Latest news with #PresidioTrust
CBS News
6 days ago
- Science
- CBS News
Relative of extinct Xerces butterfly helps restore California habitat destroyed in its demise
A butterfly that went extinct decades ago after the destruction of its Bay Area habitat is now the driving force behind its restoration with the help of a close relative now fluttering in its terrain. At the Presidio in San Francisco, researchers, community scientists, and park officials gathered recently in hopes of filling a vacancy at a newly restored sand dune habitat with prospective new residents. It's taken 30 years to restore these dune habitats. Now, another historic effort is underway to restore another lost treasure. Scientists are hoping the silvery blue, a small butterfly native to North America, will take up residence and perform a critical function once done by the extinct Xerces blue. Professor Durrell Kapan, senior research fellow with the California Academy of Sciences, heads up the experimental project. He recently carried a cooler bag to the dunes near Lobos Creek in the Presidio National Park, withdrew a smaller cooler pouch, and removed small plastic containers, each holding a single silvery blue butterfly. All of them sipped on a cotton ball soaked in fruit punch-flavored Gatorade, which seems to be their favorite sustenance during these exercises. As the morning sun rose and the area warmed up, the silvery blues were released underneath a mesh fabric so they could acclimate. Later, the mesh was removed, and volunteers tracked their flight for about an hour. "By bringing back this butterfly, we are bringing back more of what used to be here," said Lewis Stringer, associate director of natural resources at the Presidio Trust. "We are expecting that the silvery blue will fill the gap that was left by the Xerces extinction," explained Dr. Phoebe Parker-Shames, wildlife ecologist for the Presidio. Before the Gold Rush, the Xerces blue thrived in sprawling coastal dunes around San Francisco that stretched from the Presidio through Ocean Beach, Fort Funston, and the Richmond and Sunset neighborhoods. The species kept the habitat healthy by pollinating plants and serving as food for other animals, such as birds and lizards. Rapid urban development destroyed the dunes, and that destroyed the Xerces. One report indicates that the last Xerces spotted in the area occurred in 1943. "This is an iconic species that literally was the first butterfly or invertebrate to go extinct in North America," said Kapan. "[The project is] an amazing opportunity to try to regenerate those missing connections using its closest relative. It's an opportunity to try to practice how we fix the environment." Genetic sequencing at Cal Academy confirmed the closest living relative to the Xerces blue is the silvery blue. Like the Xerces, silvery blues also like cold foggy weather, dune habitats, and deerweed on which they lay their eggs. Scientists were allowed to gather silvery blues living near the coast of Monterey and relocate them to San Francisco's Presidio. Parker-Shames said that adding the silvery blues to the dune habitat at the Presidio helps build resilience into a warming world. "If one year it's too hot for a particular species and their population sort of has a dip, there's another species there that can help fill the same role," she noted. The unprecedented effort is a four-year project that involves Cal Academy, the Presidio Trust, Creekside Science, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Revive and Restore. The McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity is also involved. This effort to make San Francisco more resilient and increase biodiversity is part of a larger effort exemplified in the urban nature alliance known as "Reimagining San Francisco." Last year, scientists released the first batch of silvery blues, and observations suggest success. Each released butterfly has a small mark added to their wings for identification. The scientists are now spotting unmarked butterflies. They say these unmarked silvery blues are the offspring of the first released butterflies flitting around the park. So far this year, about 50 silvery blues have been released. Driggs and Mills have already seen a newly released female laying eggs on the deerweed. "It's really cool, honestly," said Driggs.
