#mushroom-foraging

#mushroom-foraging

East Bay parks officials say hikers should beware of an unusually large number of toxic and potentially deadly mushrooms sprouting across the region. The East Bay Regional Parks District issued an advisory Tuesday warning park visitors about the fast-growing fungi, which include the death cap and western destroying angel varieties. Both species benefitted from a spate of early-season rain storms that allowed them to appear in greater volume than usual for this time of the year.

I wasn't doing a lot other than going on long hikes and taking classes remotely at Penn State for my doctoral degree in ecology and anthropology. One of the classes was an agroforestry class with Eric Burkhart. We studied how agriculture and forests benefit people and the environment. These two things eventually led to a yearslong project on mushroom harvesting in our region.

But moist, forested Oregon-and the Cascadia ecoregion more broadly-has always been a "fungal paradise," according to mycologist Noah Siegel, coauthor of a 2024 guidebook, Mushrooms of Cascadia, that covers over 750 species. "They come in pretty much every single color possible and range from minuscule tiny little mushrooms that are a millimeter across to the Noble Polypores, which can be five feet across," Siegel says. "All of that is right under your nose, in the forest around you." It's truly a wonderland out there.