Join graduate student Rachel Holser and her team from the University of California, Santa Cruz as they tag a 1,000-lb. northern elephant seal at the NRS's Año Nuevo Island Reserve. The work is part of UC Santa Cruz Professor Dan Costa's program to study seal diving and behavior while enlisting these natural explorers to study ocean conditions.

The squirrels you see in local trees may look blithe, but each is on a deadly serious mission. Every animal has to stash enough food to last through winter. This poses dilemmas to foraging squirrels: eat found food now, or store it for later? UCLA graduate student Amanda Robin (aka the Squirrel Gazer) gets to the nut of the matter at the NRS's James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve. Bristling with wildlife cameras, the James is the ideal place to observe squirrels in the act of deciding.