Less than a minute’s drive from the outskirts of Watsonville, California, is a hidden gem: a small coastal farming community alive with flora and fauna known as Watsonville Slough Farm. It's 500-acres lies in the heart of one of California’s largest coastal wetlands.

It’s a serene morning at Elkhorn Slough, one of the largest wetlands in the state of California. It’s 20 miles north of Monterey in the town of Moss Landing, population 204. Gena Bentall raises her binoculars to get a closer look at kayakers near a group of sea otters resting in the water. She likes what she sees.

Can a committed conservationist find happiness with a guy whose living focuses on the search for oil? Absolutely, provided the two share a core belief: that conservation and industry can go hand-in-hand — yes, just as they do. The Faiths — Nadya and Luke — can show you how it’s done.

Santa Cruz cypress, Lane Mountain milk-vetch, and Island bedstraw. Few people know them by name, but we can attribute their continued existence on Earth, in part, to one woman’s passion and commitment to their recovery. We delve into the life and career of Service botanist Connie Rutherford, and the plants she helped save from near extinction.

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.”