Baby salmon sharks have been washing up on Central Coast shores in the past month, reports the Santa Cruz Sentinel. This sounds like the shark we featured on our Coastsider a couple of days ago.

A dead salmon shark was found this week on the beach in Half Moon Bay. Researchers say they’ve seen more dead salmon sharks wash ashore this year than in the recent past. And it’s not the first time, although it’s the greatest numbers in recent memory, researchers say.

Every summer for the past decade, dead baby salmon sharks have inexplicably beached themselves, an uncommon occurrence because sharks tend to sink to the bottom of the ocean when they die.

Necropsies conducted at Stanford University and Long Marine Lab at UC Santa Cruz have shown that most of the salmon sharks had bacteria-induced brain infections at the time of their deaths, but shark experts still don’t know the source of the bacteria.

Sean Van Sommeran, executive director of the Santa Cruz-based Pelagic Shark Research Foundation,  asked that if you catch a salmon shark, call him at 600-5214 or 459-9346.

The Coastside Land Trust, San Mateo County chapter of Surfrider Foundation and LIVE 105 Action Team will lead a community beach clean up on Poplar Beach this Saturday, August 11, 2007, 10 am to 12 noon.  All ages are invited to play an important role in keeping our sandy shores, coastline and ocean clean and free from debris.  Autographed copies of the new "Garbage Greatest Hits" music CD will be given away to participants who collect the most debris.  cleanup supplies are provided.  Volunteers are encouraged to wear closed-toe shoes, layered clothing and sunscreen and bring their own work gloves.

Poplar Beach is at the end of Poplar Avenue in Half Moon Bay, California. From Highway 1, turn west on Poplar Avenue (south of Highway 92). Clean up coordinators will meet volunteers in the Poplar Beach parking lot. email [email protected], or call Steve at (650) 291-9428 www.surfriderSMC.org

The county Resource Conservation District has begun to search for the cause of high bacteria counts at Capistrano beach, reports Julia Scott in the County Times. The beach is known to be among the ten most polluted beaches in California in dry weather.

Some say it’s the seagulls, which roost and feed on the beaches and surrounding rivers that flow into the harbor. Others blame leaky sewer lines or urban runoff. Still others point a finger at the "live-aboard" vessels anchored in the outer harbor, which have no septic systems and dispose of their waste in onshore tanks.

The county will be in a position to answer those questions for the first time this month, since the State Water Resources Control Board recently approved a possible $845,000 research grant for a project proposed by the San Mateo County Resource Conservation District.

The district must still negotiate a contract, pending approval by its board of directors. But by August or September, environmental officials will be able to begin the three-year process of understanding why Capistrano Beach contains more E. coli and other fecal coliforms than they can even test for — and where they are coming from

For at least the last seven months, a strong chemical odor has been turning up on the west side of the 700 block on Main Street.

This odor has been noticed over the sidewalk manhole cover in front of the Classic Reflections Hair Salon at 736 Main, but that cover, according to City workers, is for untility access and has nothing to do with the sewer or the storm drain. The ether/acetone-like odor has been evident almost every day since last December and was recently corroborated by one of the nearby bank employees. The chemical-like odor at this location, while not incapacitating, is at times very strong and is "always" immediately downwind of the manhole cover.

The odor has also been noticed around the manhole covers in the street on Correas immediately south of the Bank of America, but at much weaker levels than at 736 Main and on only two occasions.

However, the really disturbing part of this story is that the same odor is also apparent west of this Main street location ....... all the way out on the Coastal Trail at the theoretical extension of Central Ave. To add to the mystery, the Coastal Trail location lines up almost perfectly with Central Ave., the northern part of the Amesport loop (which is really quite straight) and the location at Main St., and yet city workers and others swear there is no connection whatsoever between Main Street and the Coastal Trail. At its worst the odor at the Coastal Trail was coming from the gully dead opposite Central Ave. Now, as the ground has dried out some, the odor seems to have migrated roughly 50 feet north to an area near the memorial bench dedicated to Edward Ferrin.

The San Mateo Environmental Health people have been contacted, as have been the Bay Area Air Quality folks, and so far none of them have been able to notice this noxious odor that has been around for seven months now.

If you have noticed this odor or have any comments, please post.

On Friday afternoon, July 27, one of the Rockaway kestrel chicks got loose from the nest and got stuck in an underground garage, unable to fly. While Tim Brand snapped pictures and his son Evan (above) kept the grounded kestrel chick company, Peninsula Humane Society animal control officer Sarah Henry arrived and quickly scooped up the stranded bird. 

She called the humane society’s wildlife expert and they decided to release the chick right across the parking lot in the quarry area. So there are two chicks left in the nest and they’ll probably be flying away in the next few days. Evan and Tim will make regular rounds and say that if any of the other chicks fall into the garage, they will just scoop them up and escort them to the field as they did with the first one today.

"We’ll make refueling stops at Rock’n Robs, I’m sure," says Tim. "I’m disappointed that the fire department wouldn’t come help. Oh well. At least we did the right thing. While we were waiting for animal control, one of the parents swooped in and gave the two still in the nest a mouse."

Used with permission of Pacifica Riptide.