A makeover turns manmade Aramburu Island into rich wildlife
habitat. A 20-ton loader is tearing up the east shore of
California’s Aramburu Island, knocking down a seven-foot scarp
to make way for an oyster shell beach. Farther north, heavy
equipment is scouring the island’s marshes and mudflats,
replacing the barren soil with bay sands to attract native
invertebrates. What may look like devastation is a $2.4-million
restoration of the 36-acre island in Richardson Bay, a slender
arm of San Francisco Bay that is managed as a sanctuary by
Audubon California. The project is part of a multi-agency effort
to bring back the habitat of the entire San Francisco Bay, the
most important estuary on the Pacific Coast of the Americas. By
the time Aramburu’s two-year restoration is complete in March
2013, it will offer seasonal saline wetlands for whimbrels and
marbled godwits, and smooth beaches where sandpipers can forage
and harbor seals can rest. Thirty-six acres of tidal marshes and
subtidal mudflats may not seem like