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Aug 9, 2024 | 
sandiegouniontribune.com | Ana Ramirez
On a summer afternoon joggers, bicyclists and several people with big-brimmed hats, a few looking through binoculars, focused their attention on the squawking and seemingly chaotic swarm of white birds flying over a crescent-shaped island in Mission Bay. The social frenzy was thousands of elegant terns teaching their fledglings how to fly and forage at a man-made piece of land known as West Ski Island that lies less than a quarter-mile from Crown Point Park.
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Aug 5, 2024 | 
phys.org | Ana Ramirez
A proposal to expand one of San Diego's 11 marine protected areas would make it the largest in the county, and could help wildlife off Point Loma thrive. But miles gained would be miles lost to some local fishermen.
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Aug 4, 2024 | 
sandiegouniontribune.com | Ana Ramirez
A proposal to expand one of San Diego’s 11 marine protected areas would make it the largest in the county, and could help wildlife off Point Loma thrive. But miles gained would be miles lost to some local fishermen. Two environmental groups want to expand Cabrillo State Marine Reserve from less than half a square mile to nearly 16, extending it westward and northward to an area of Sunset Cliffs. The reason? Kelp, long a chief concern of scientists, fishermen and other ocean-goers.
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May 16, 2024 | 
sandiegouniontribune.com | John Kelley |Ana Ramirez
Margarita Garcia waits to greet a friend’s daughter as she arrives on a tall ship called Cuauhtémoc on Thursday, May 16, 2024 in San Diego, California. The training ship is part of the Mexican Navy Secretariat and has been used for 41 years - traveling to more than 228 ports in 73 countries. (Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune)Dozens of people cheer as a 261 person crew arrives on a tall ship called Cuauhtémoc on Thursday, May 16, 2024 in San Diego, California.
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May 5, 2024 | 
sandiegouniontribune.com | Maura Fox |Ana Ramirez
A majestic oak tree offers cool shade to Mike Brown as he rests in his gray, two-person tent on a late Friday afternoon in April. Brown, a 51-year-old from New Zealand, is about 15 hours away from starting the Pacific Crest Trail, the 2,650-mile route that travels from eastern San Diego County — where the U.S. meets the border with Mexico — to the Canadian border.
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Apr 21, 2024 | 
sandiegouniontribune.com | Alexandra Mendoza |Tammy Murga |Ana Ramirez
Over spring break, residents of Tijuana and Imperial Beach flocked to the beach under sunny skies — two cities, just miles apart, same ocean. North of the U.S.-Mexico border, joggers pounded along the Imperial Beach shoreline — but kept their shoes on. Onlookers watched the San Diego and Tijuana skylines from the 60-year-old wooden pier. And a few people, scattered like freckles on a sun-kissed face, sat several feet away from the wettest sand to watch the waves. But no one dared get in the water.
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Mar 30, 2024 | 
sandiegouniontribune.com | Ana Ramirez
Dark clouds loomed in the distance Sunday as a jovial Esteban Quiñones Gutierrez walked along Federal Highway 1 from Rosarito to Playas Tijuana, where he would complete his 77-day long trek walking the entire length of the Baja California Peninsula. That’s around 1,056 miles – or about the distance from San Diego to Washington State. A brisk stride soon turned into a sprint to an overpass as rain doused him just before noon.
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Feb 29, 2024 | 
sandiegouniontribune.com | Ana Ramirez
Editor’s note: U-T photographer Ana Ramirez followed San Diego distance runner Steven Martinez as he trained for the Feb. 3 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando, Fla. The bus ride is quiet as Steven Martinez, 29, heads to participate in his second U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. He, like other competitors, has been training for months for this race — where the men’s qualifying time to participate is the ability to run 26.2 miles in 2 hours, 18 minutes.
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Dec 30, 2023 | 
sandiegouniontribune.com | Alex Riggins |Ana Ramirez
The curving, winding lines in the desert sand were a dead give away — a pack of coyotes had feasted on the body of this Peninsular bighorn ram. Though the coyotes clearly ate well off the ram, leaving little behind along the circuitous drag trail except for bare ribs and the tough hind legs, they were the lucky benefactors of its death, not the killers. The culprit was also not a mountain lion, nor disease, nor any of the endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep’s other naturally occurring threats.
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Dec 27, 2023 | 
sandiegouniontribune.com | Ana Ramirez |Alejandro Tamayo
Thousands of people watched the Port of San Diego Holiday Bowl Parade on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023 in San Diego, California. Members of the Navy ROTC line up for the Port of San Diego Holiday Bowl Parade on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023 in San Diego, California. A giant jellyfish is blown up for the Port of San Diego Holiday Bowl Parade on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023 in San Diego, California. Balloons are staged before the Port of San Diego Holiday Bowl Parade on Wednesday, Dec.
