East Bay Trails. David Weintraub
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been diked, drained, or filled for salt production, agriculture, housing, or industrial development. Efforts are underway by governmental and conservation organizations to protect the Bay’s marshlands by controlling industrial and residential development in sensitive areas. Some former marshlands along the East Bay shoreline previously lost to diking have been restored by breaching dikes and allowing Bay waters to flow unhindered once more.
Animals
Mammals
Other than squirrels, rabbits, and the occasional deer, you probably will not see many mammals on your hikes in the East Bay. Most of the mammals here, such as skunk, raccoon, gray fox, bobcat, coyote, and mountain lion, are shy and active mostly at night, after the parks close. Cottontail rabbits are present in the grasslands, where they sit tight to avoid the notice of predators, bounding away at the last minute. California ground squirrels live in large colonies, and you will often see them standing by their burrows or running furtively through the grass. Black-tailed deer inhabit chaparral, as do gray fox, coyote, and bobcat. If mountain lions are present, deer are their prey of choice. Oak woodlands support deer, rabbits, and western gray squirrels, along with foxes, bobcats, and mountain lions.
Birds
More than 350 species have been recorded in the East Bay, making it one of the best places in California to look for birds. The region is doubly blessed: first, it lies on the Pacific Flyway, a major migratory route; and second, it contains a wide variety of habitats. In a single day, traveling west to east, a dedicated birder could scan a salt marsh for shorebirds in the morning, search a redwood forest for songbirds at lunch time, and spend the afternoon looking for hummingbirds and hawks on the oak-and-pine covered flanks of a mountain. (Bird names in this book follow the American Ornithologists’ Union’s (AOU) checklist:www.aou.org/checklist/index.php3.
Your success in finding birds depends on looking in the right place at the right time. Some birds are present year-round, while others are seasonal visitors. Avid birders often revisit the same spot throughout the year, turning up an impressive list of species. Summer brings dense vegetation that offers birds plenty of places to hide from predators and from you; instead, try your luck in late winter or early spring, when many of the tree and shrub limbs are still bare. Time of day is important—many birds sit tight during the hotter part of the day. The tide determines when shorebirds will be active and within viewing range: rising or falling is best.
Reptiles and Amphibians
Lizards and snakes are the most common reptiles in the East Bay parklands, and it is sometimes starling to have your hiking reverie interrupted by a scurrying sound from right beside the trail. The only harmful snake in our area is the western rattlesnake, and it is rarely encountered. The warning sound of a rattlesnake shaking its rattles is instantly recognizable, even if you have never heard it before. A harmless snake that resembles a rattlesnake is the gopher snake, California’s largest snake. Whereas a rattlesnake has a triangular head, thick body, and rattles at the end of its tail, a gopher snake has a slender head, a slender, shiny body, and a pointed tail. Other common snakes in the East Bay include California kingsnake, yellow-bellied racer, and garter snake. One species, Alameda whipsnake, is federally listed as a threatened species.
Common lizards of the East Bay parks include western fence lizard, alligator lizard, and western skink. Lizards often sit motionless on a tree trunk or rock, then dart quickly away as you approach. An animal resembling a lizard but that is actually an amphibian is the California newt, which spends the summer buried under the forest floor, then emerges with the first rains and migrates to breed in ponds and streams. Briones Regional Park is the site of one of the largest of these migrations, and in Tilden Regional Park, South Park Dr. is actually closed during migration to protect the newts. Other amphibians you might see or hear include western toad and Pacific tree frog.
The western fence lizard is the East Bay’s most commonly seen reptile.
Human History
The East Bay today is an exciting and vibrant place, where many cultures and communities contribute their history and heritage, where industry and commerce thrive, and where open space has been preserved and protected for all to enjoy. Agriculture still dominates land use in the East Bay, as it did 100 years ago, but land for crops and cattle grazing is steadily being lost to residential and industrial development, much of it densely packed along freeway and highway corridors. The area is an important transportation hub, with major air, rail, and port facilities. It is a world-renowned mecca for learning and research, a lively center of culture and the arts, and a place where the latest trends in politics, lifestyles, and fashion are conceived and then, sometimes, carried to extremes.
Since the mid-19th century, the East Bay has been a place of farms, orchards, dairies, and cattle ranches, supporting a diverse population of laborers from around the globe, including China, Japan, the Philippines, India, Mexico, Hawaii, and Portugal. During the Gold Rush and the years that followed, the East Bay helped feed the rest of California with produce from large farms centered in Alameda County. (One of these, which belonged to George Washington Patterson and his family, can be visited at EBRPD’s Ardenwood Regional Preserve in Fremont.) Alameda County also became known for its wines, and in 1889 one of its winery owners, Charles Wetmore of Cresta Blanca, won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition. Hops and hay grown in the Livermore Valley gained world-wide reputations for quality.
Cattle ranching in the East Bay, which continues today on public lands under a multi-use policy, began in the 1820’s after Mexico overthrew Spanish rule and made California, then called Alta (Upper) California, part of its republic. The Spanish mission system, in place in California since the 1760s, was dismantled in the 1830s, and former mission lands in the East Bay became large Mexican ranchos, supplying cowhides for leather goods and tallow for candles to manufacturing plants in the northeastern United States. The ranchos and the rich lifestyle they supported lasted only until 1846, when war broke out between Mexico and the United States. At the war’s conclusion in 1848, Mexico signed the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and ceded California, which became a state two years later, to its increasingly powerful northern neighbor.
The first Europeans to explore California extensively by land were the Spanish, and in 1769 Gaspar de Portola led an expedition from Baja California to the San Francisco Peninsula. Members of a scouting party from this expedition, under Jose Ortega, were the first Europeans to gaze on San Francisco Bay, whose opening at the Golden Gate had eluded such 16th and 17th century maritime explorers as Juan Rodrigues Cabrillo, Francis Drake, Sebastian Rodrigues Cermeno, and Sebastian Vizcaino. Residents of the Bay’s east shore, the Ohlone Indians, met the Spanish with a combination of hostility and fear, but contact continued over the next few years, as more of the East Bay was explored. Native Americans, who had been here for thousands of years, lived in thatched houses framed with willow wood, depended on hunting and gathering for survival, and organized themselves into various towns and nations. It is estimated that 10,000 native people lived in the Bay Area when the Spanish arrived.
In 1776 the Spanish established their first mission in the Bay Area, Mission San Francisco de Assis (now called Mission Dolores) and built the Presidio of San Francisco. More missions and settlements soon followed, including Mission Santa Clara and Mission San Jose, and the Spanish began converting the Indians to Christianity and moving them onto the missions, where their freedom was curtailed. Resistance to the mission system came from some groups of native people who refused to give up their centuries-old way of life, but their efforts were overcome by Spanish military action, along with European diseases such as measles and small pox. (A cemetery near Mission San Jose holds 4000 Indian dead, the result of a 10-year epidemic. In 1971, descendants of the Ohlone people incorporated as the Ohlone Indian Tribe and received title to the cemetery.)
A reconstructed Coast Miwok village at Coyote Hills Regional park provides educational opportunities for visitors of all ages.
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