommissioning plan is inadequate, non-compliant with federal law, and dismissive of community and environmental consequences,” that letter concluded. “We urge the Commission and cooperating agencies to reject the plan in its current form and facilitate a transparent, science-driven process that includes robust stakeholder consultation.”

Most of the signatories were ranchers, farmers and business owners in Mendocino County, Lake County and northern Sonoma County. It also included public officials such as Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall, Lake County supervisors Eddie Crandell and Helen Owen, Petaluma City Council members Karen Nau and Alex DeCarli, Cloverdale Mayor Brian Wheeler and Vice Mayor Todd Lands, and a number of high-ranking fire officials — a sign of the angst around potentially losing a source for scooping and dropping water during the region’s rampant wildfires.

In a statement late Friday afternoon, PG&E said the utility worked for years to find a new owner for the dam-and-diversion system, “but ultimately no third party stepped forward to execute a transaction. PG&E made the difficult decision to stop our relicensing effort of the project, as it was not economical for our customers to continue operating the project. No entity applied to take over the relicensing of the Potter Valley Project during FERC’s window period.”

The utility emphasized that the surrender process is lengthy, and that stakeholders, including the Forest Service, Cal Fire, tribal communities, farm bureaus and elected officials, will have plenty of opportunity to engage in the process.

“Regarding the USDA intervention,” the statement read, “we wanted to note that PG&E expects to see intervenors in the surrender process. The USDA is often one of the intervenors in projects that affect or are on (U.S. Forest Service) properties.”

The Department of Agriculture includes the Forest Service, manager of the sprawling Mendocino National Forest at the Eel River headwaters.

Rollins’ notice of intervention did not come out of the blue. She had written a letter to the editor of the Mendocino Voice on Dec. 12, using even more incendiary language to describe the decommissioning plan.

“The heavy hand of California’s state government has gone unchecked for decades,” Rollins began in the letter. “The results? Burned-out cities and landscapes. Manmade water crises. A widening socioeconomic divide. It breaks my heart that our nation’s largest food-producing state has chosen special interests and political ambition over its farmers, ranchers and rural communities time and time again.”

At least one key stakeholder in the future of the project took the Department of Agriculture’s intervention in stride.

“What’s happened so far hasn’t changed anything about how ERPA plans to continue,” said Stuart Tiffen, spokesperson for Sonoma Water, referring to the Eel-Russian Project Authority. “There’s a lot of compliance work that needs to happen, and design work on the new facility. That’s what we’re focused on.”

The Eel-Russian Project Authority is a joint powers entity comprising the County of Sonoma, Sonoma Water — the region’s dominant drinking water supplier — and the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission. The Round Valley Indian Tribes, who are set to reclaim historic water rights to the Eel under the pact announced earlier this year, have a seat on the five-member board.

The authority will have the legal capacity to own, construct and operate a new $50 million diversion facility that would take the place of the current one, made obsolete if and when Cape Horn Dam and the larger Scott Dam come down, making the Eel the longest free flowing river in the state.

The Eel diversions into the Russian River would continue in some form for at least another 30 years after PG&E’s exit under the regional pact. Beyond that, there is potential for a 20-year extension.

Rollins’ notice refers to a number of USDA programs she claims would be negatively impacted by the dams’ decommissioning, including the National Forest system, the Risk Management Agency, the Farm Service Agency, Rural Development and the Natural Resources and Conservation Service.

It’s something different – something unfinished, but a new canvas for towns eager to get back to something normal.

RELATED:  An aerial comparison of Eaton fire aftermath nearly 1 year later

No doubt it’s been slow — starts and stops, triumphs and disappointments in the recovery of the landscapes in the fire-torched zones in and around the Palisades and Altadena. Reminders of what ignited on Jan. 7 remain.

But now that burned-out parcels have been cleared, and pockets of re-building have begun, it’s often through the lenses of photojournalists that you can see the contrasts between then and now – between a January of darkness and a subsequent December of hope.

It will be a long road, as residents, leaders and public officials, have noted. Thousands have yet to even apply for building permits. And there’s much concern about preserving the character of beloved communities.

But frame by frame, day by day, the “then and now” picture has emerged one year later. It’s an unfinished picture, but one that will keep us coming back for years, to witness a visual evolution from those terrible days in January 2025.

