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Spring 1998 |
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Page 6 |
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Inside |
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Great American Fish Count |
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News and Notes |
pg. 6 |
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The Sanctuary has a new and improved World Wide Web site! Through the generous donations and hard work of many people, the web site has a significantly expanded menu. The following people deserve MANY thanks for their hard work and generous donations of time to upgrade the graphics and increase the content of the Sanctuary web site: Don Steiny (Owner, Infopoint, a Santa Cruz-based Internet company), Marti Atkinson (Electronic Publishing consultant), Chris Carothers (Infopoint), Michele Jacobi (MBNMS/Sea Grant Fellow), Aaron King and John Robinson (MBNMS), Heidi Nolan (UCSC Intern), Sarah Nissen (UCSC Intern), Ranger Chuck Bancroft (Point Lobos State Reserve). One of the exciting new features of the web site is a "Visitor's Section." Here, browsers can explore the many natural wonders of the Sanctuary with links to beaches, sports, and wildlife viewing, for example and see photos of locations around the Sanctuary in addition to reading about them. Many links also provide maps and directions to Sanctuary attractions. See the Sanctuary's site for yourself! The web site address is: |
BAY NET Volunteers at Piedras Blancas
BAY NET, the successful volunteer docent program initiated by the Center for Marine Conservation (CMC), is now up and running in San Luis Obispo County at Piedras Blancas. That is the site of a relatively new and growing population of elephant seals on beaches that run alongside Highway One just north of Hearst Castle.
Training for the Piedras Blancas volunteers was generally the same as that of their Monterey Bay colleagues: they learned about the Sanctuary and the natural history of marine mammals and birds. But the San Luis Obispo County training put more emphasis on elephant seal biology and behavior and enforcement issues, because of the human/animal interaction problems that have plagued the site.
There
was an urgent need for a docent program at Piedras Blancas,
which has been a subject of concern since the elephant seal
colony began to make the thin strip of beaches abutting the
highway its home in the early 1990s. Traffic problems
(caused by people stopping to look at the animals) and
unsafe human/animal interactions worried many observers.
Thirty volunteers now work on weekends along the shore at parking lots (built by Cal Trans) where the public can stop to observe the elephant seals. BAY NET docents play an important role as an interface, educating the public, protecting people from the marine mammals, and protecting the elephant seals from the occasional overly-enthusiastic visitor. They have also created more visibility for the Sanctuary program at its southern end.
"There has been a huge outpouring of support from the community to try to manage this critical situation," says CMC's Rachel Saunders. About half of the new BAY NET volunteers come from nearby Cambria; the rest hail from other regional towns.
In the program's first approximately six weeks, BAY NET volunteers spoke with over 8,200 people (sometimes as many as 250 in a 1-3 hour shift) from all over the world and worked over 500 hours. Another training session is planned for this spring to provide docents during the week and improve coverage on weekends.
The Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) at UCSC has published a richly-illustrated soft cover book about the Sanctuary and its habitats: Sanctuary Explorations: An Access Guide to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. In addition to surveying the Sanctuary's natural resources, the book also includes chapters on human history and geology, and maps of coastal trails and access points. This project was funded by the Sanctuary, in collaboration with the Friends of Long Marine Laboratory (LML). Scientists from IMS, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, and other institutions helped review the content.
"Sanctuary Explorations" is available for $7.95 through Long Marine Laboratory's book store (408/459-4087) and at many local book stores. It was written by Julia Copple Davenport, illustrated by Jenny Keller, and edited by Dorris Welch.
International Year of the Ocean
The United Nations has declared 1998 as the International Year of the Ocean. The Sanctuary is including this theme in many of its events throughout the year, including March's Sanctuary Currents Symposium (which focused on "Human Influences on the Coastal Ocean"), Sanctuary participation in The Jason Project, which will reach over two million children around the world, and the September Birthday Celebrations in Monterey and Santa Cruz.
For further information, please call David McIntyre, United Nations Association - Monterey Bay Chapter, at (831) 624-3517.
While you're perusing the Sanctuary's web site, have a look at the Pelagic Zone chapter, which has recently been updated. Part of a series characterizing all the different Sanctuary habitats and their biological communities and assemblages, this chapter attempts to review the state of knowledge about the most voluminous of the Sanctuary's ecosystems: the open waters.
It
includes a summary of the dominant organisms from the
surface to the ocean's depths. The chapter reflects
information gathered from many decades of traditional
sampling with nets as well as some of the newer, exciting
data available from manned submersibles and remotely
operated vehicle (ROV) observations, collections, and
photographs. This update also now includes information on
nekton (large, mobile organisms such as squid and
fishes).
This chapter is in the "Biological Communities" section of the Site Characterization. (Look under "Research" on the web page.) Its address is:http://montereybay.nos.noaa.gov/sitechar/pelagic.html
Many thanks to Dr. Mary Silver (UCSC), Dr. Gregor M. Cailliet (MLML), and Dr. Judith Connor (MBARI), who donated their time to write - and update - this chapter. Skyli McAfee (MLML) helped edit the text.
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Last modified on: June 14,
1999