The San Fernando Valley spineflower, a tiny plant once believed extinct, has a promising future thanks to support from a Southern California developer.

Off the coast of California, a string of islands rise above the waves. Shaped by millions of years of tectonic, volcanic, and climatic events, the Channel Islands have played host to myriad plants and animals. Over the last several decades, scientists, biologists, land managers and local communities have rallied together to help restore these islands to their rich and biodiverse origins.

Conservation success stories from the people of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who work to protect fish, wildlife, plants, and natural habitats of the central and Southern California coast.

More than 2,000 acres of valuable habitat will be permanently protected for California tiger salamanders and California red-legged frogs, including 14 breeding ponds, while the Sparling family continues to graze cattle on their land.

Type the word “beachcomber” into any web browser and a variety of information appears for your perusal: quaint bed and breakfasts along the California coast, a pub in Oregon, or even the 1954 movie, “The Beachcomber,” about a mismatched group of Europeans living on remote islands in the Indian Ocean. You will also find the definition of the word according to dictionary.com, which, somewhat surprisingly, is “a person who lives by gathering salable articles of jetsam, refuse, etc., from beaches.”

Seven-year-old Mairenee delicately places the tiny coastal dune plant into the sand with care not to damage its fragile roots. She joins more than 30 of her classmates on an early spring morning at Monterey State Beach as part of the Return of the Natives volunteer brigade, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to dune restoration run by California State University, Monterey Bay.

For the first time in nearly 70 years, western snowy plovers are nesting on Los Angeles County beaches. Following their discovery, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) biologists installed small wire cages around each nest to protect the eggs from predators and human disturbance.

Bird enthusiasts in California, Oregon, Washington, and Baja California, Mexico, will participate in a coast-wide survey of California brown pelicans the evening of May 6 in an effort to better understand the status of this popular, yet troubled seabird.

When Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and The Who were playing at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, just down the road the Santa Cruz long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum croceum) was struggling to survive.

The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and an array of conservation partners broke ground today, officially marking the start of a planned ecological restoration of a former golf course in Goleta.

While Californians and visitors flock to the beaches this spring and summer, a much smaller resident will share the shoreline: the western snowy plover.

With a wingspan of only one inch, Smith’s blue butterflies are a challenge to spot with the naked eye. Despite their small size and rarity, the attractive bright blue coloring of the males and bright orange and brown coloring of the females never fails to catch the attention of senior fish and wildlife biologist Jake Martin.

Last documented in 1986, the federally endangered Morro bay kangaroo rat has eluded biologists for more than three decades. While some in the conservation community believe this tiny native mammal may have gone the way of the dodo, two local biologists have reason to believe that a few isolated colonies may still exist in the remaining patches of coastal dune scrub along California’s central coast near Los Osos in San Luis Obispo County.

Michael Glenn has a knack for getting kids to dig in the dirt. It’s a character trait few possess in an era of on-demand television, cell phone games, and dwindling green spaces.

Obama Administration now oversees more de-listings than all other Administrations combined