Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Sea Otters were among the first casualties of this new California com-
merce. According to one account, Russian hunters took up to 800 pelts
from the bay in one week in 1812, and 50,000 skins within their first five
years of hunting these waters. Another account says that in the early
1900s, 16 American and British ships were making regular trips around
Cape Horn, stopping at several ports including San Francisco, and collect-
ing thousands of otter skins for export to China. Still another report de-
picts Sea Otters as so abundant in some coastal waters that paddling
through any kelp bed might deal fatal blows to the animals.
Though otters inspired the most greed, the pelts of many other aquatic
mammals also filled the wagons and ship holds of early hunters. These
men hunted Pribilof and Guadalupe Fur Seals on the Farallon Islands just
outside the Golden Gate, as well as Harbor Seals in the South Bay; trapped
beavers on what one observer later called the “rush-covered” islands in
delta rivers; and slayed sea lions for blubber rendered into oil for reading
lamps.
During this early era of hunting and gathering, the overlap among bay,
coastal, and riverine ecosystems in the San Francisco region provided
abundant resources to each new wave of entrepreneurs and adventurers.
The Allure of Gold
When John Sutter's foreman discovered gold in the channel below Califor-
nia's first sawmill on January 4, 1848, few could have guessed how im-
mense a change it would bring to the wild frontier state on the nation's
westernmost shore. The mill, built on the south fork of the American
River upstream from San Francisco Bay, was powered by the flow and
tumble of the river. John Sutter was among the earliest European settlers
to begin farming in the Central Valley, and his mill processed some of the
timber that built California's first homes and towns. Sutter's activities ex-
emplify the many ways in which settlers and gold diggers changed San
Francisco Bay's watershed in the next half century.
The immediate effects on the bay were obvious. In one year, 100,000
people arrived in California, most of them via ship into San Francisco Bay.
More than 10,000 vessels entered the gate between 1849 and 1850. On
some vessels, the entire crew caught the gold fever from their passengers.
Sailors abandoned hundreds of ships in the coves around the tiny city of
San Francisco. These rotting hulks eventually collapsed and merged into
the city's first bay fill.
As the would-be miners traveled up toward the gold fields of the Sierra
Nevada, they began visiting creeks for drinking water, chopping and col-
 
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