San Francisco: A Natural History

By Ryder W. Miller and Greg Gaar

Book Overview

The "real" San Francisco lies below the streets, sidewalks, and buildings, hidden from view. This famous city is known for its beautiful setting of water, trees, hills, and beaches, but relatively few people know of its true natural state. Before it
was built up and paved over, the earth here was a diverse ecosystem of creeks, marshes, sand dunes, estuaries, and densely forested hills. Over this landscape roamed elk, rabbit, bears, bobcat, and mountain lion, and the now-crowded bayfront teemed with mollusks, otters, dolphins, and whales, while huge flocks of birds blocked out the sun overhead. Today, only about two percent of the city's natural areas remain as they were.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738529877
• ISBN13: 9780738529875
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing (SC)
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Reminders of what it was

Reading this book was like pulling a well-loved but worn teddy out of the chest. I recalled hiking the city's hills, creeks and dunes in the fifties, flying kites up on Bernal Heights and sliding down Twin Peaks on cardboard. ...and thought about what's been lost. If that was the sum, it would be an interesting read. Gaar and Miller took it beyond a catalog of losses to present successes and achievable steps for preservation and restoration. The city has taken a beating, being filled, leveled, dredged, paved and infested with non-native species--thanks to our own manifest destiny. San Francisco: A Natural History makes a strong case for embracing what was ours while sharing our city's natural landscape, past and present, in word and image.