San Francisco Chronicle
16-07-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Wildly popular S.F. park is opening a major family-friendly expansion this week
When Presidio Tunnel Tops opened in San Francisco on July 17, 2022, Presidio Trust CEO Jean Fraser stood at the veterans Overlook and felt the pull of westward expansion to the flat parking lot below, which was at bay level and out of the wind. Exactly three years later, that pull will be realized when Outpost Meadow opens to the public Thursday the third anniversary of the wildly successful Tunnel Tops, a 14-acre public park built atop the Presidio Parkway. The 1.5-acre annex was made a reality thanks to a $12 million grant from the California Natural Resources Agency. 'This is the last pearl on the string,' said Fraser, after passing through a locked Cyclone fence to walk the circumference of the new addition with a reporter last week. 'It's the final connection.' Outpost Meadow is specifically a connection to the Outpost, a fantastical nature playground at Tunnel Tops that had 500,000 visits last year alone. The concept for Outpost Meadow is that birthday parties and picnics can naturally spread out and not have to climb the steps to the picnic areas at Tunnel Tops. The paved pathway extends seamlessly from the Outpost to Outpost Meadow, which has reclaimed half of the parking lot once reserved for the Sports Basement, a Presidio tenant that occupies the former post commissary. From the vantage of the Overlook, on the bluff above it, the Meadow looks like it has been there all along — and in one sense, it has. It is part of the original park design by landscape architect firm Field Operations and was intended to be built out with the original park. But Fraser took it off the plans when the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown hit in the middle of construction. With the budget for Tunnel Tops itself ballooning to $118 million, most of it privately raised by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, that was the end of Outpost Meadow — until the state provided funds through its Outdoors for All initiative to bring parks closer to the urban masses. 'We knew we wanted to do this, but the price tag made it too ambitious,' Fraser said. 'The design was ready to go when the state grant came through.' The three-year delay allowed the Presidio Trust to talk to community groups and survey users of Tunnel Tops, which has attracted 5 million visits since it opened. At the top of their wish list: More tables, both reservable and first-come, first-served. Currently on busy days, the reservable tables at Picnic Place at the top of the tunnel are 'perpetually sold out,' Fraser said, at a fee of $130 per day on weekdays and $170 on weekends. Outpost Meadow will significantly expand those options, offering 19 sturdy tables of thick-cut Monterey Cypress and Douglas Fir in three large picnic areas with barbecue pits around a central green. Two of the three pods will be reservable starting in October, at a price to be determined. The third pod will be up for grabs. Survey responders also asked for more shade. Some of the picnic areas will be outfitted with umbrellas, though they will have to withstand the perpetual fog that blows in through the Golden Gate and can turn the strongest of umbrellas inside out. 'I'm hopeful the umbrellas will last in the wind,' Fraser said. Responders also wanted a flat space where they can kick a soccer ball around, and were obliged with a flat oval of fresh, rolled-out sod. There is also sod on Tunnel Tops, but by Fraser's measure, you can never have enough of it in an urban environment. 'I brought up my kids in the city,' she said, 'and I'll never forget the first time my daughter first put her feet on natural grass. It was like, 'What is this weird stuff?'' The grass will be irrigated by well water, thanks to Lobos Creek, the last free flowing waterway in the city, which reaches its terminus in the Presidio. The grass will also serve as flood control. On the old parking lot, rainwater pooled with no place to go. But the new lawn and surrounding tanbark, dotted with 23,000 native shrubs and trees, have drainage underneath. 'It's all permeable,' said Travis Beck, chief park officer. 'The water will go straight down.' The parking lot that remains in front of Sports Basement has been reduced by half and is open to anyone, by public meter. Outpost Meadow is also serviced by the 30-Stockton Muni bus, which has been extended to a new terminus behind the Sports Basement. There are new Muni stops in both directions on Old Mason Street, which goes by the new park, to deposit and pick up passengers as soon as the fence comes down Thursday. It will offer a new vantage point for people like Mikhiel and Samantha Tareen of North Beach, who were introducing their 10-day-old daughter, Simone, to their favorite park last week. 'It's where we bring people who are visiting,' said Mikhiel, originally from Portland, Ore. 'You get the closest and most unobstructed view of the city from here.' The Tareens, and their dog Stanley, are Tunnel Tops regulars, but when standing on the Overlook they could not tell where the Outpost ended and Outpost Meadow began. 'I didn't know that was a new thing,' Mikhiel said. 'We haven't had an issue with space here, but I like having more of it.'
