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Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Milestones 1992-2002
September 20, 1992
A ceremony is held to celebrate the designation of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, with Terry Jackson as the first Sanctuary manager
September 30, 1992
The Marbled Murrelet is added to the federal threatened species list
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| photo Kip Evans for MBNMS |
1993
A population explosion begins at a new elephant seal colony at Point Piedras Blancas
March 5, 1993
The Western Snowy Plover is added to the federal threatened species list
September 1993
The Scientific Research Plan—the first for any marine sanctuary—is completed
September 1993
The first annual birthday celebration is held
1994
Brandts Cormorants establish a new breeding colony at Año Nuevo Island
1994
The non-native green crab invades Elkhorn Slough
January 1994
Water Quality Protection Program committees are established and workshops begin
February 1994
The Santa Cruz County Sanctuary Inter-Agency Task Force convenes to work on projects that enhance the economic and educational benefits of Sanctuary designation
March 1994
The Sanctuary opens its current office on Foam Street in Monterey
March 1994
The Sanctuary Advisory Council—the nation’s second—is established and begins meeting
June 16, 1994
The Eastern North Pacific population of the California gray whale is removed from the federal endangered species list
July 1994
The Great American Fish Count is held in the Sanctuary for the first time
September 1994
Fort Ord closes; its prohibited and restricted marine zones off the coast—totaling 18 square nautical miles—open for unrestricted public use
March 1995
Winter storms cause severe flooding around the Sanctuary
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| photo Kip Evans for National Geographic Society |
Spring 1995
The Sanctuary conducts research cruises aboard the NOAA ship McArthur. Projects include geological coring, acoustical surveys, ecological surveys, meteorological analysis, and pollution studies
May 1995
The Sanctuary web site—the National Marine Sanctuary Program’s first—is unveiled to the public
August 1995
The Monterey Bay Sanctuary Foundation, a non-profit organization to support the Sanctuary, is established
December 1995
Rodale’s SCUBA Diving magazine names the Sanctuary as one of the “World’s Best Marine Parks”
December 1995
CMC (now The Ocean Conservancy) graduates its first group of BAY NET volunteers, who interpret at the shoreline as Sanctuary docents
1996
The first record of Heerman’s Gull breeding in Northern California occurs at Año Nuevo Island
1996
The first Common Murre chicks fledge from Devil’s Slide rocks since an oil spill wiped out the population in 1986
February 1996
Save Our Shores begins its first Sanctuary Stewards volunteer program to enhance public and school-based education about the Sanctuary
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| photo MBNMS |
Spring 1996
The Water Quality Protection Program’s Urban Runoff, Marinas, and Monitoring Plans are completed
May 1996
The Site Characterization, an in-depth description of the environment, ecology, history, and social settings of the Sanctuary, is available to the public on the Sanctuary web sit
May 1996
Hundreds of juvenile male California sea lions invade Monterey Harbor and surrounding areas
Summer 1996
The Sanctuary conducts research cruises aboard the NOAA ship McArthur. Scientists conduct side scan sonar surveys, launch weather balloons, carry out plankton tows, and lower CTDs
August 1996
The Sanctuary web site wins the “Best NOS web site” award at the first annual “NOS WebShop”
Fall 1996
New regulations prohibiting white shark attraction go into effect
November 29, 1996
The 440-foot long oil tanker Montebello, sunk by Japanese submarine torpedoes in 1941, is discovered six miles off Cambria, just beyond the Sanctuary’s boundary
Spring 1997
The Monterey Bay Aquarium publishes A Natural History of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary
May 1997
A vessel traffic working group meets for the first time to evaluate ways to reduce the risk to the Sanctuary from large, ocean-borne oil spills
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| photo Greg Smith |
May 1997
Urban Watch, an urban runoff monitoring program, begins
May 1997
An El Niño event begins that lasts through June 1998, bringing warmer water and decreased productivity
