In today's newscast:
Honoring the deceased
The Monterey Peninsula Buddhist Temple is hosting their 77th annual Obon Festival this weekend.
Japanese Obon festivals are held around the world every summer to honor deceased ancestors. David Ward has helped organize the event here for over a decade and is the festival’s chair this year.
“You can come and enjoy the demonstrations and the displays and not spend any money,” he said, because attendance is free and food is affordable. “Almost all of our food items are ten dollars or less."
There will be a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, karate demonstration and Taiko drumming performance as well as displays of bonsai and ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging.
" Part of Obon is the dancing, the Bon Odori,” Ward said.
Performers and participants dance to traditional and contemporary songs, even Lady Gaga. The festival is the temple's biggest event of the year.
"Our doors are open for anyone to visit," Ward said, "whether it is Obon or throughout the year.”
The event starts at noon on Sunday at the Temple in Seaside.
Counting snowy plovers
Scientists and volunteers along the entire West Coast have completed this year's population count of western snowy plovers. These tiny shorebirds nest on beaches, and they’ve been listed as threatened since 1993.
Kriss Neuman, an ecologist from the nonprofit Point Blue Conservation Science, says there’s good news.
"As of 2025, we were at the target, which is around 3,000 adults in the population," she said.
And she says that’s just how many they could actually record.
"T here's no doubt that that is an undercount of the birds that are actually in the population," she said.
Neuman says the plover population needs to stay at or above 3,000 birds for at least 10 years in order for them to come off the threatened list.
