Watchdog on the water: Group uses drones to monitor the ‘fragile ecosystem’ of the Bay

On a brisk February morning, Cole Burchiel hopped onto a small boat near Oracle Park and greeted skipper Tracy Rogers as the sun burned off the morning cloud cover.

As the vessel pulled away from the harbor and chugged eastward down the shoreline, Burchiel pointed at the mammoth cargo ships docked in Anchorage Nine, a stretch of water off Hunters Point where ocean freighters wait to unload at the Port of Oakland.