May 1997
Beach COMBERS volunteers survey their beaches for the first time
October 26, 1997
More than 300 birds covered with a sticky, oily substance die in Monterey Bay from an unidentified oil spill
1998
International Year of the Ocean. The Sanctuary is featured in National Geographic, Sunset, Time, and Outside magazines
1998
A Sanctuary GIS for mapping resource management information is made available for the first time
January 1998
The Citizen’s Watershed Monitoring Network gets underway
January/February 1998
More than fifty live and dead oiled birds are found on Sanctuary beaches from a tar ball incident off Point Reyes that killed or debilitated at least 600 marine birds
February 1998
A major El Niño storm causes flooding of Pajaro River; Moss Landing Harbor fills with sediment, trapping vessels; and Highway 1 in Big Sur closes at sixteen locations
February 27, 1998
New Sanctuary Superintendent William Douros spots a rare northern right whale off the Big Sur coast
March 1998
Robert Ballard’s JASON Project broadcasts from the Sanctuary for two weeks
May 1998
California sea lions give birth to pups on the Monterey breakwater for the first time
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| photo Stan Wilson for NOAA |
June 1998
A harmful algal bloom event in Monterey Bay kills more than 400 California sea lions along the central coast
June 1998
Goodbye El Niño, hello La Niña
June 11-12, 1998
The National Oceans Conference and Oceans Fair are held in Monterey. President Clinton and Vice President Gore visit the Sanctuary
July 1998
New regulations allowing limited collection of marine jade go into effect
Summer 1998
The Model Urban Runoff Program is up and running in Monterey and Santa Cruz
January 1999
The State of California’s Marine Life Management Act is enacted
March 1999
The first annual Ecosystem Observations report is released
May 1999
The Sustainable Seas Expeditions, a multi-year deep-water exploration project using the DeepWorker submersible and led by Dr. Sylvia Earle, visits the Sanctuary for the first time
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photo Kip Evans for National
Geographic Society |
May 1999
The first annual Student Summit is held, providing a forum for high school students to present marine science research projects to scientists and peers
August 5, 1999
The American Peregrine Falcon is removed from the federal threatened species list
September 1999
A new Sanctuary office opens in Santa Cruz
October 1999
The Sanctuary is named one of the top ten conservation
accomplishments—“paradises preserved”—of the past 100 years by Audubon magazine
October 1999
The Agricultural and Rural Lands Action Plan is released
November 1999
A new bathymetric and topographic map of the Sanctuary is released
2000
A special agent from NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement is assigned to the Sanctuary
April 22, 2000
The first annual Snapshot Day is held, using volunteers to monitor water quality in watersheds throughout the Sanctuary
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photo Kip Evans for National
Geographic Society |
May 26, 2000
A vessel traffic agreement receives final international approval in London, moving large commercial vessels, oil barges, hazardous materials carriers, and tankers further offshore
Summer 2000
The pilot program for S.E.A. Lab Monterey Bay is held
Summer 2000
The Sustainable Seas Expeditions return to the Sanctuary
August 2000
A harmful algal bloom event in Monterey Bay affects marine mammals, sardines, anchovies, and krill populations
September 2000
A satellite tag is used for the first time on a leatherback turtle in Monterey Bay
October 2000
Sanctuary staff complete the plan for an ecosystem monitoring program—SIMoN (Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network)
October 2000
A new southern office in San Simeon is established
October 2000
Team OCEAN, a new kayaker outreach and education program, begins
October 3, 2000
The final Kelp Management Report is released
October 10, 2000
The first annual “First Flush” storm drain monitoring event occurs during the first major storm of the season
November 2000
Reauthorization of the National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS) Act occurs; the NMS budget grows significantly (to $32.5 million); the number of Monterey Bay Sanctuary staff expands to twenty
January 2001
The Sanctuary releases its multicultural education plan, M.E.R.I.T.O.
