Porpoises Return to Cleaner SF Bay

It's an unfortunate reality that we don't hear much positive news about the environment these days.  So when I came across an uplifting article about the return of a special species to the San Francisco Bay, I knew I had to share it.  After missing for 60 years, harbor porpoises are beginning to reappear in large numbers.

According to NPR, what drove the porpoises away in the first place was probably the quality of the water.  Bill Keener from Golden Gate Cetacean Research told NPR that at one point, "raw sewage used to flow right into the bay.

Since the passing of the Clean Water Act in 1972, however, the water's quality has improved.  Researcher Jonathan Stern with San Francisco State University told NPR that it's taken some time for the porpoises to rediscover the bay.  "Over 60 years, we're talking about a number of generations of porpoises," Stern says. "So it's quite likely that San Francisco Bay as a habitat was out of the institutional memory."

That's clearly all changed, though, as 250 individual porpoises have been identified in the area.  The positive change proves that humans can work to reverse damage done to the Earth and its ecosystems.  As Stern told NPR, "It's one of those very few good-news environmental stories. And it's in our backyard. It gives one hope."