Axios
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Bay Area tribe seeks to reclaim The Presidio
In the latest escalation over the Presidio's future, the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe is petitioning the Trump administration to hand over supervision of the 1,500-acre national park back to Indigenous people. The latest: The tribe in mid-March called on President Trump and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum "to return land back to Indigenous hands while simultaneously accomplishing your goals of making the federal government smaller," according to the petition, which the tribe is partnering with the Lakota People's Law Project to secure public support for. Catch up quick: The Muwekma Ohlone's move is in response to Trump's executive order from February seeking to eliminate the Presidio Trust. The federal agency was created in 1996 to oversee the historic site, which once served as a military base. What they're saying:"This president wants to dismantle the Presidio Trust and what better hands to manage that land than the people of the area — the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe," tribal chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh told Axios. Between the lines: The petition is the most recent effort in their long-sought struggle for " rematriation," the women-led process behind reclaiming sovereignty on ancestral lands. The goal is to create a new reservation for the tribe to call home, Nijmeh said. "This is not new — it's just another opportunity to have access to a piece of land in our Aboriginal territory," she added. "We want to live on our land, like our ancestors did. We don't want to be visitors." The big picture: The national park has been caught in the political crossfire of Trump's retaliation campaign against his enemies — including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who championed the effort to create the trust. The other side: A representative from the Presidio Trust declined to comment on the petition but made note that the tribe's claim that their effort would " reduce federal taxpayer spending" is incorrect since no ongoing taxpayer funds are used to operate the site. The trust gets its funding from revenue obtained through its businesses, leasing activities and private donations, which earned $182 million in 2024. Flashback: Ohlone ancestors long inhabited the Presidio and surrounding region before the site became a military outpost during the Mexican-American war. The Muwekma Ohlone tribe, which remains unrecognized, has been fighting to affirm its federal status for more than 45 years.
Fox News
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump's Payback to Nancy Pelosi: Stopping Funding for San Francisco's Prized Presidio
Howie Kurtz on Trump planning on taking over the U.S. Postal Service, Trump targeting the Presidio Trust in San Francisco and Trump floating the idea of a third term. Follow Howie on Twitter: @HowardKurtz For more #MediaBuzz click here John Toldi
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump takes aim at Pelosi's hometown legacy
SAN FRANCISCO — President Donald Trump is taking aim at a crown jewel of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's legacy with an order to cut funding for an agency that operates a 1,500-acre national park on the site of a former Army base overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. But at an event in the city on Thursday, Pelosi said the agency was protected under an act of Congress — and she accused Trump of creating a flurry of distractions to draw attention from an unpopular Republican proposal to cut social safety-net programs. 'I'm saying this to say, 'We're here to talk about Medicaid, Mr. President,' Pelosi said as she slapped a paper on the table. 'We will not be distracted with other things. He called himself a king the other day. Really? King of what? Anyway, the emperor has no clothes as far as I'm concerned.' The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump's call for cuts to the Presidio Trust was widely viewed as an act of political retribution to one of the president's fiercest rivals. Pelosi in the 1990s led the effort to create a federal agency to manage what's now a hilly waterfront oasis covered by historic buildings, green meadows and eucalyptus trees. The president's executive order, which also targeted three other independent agencies he identified as 'unnecessary,' might actually have little effect on the trust's operations. It calls for eliminating the agencies' 'non-statutory' functions — and the Presidio Trust was not only created by Congress, but it's almost entirely self-funded. It does, however, require a detailed accounting report to be submitted to Trump's Office of Management and Budget within two weeks. On Thursday, during an event Pelosi hosted on proposed GOP cuts to Medicare, the former speaker stressed that the agency was enshrined in federal law so it 'would be protected from assaults over time' and that the act was approved by a bipartisan group of lawmakers when Republicans held the majority. Marie Hurabiell, a former member of the Presidio Trust, shared the former speaker's sentiment, saying initial reports about Trump's executive order incorrectly suggested he had 'eliminated' the trust by executive order. 'It's not going away, it cannot be eliminated by one person,' Hurabiell said. The move — part of an unprecedented push by the president and his allies to dismantle the federal bureaucracy — put San Francisco leaders on edge. 'He's not just targeting the trust. He's not just targeting Speaker Pelosi. He's targeting all San Franciscans,' said city Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, whose district includes the park and its nearly 3,000 residents. The Presidio Trust is unlike other national park sites as its operations are almost entirely self-sufficient. The agency has raised money by renovating and leasing dozens of former Army structures which now house offices, museums, rental housing, a bowling alley, gift shops and event spaces. Budget records state the trust forecasts an operating surplus of $46 million for the current fiscal year, and hasn't received annual appropriations from Congress since 2013. However, Pelosi helped the trust secure $200 million from the Department of the Interior in 2022, as part of the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act, to pay for infrastructure and climate-resilience projects. Some congressional Republicans want to claw the money back, though the trust said most of it has been allocated. Former Mayor Willie Brown, a longtime power broker in the city, predicted that Trump will continue the attack regardless of the Presidio's statutory protections. 'He doesn't worry about the results,' Brown said. 'Just the headlines are important to him.'
