Here’s a story with an irony nicely told. Along the San Francisco Bay The Contra Costa Times’s Suzanne Bohan jumped into a car with a biologist to go visit some salt ponds being reverted to a good simile of their erstwhile wetlands environs. It seems that a certain seabird that is a constant presence along California beaches, but that used to nest well inland, has in recent years founded itself a new rookery. It is flourishing to say the least. And it’s a conundrum for managers of public lands who want to see a species mix – including some rare locals – more or less as it was before the latest homesteaders showed up. Further irony – many of the birds in most favor were themselves lured to the region by changes wrought upon the landscape by people.

At what date, one is compelled to wonder, is most sensible to declare as the metric for natural wildness? One thing is sure: some levees are about to be breached, tidal surges will return to land that hasn’t had them for some time, and old, new, and newest comers will seek whatever havens they can find.

Nice job tackl