The number of plants and animals listed as threatened or endangered is almost constantly growing. But only rarely does a species that was thought to be extinct make a come-back to join the endangered list. This is the story of just such a recovery, in the coastal hills of the North Bay.

It's now been a little more than 17 years since Connors made that first surprising discovery, but he clearly remembers the surprise and concern that accompanied that moment.

 Finding that single specimen in the first place was an enormous stroke of good fortune, Connors readily admits, and the fact that it survived to bear seeds seems nothing short of miraculous. Because even after he surrounded it with an improvised wire cage to protect the clover from hungry herbivores, it still narrowly escaped two nearly fatal encounters with inattentive humans, just in a mater of days. Connors recalls thatfortunatley it was his practice to stop by and check on the plant every other morning that late summer.

What’s the antidote to gangs, unemployment and juvenile crime? In part, it’s the newly rechristened Conservation Corps North Bay.

Marilee Eckert, the organization's Executive Director, explains that their expansion into Sonoma County was begun in early 2009, with the support and encouragement of many local leaders.


Looking ahead, Eckert sees a busy future for the Conservation Corps North Bay, doing more of what they are already working on.

The Conervation Corps was  featured previously on the North Bay Report when they launched their Sonoma County operations in January, 2009.

In most any museum, the items on display are just a small slice of their large and varied collection. And the Sonoma County Museum is no exception.

By acquainting himself with the breadth and variety of the total museum collection, Curator Eric Stanley  is then able to find ideas and items to draw from it to flesh out thematic displays. One recent instance of this, he recalls, was an exhibit based around the concept of Botany.

Another collection within the larger multitude of historic items that fascinate Stanley are the relics remaining from Santa Rosa's Chinatown. Now vanished and virtually unknown to all but the oldest area residents (or students of local history), it was a vibrant part of the core community less that 100 years ago.

The Sonoma County Museum is celebrating its own history with a  25th Birthday Party on Saturday afternoon. See a full schedule of upcoming museum activities here, including their rare, late September warehouse sale.

Eric Stanley

Horror movies and popular musicals notwithstanding, carnivorous plants do not eat people, nor do they grow to tower over us. Without that far-fetched scare factor, they are strangely beautiful…and decidedly weird.

Peter D’Amato was just a boy when he first sent for a mail-order Venus Flytrap. It didn’t last long, but his interest in these strange plants did, especially after he was introduced to some that were growing in the wild not far from his home.

D’Amato’s California Carnivores nurserypropagates and breeds many of the plants they display and sell, such as sundews and pitcher plants. They need to be kept wet, he explains, but they don’t need to be fed.

Aside from the loss of habitat that threatens them, carnivorous plants are naturally long-lived.

Many of D'Amato's specimens are currently on display in San Francisco, at the exhibit called Chomp 2 at the Conservatory of Flowers.