— SCNG Photo Editor Dean Musgrove, with photos by Jeff Gritchenhttps://youtu.be/PbT4XSt0UAo

It’s something different – something unfinished, but a new canvas for towns eager to get back to something normal.

RELATED: An aerial comparison of Palisades fire aftermath nearly 1 year later

No doubt it’s been slow — starts and stops, triumphs and disappointments in the recovery of the landscapes in the fire-torched zones in and around the Palisades and Altadena. Reminders of what ignited on Jan. 7 remain.

But now that burned-out parcels have been cleared, and pockets of re-building have begun, it’s often through the lenses of photojournalists that you can see the contrasts between then and now – between a January of darkness and a subsequent December of hope.

It will be a long road, as residents, leaders and public officials, have noted. Thousands have yet to even apply for building permits. And there’s much concern about preserving the character of beloved communities.

But frame by frame, day by day, the “then and now” picture has emerged one year later of Palisades and Eaton fire footprints. It’s an unfinished picture, but one that will keep us coming back for years, to witness a visual evolution from those terrible days in January 2025.

— SCNG Photo Editor Dean Musgrove, with photos by Jeff Gritchenhttps://youtu.be/f7gI3SkQcwE

Fox, the 55-year-old co-founder of recreational swim group Kelp Krawlers, was far ahead of more than a dozen swimmers returning to Lovers Point beach in Pacific Grove early Sunday afternoon, but never came ashore.

Marine biologist Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach, said the rocky coastline near Lovers Point attracts sea lions, and seals also frequent the waters offshore. Both are primary prey for white sharks.

Large white sharks, which can reach nearly 21 feet in length, migrate from offshore in the Pacific to the coast in October to bulk up on seals and sea lions, typically remaining through January.

“They will hunt and they will patrol off these areas where these animals congregate,” Lowe said.

At around 12:15 p.m. Sunday, a driver at a stop sign on his way to work called 911 to report seeing a shark burst out of the water about 100 yards off Lovers Point with what he believed to be a human protruding from its mouth, U.S. Coast Guard petty officer Charlie Valor said Tuesday. The man said the shark re-entered the water and did not resurface, Valor added. Pacific Grove police Commander Brian Anderson said a second witness also reported seeing a shark breach the water in that area.

No remains have been recovered, nor has anyone reported finding any of the gear Fox was wearing while swimming, Anderson said.

A buoy near Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station at Cabrillo Point a little over a mile from Lovers Point collects pings from tagged white sharks passing by, and has recorded five swimming within about 500 yards in December, including the two in the past week. But marine biologist Barbara Block, whose lab oversees the tracking project, noted that Lovers Point is outside the range of that buoy. And tagged sharks represent only a fraction of the animals in the region, making it impossible to link a specific shark to the incident Sunday, Block said.

If Fox was taken by a white shark without leaving a trace, “that would need to be a big shark,” Lowe said.

Since 1950, sharks have killed 16 people in California, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. All were determined to be white sharks except in one case, in Point Reyes National Seashore in October 2023, where the species was not confirmed.

In the Monterey area, 13 people have been bitten by white sharks since 1950, resulting in two deaths, nine major injuries and two minor injuries. Most victims were divers or surfers; only two swimmers have been attacked.

Sunday’s disappearance marks the third shark-related incident at Lovers Point since June 2022, when another Kelp Krawler, Steve Bruemmer, was bitten and seriously injured while swimming. Two months later, a paddleboarder and his dog were thrown from their board but unhurt when a shark bit it from below.

Shark attacks generally appear to fall into three categories — predatory, accidental and defensive — though the reason behind any specific incident is often unclear, Lowe said. The rarity of attacks suggests white sharks do not view humans as prey.

“We’re clearly not on the menu,” Lowe said. “Otherwise people would be bitten and eaten all the time.”

Some incidents may occur when sharks mistake humans for prey, Lowe said.

Experts cautioned that the ocean remains a wilderness, with both risks and rewards.

“You can get hurt,” Lowe said, but “the more you know, the safer you can be.”

Lovers Point, a rocky promontory along scenic Ocean View Boulevard with two small crescents of beach beside it, was featured as one of the state’s top swimming spots in the 2024 book Places We Swim California. The book described Lovers Point as especially popular among swimmers in winter.

“Cheerful regulars, dressed in neoprene caps and gloves, brave the icy water for their daily dopamine release,” the book by Australians Caroline Clements and Dillon Seitchik-Reardon said.

