Pescadero State Beach Exploration

Pescadero State Beach and Marsh Reserve

This Exploration created in collaboration with the  

QUEST on KQED Public Media.Pescadero State Beach is no simple place. Scanning its expanse, you can see ocean beach, streams, grasses, cattails, bushy scrub, and tall, ancient trees. If you look more closely you can see over 250 species of birds. The landscape, especially at the water, is never the same two days in a row.

Location/Directions

The beach is located 14.5 miles south of Half Moon Bay on Highway One.

For the hike shown in this Exploration, you’ll be starting from the main parking lot, going down the stairs and walking a short stretch N on Hwy 1 before stepping down to the beach itself.

Seasons/Climate/Recommended clothing

The weather can be changeable; layered clothing is recommended.

Other notes

Dogs are prohibited on the beach and in the Natural Preserve at all times.Please, NO beach fires are allowed. Please refrain from removing shells, driftwood, and other natural beach features. Fireworks are prohibited.

From ocean beach to bushy hillsides, Pescadero State Beach encompasses many different habitats.Pescadero State Beach—a mile-long stretch just south of Halfmoon Bay in Northern California—is no simple place. Scanning its expanse, you can see ocean beach, streams, grasses, bushy scrub, and tall, ancient trees. If you look more closely you can spot some of the more than 250 species of birds that make their home here. The landscape, especially at the water, is never the same two days in a row.

This park is a typical example of an estuary—an ecosystem both inviting and complex that thrives on change. Estuaries are coastal areas where fresh water from rivers mixes with salt water from the ocean. Estuaries usually contain a variety of habitats, and are constantly affected by the changing tides and ocean swells, as well as the seasonal ebb and flow of streams. Humans, too, exert their changes, shaping these environments.

The Bay Area, where many rivers meet the sea, is especially rich in this kind of coastal ecology. Once, an enormous amount of the Bay Area was estuary, including much of the Pacific coastline and most of the water’s edge in San Francisco and San Pablo Bays. Today, many of these natural areas have been filled in or paved over.

As a testament to its adaptable nature, much of what estuary remains in the Bay Area exists in tandem with power lines, highways, factories, bridges and airports. (Our Exploration of Elkhorn Slough looks at life in an estuary in the shadow of a power plant.)

Estuaries play a number of important roles in the health of the natural environment. They keep erosion under control, help stabilize coastal communities, and protect water quality. They are also home to many of our commercial fish, as well as an extremely diverse set of flora and fauna. And, of course, estuaries are lovely places to visit and appreciate nature.

Coping with change, natural and otherwise

The ecosystem at Pescadero State Beach includes a stretch of Highway 1 as well as other areas containing man-made alterations.

Joanne Kerbavis is a California State Parks biologist whose research takes her to Pescadero State Beach.

Even in areas where the actual landscape is less threatened, the pattern of flora and fauna on that landscape can shift. Often this kind of shift is due to the introduction by humans of non-native species. Sometimes, these new species fare better than the native species. These new plants and animals, which may have been introduced recently or centuries ago, can crowd out the original inhabitants of an environment This phenomenon is evident at Pescadero State Beach. Some areas of the dunes, for example, have been taken over by non-native grasses that have pushed out the native grasses. And in some forested parts of the park, the eucalyptus trees introduced by travelers and found plentifully in this park (and in many other parts of the Bay Area), have crowded out other tree species.

These tall trees are eucalyptus, non-native plants that now serve as home to Pescadero State Beach’s nesting heron population.

There’s still a great deal that scientists don’t know about estuaries; the ways in which the various environments within an estuary affect one another can be very complex. To protect or restore these areas, ecologists think of the environment’s flora and fauna not as specific species or sets of species, but as whole systems. Researchers conduct studies to try to understand how the balance of oxygen, nutrients, pollutants, and other factors affect water quality and wildlife. A healthy estuary is one in which the water is clean and the habitat can support both the wildlife and the human recreational uses of the area in a self-sustaining way.