Elusive Lagoon Mouse

I'm Coyote Peterson, this is Cape Bimrose, and today we're going to be exploring the Bolinas Lagoon, a unique ecosystem that's part of the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. As the sun breaks through the morning clouds, we slowly cross the harbor and land on the shore of Kent Island. Welcome to the Bolinas Lagoon, an internationally recognized wetlands that is perfectly tucked into the hills of West Marin, California. This thousand acre tidal estuary is a protected refuge and home to a variety of animal species. Today I will be heading off trail with Lagoon Restoration Coordinator, Cate Bimrose. Her field of expertise is environmental management, and for the past five years, she has been working with the Greater Farallones Association, a non-profit whose goal is to protect the lagoon's native plant and animal species. My goal is to see what kind of animals inhabit this island, and we didn't have to travel far before we came across our first creature. What do we got? Oh, right there, look at that! Oh, you know what that is? That is a black widow. This is not a spider you want to get bitten by, that's for sure. It's a big female right there. Got her. Wow. Woo! That's about as close as you would ever want to get to a black widow spider. One of the most venomous spider species here in the United States. So you guys are out here all the time then, picking plants, flipping logs, and building piles of stuff. Know what you're also doing? Creating perfect habitat for the black widow. Absolutely, I didn't realize that. That is one of the biggest female black widows I think I've ever seen. Look at the size of her abdomen. I'm assuming you've never been bitten by one of these, right? I've never been bitten by one. I've never even seen one on the island, actually. So this is a first for me. So this is a new find. It is, yeah, absolutely. This spider has no interest in biting you. The only reason it would bite is to protect itself from getting squished and killed. I love getting to explore uninhabited expanses of wilderness. And as we moved across the island, we soon came upon signs of one elusive little mammal. So one of the little rodents we have out here on Kent Island is the saltmarsh harvest mouse, which is actually endemic to the San Francisco Bay Area. They're so tiny though, what they do is they kind of grab one of these stalks, they pull it down, and then they kind of bite it off, and they eat the seeds inside. So they end up leaving these little piles of matchsticks around. You can see where they've sort of been eating and getting their meals before they bury down into their tunnels and move to the next spot. All right, well, we'll keep our eyes peeled, and maybe we'll see one of these cute little mice. All right, let's keep moving, see what else we can find. All right. As we crested the north end of the island, we eventually came upon a place where the land meets the sea. And there, hunting along the shoreline, we were witness to hundreds of birds. The Bolinas Lagoon is famous for being a stopover point on the Pacific Flyway, which makes it a perfect spot for birders hoping to observe migrating species. From gulls and terns, to egrets, cormorants, pelicans, herons, and one really cool-looking sandpiper, we saw more birds than we could ever present in a single episode. Moving back inland, we suddenly came across Kate's arch enemy, and the most notorious invader of Kemp Island. What are we looking at here? We're actually looking at ice plant right here, which is originally from South Africa. So this is an invasive species right here? Yes, exactly. That's too bad, because they're so cool-looking, and I assume this is some sort of a succulent, right? Yeah, exactly. And when you open it up here, you can kind of take a look inside, and it's sort of crystallized. It almost looks like ice. Oh, wow, it really does. Yeah. Actually, one of the ways that we are getting rid of this plant is by pumping salt water onto the island, because these are salt intolerant. So when they soak up all of that salt water, they start to dry out, and the nutrients run out of the plant, and they go from this healthy green to a more unhealthy red or yellow color, and then they're easier to pull up out of the ground. Kate spends the majority of her days protecting Ken Island against the ever-invasive ice plant. And while we could have battled these invaders forever, it was time to continue our search for animal inhabitants, where I finally found and managed to capture exactly what I had been chasing after. I got a mouse! Ah, hold on. I gotta get him by the scruff of his neck. Gotta be as gentle as possible. Okay, what you're looking at there is the salt marsh harvest mouse. I have been trying all day to capture one of these little mice, and these are the ones that are making the little piles of matchsticks, right? They sure are, absolutely. Now, they're actually helping the ecosystem because they're distributing seeds, right? Correct. And they're also a really great food source for some of the land and bird species we have out here. I've got a gentle hold on the back of his neck, just by the scruff, which is the safest way to hold this mouse, not causing him any injury. Just gonna enjoy his company for a minute here, and then let him back off into the wild. Look at his pudgy little belly there. You see, they've got a real short little tail for a mouse. At first, I thought it was a vole, until I actually got my hands on him. Got these nice springy back feet, and they are incredibly quick. And they have burrow systems all over the island, don't they? Absolutely. Every border log that we have flipped up looking for creatures has had a burrow underneath it. So, these mice are pretty much running the show around here. Yeah, absolutely. So, they're a protected species, and we're really lucky that we caught one today. And like Coyote said, they have a whole system of tunnels, so as soon as they see some sort of a predator, they are out of there in a flash. Alright, we're gonna let this little guy go back off into the wild, so he can continue distributing seeds here in the lagoon. Wow, Kate, what an awesome adventure. Thank you so much for having us today out in the Bolinas Lagoon. We saw some great creatures and learned all about this ecosystem. I'm Coyote Peterson. Be brave, stay wild. We'll see you on the next adventure. The protection and restoration of the Bolinas Lagoon is an ongoing effort. And if it wasn't for environmental activists like Kate and organizations such as the Greater Farallones Association, these beautiful ecosystems would be lost from the world forever. To get involved, make sure to visit the Greater Farallones Association website, www.farallones.org. If you enjoyed this adventure, make sure to check out the time I helped stamp northern elephant seals. And don't forget, subscribe to join me and the crew on this season of Breaking Trail.