Clement in an email Tuesday noted that she and Seitchik-Reardon live in Sydney.

“Like in California we understand swimming comes with risks and sharks are out there in the water,” Clements said. “It’s so rare that someone gets bitten but it is a reality. Lovers Point is a beautiful spot loved by many, which is why we included it, and I hope this doesn’t deter people from swimming there.”

People entering near-shore waters should be mindful of the times of year and locations where white sharks are more common, and should pay attention to the presence of prey animals such as elephant seals, harbor seals and sea lions, Lowe said.

Swimming close to others can reduce risk, he said. “Your probability of being bitten is lower if you’re in a group.”

Remaining in shallower water may also lower the chance of an encounter, as white sharks typically attack from below. Deep water “gives the animal the ability to investigate something from below,” Lowe said.

Authorities on Monday afternoon suspended the search for Fox after about 15 hours of air and water operations involving the U.S. Coast Guard, Pacific Grove police, Monterey County Sheriff’s Office divers and Monterey firefighters.

Now, their focus has changed. Atop the list now are developing southerly winds and a clash of cold air and warmer air, which could lead to thunderstorms — and a slight chance of tornadoes — that the weather service called “severe.”

“Essentially, rain is now third on the list of priorities,” NWS meteorologist Dylan Behringer said Tuesday. “There’s still gonna be a decent amount, but that’s not what we’re most concerned about.”

The hit the Bay Area is expected to take early Wednesday is spurred from the most powerful wave of an atmospheric river storm.

Behringer said the primary worry is the southerly winds, which are likely to begin blowing Tuesday night and last into Wednesday morning. Those winds are expected to take a break on Wednesday night, before building again on Thursday morning. The coastal areas of the Bay Area and the Central Coast are most at risk; Behringer said winds there could blow as high as 60 mph.

Thunderstorms are expected to be severe from Point Arena north of Santa Rosa to south of Big Sur and are likely to affect areas of Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, according to the weather service. In the advisory, they said there is a 2% chance that at least one tornado may develop.

The weather service issued a high wind warning Tuesday afternoon for the coastal areas of the region and a wind advisory for the interior areas that lasts until 4 p.m. Wednesday. Forecasters expect the winds to be powerful enough to snap power lines, bring down trees and result in property damage.

“When we get into Thursday morning, there will be more of a chance for really strong thunderstorms,” Behringer said. “That will bring lightning strikes, and high rain-rates. Lots of rain coming down really fast can cause flash floods. The good news is that the winds will make the storm move fast, so we don’t anticipate that hard rain coming down in one spot for very long.”

That said, the rain is supposed to pound the region heavily. At least an inch of rain — maybe as much as 1½ inches — is expected everywhere, while high-elevation areas along the North Bay coast could get between 2-3 inches from this wave.

A flood watch for the North Bay began Monday, while a similar warning went into effect for areas south of San Francisco — including San Jose, Santa Cruz and Monterey — early Tuesday. That flood watch for all areas lasts until Friday at 10 p.m.

The weather service also issued an warning for extremely dangerous marine conditions along coastal waters along the Northern California coast that runs through Friday morning. A beach hazards statement for all the beaches on the Pacific Coast was set to last from Tuesday afternoon until 4 a.m. Wednesday. Waves are expected to break at 20 feet high, visibility is expected to be low and people are advised to stay away.

In the Sierra Nevada, a winter storm warning was set to go into effect Tuesday night and last through 10 p.m. Friday. The Sierra and Southern Cascades above an elevation of 4,500 feet are expected to get at least 1 foot of snow, while 4 to 8 feet of snow are expected above 5,500 feet.

One foot of snow also is expected in Shasta County along the Coast Range above 3,500 feet. As much as 3 feet of snow could fall there in the elevations above 4,500 feet.

The weather service said near white-out conditions are expected while the snow falls and urged drivers not even to attempt to navigate the storm. Road conditions are expected to be miserable and chains or snowtires are likely to be required on any highway that remains open.

By Friday night, the wave of nasty weather is expected to have moved into Southern California, and a period of dry, cold time is expected to follow, Behringer said. The forecast is expected to be without rain from at least Saturday until the following Tuesday, and Behringer said forecasters “expect a decent period of drying out.”

“It’s gonna get chilly, too,” he said of the dry period. “The overnight lows will start to drop into the 30s.”