April 2001
The joint management plan review process begins with internal program review
May 30, 2001
A rare northern right whale is sighted in Monterey Bay by Sanctuary Cruises, a local whale watching company
September 2001
A comprehensive continental shelf map for the Sanctuary is released by the USGS
September 2001
The first interpretive exhibit of the Sanctuary Scenic Trail is installed in Santa Cruz
November 2001
The State of the Sanctuary Report is released, as the first of twenty public scoping meetings for the joint management plan review is held
December 2001
Monterey Bay and Gulf of the Farallones sanctuaries open a joint office in Half Moon Bay
Ten Years of Technological Advances Result in Improved Sampling Techniques
As anyone who has bought a new phone, stereo, or computer recently will testify, everyday personal technologies are developing at an extraordinary pace. The same holds true for advances in the tools available for studying the sea. It was not long ago that the only way scientists could examine the organisms living 100 feet or more below the ocean surface was to drag a net through the water column or along the bottom. Now we are used to seeing tools like remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) exploring the great depths of the ocean and discovering new species and processes on an almost daily basis.
During the ten years since the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was designated, several new technologies have been developed and are now being used to survey, monitor, and understand our regional marine environment better. For example, thanks to high-resolution side-scan sonar and multibeam survey techniques, simple seafloor maps have now evolved into detailed bathymetric profiles and habitat characterizations. Similarly, our understanding of when, where, and how coastal erosion occurs has been extended greatly: rather than standard visual beach profile surveys, scanning airborne laser altimetry (LIDAR) is now used to measure and monitor changes to cliffs, bluffs, dunes, and beaches precisely.
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| The integration of new sensors into autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) like this one represents an exciting advance in oceanographic sampling. photo Todd Walsh 2001 MBARI |
Several new advances in oceanographic sampling have also provided invaluable information on the Sanctuary. Precise and durable field sensors that measure a variety of physical, chemical, and biological parameters are constantly being developed and deployed on traditional platforms such as ships and moorings. However, what is truly exciting is the integration of these new sensors on innovative sampling systems such as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). It will not be long before a fleet of torpedo-like AUVs is programmed to sample various aspects of the water column continuously and provide a more spatially and temporally comprehensive understanding of oceanographic processes throughout Monterey Bay.
Other technologies that are now part of our everyday sampling packages provide critical oceanographic information without ever getting wet. Remote sensing systems such as Coastal Radar (CODAR) and the Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS) satellite give us a much more complete understanding of ocean conditions—such as wind driven circulation patterns and primary productivity—and how they are changing through time. A system currently under development can even identify and map different biological communities and seafloor types as much as ten meters below the ocean’s surface using hyperspectral images taken from a low-flying aircraft.
Scientific advances over the past ten years have also enabled us to understand marine life in ways only dreamed about previously. For example, standard tagging studies, where several animals are marked and then a few recovered (the researchers hope) to provide insight to migration patterns, have now been replaced by satellite tags that can continuously track individuals as they move around the world. Similarly, video cameras and various small sensor packages are now commonly placed on (and in some cases in) fishes, marine mammals, and sea turtles to study both their behavior patterns and physiology. These tools can now also be linked with satellite technology to send real-time data back to the lab.
Recent developments in the area of molecular biology have also led to an amazing new understanding of marine life. Scientists can now determine how closely related different individuals of a species are to answer important ecological questions of dispersal and recruitment. Molecular tools can also be used to address critical management concerns such as providing an early warning of potential hazards to marine life and human health.
Naturally occurring harmful algal blooms (HABs) provide another example. These phenomena can cause sickness and death in a variety of marine organisms like seabirds and marine mammals as well as humans who eat contaminated seafood. Previously, HABs were identified by either the presence of sick and dead animals, by analyzing shellfish tissues, or by periodically sampling the water directly and identifying harmful algae under a microscope in the lab. These approaches were often imprecise and typically only identified a problem after it was too late. A new automated system that uses molecular probes designed to identify specific species of toxic algae has been developed and will solve these problems. This system can be placed directly in the field and will send data back to the lab in real time, detecting whether harmful algae are pre- sent and in what concentrations, thus allowing early warning preparations.
These are just a few examples of recent technological advances that allow us to sample and study the Sanctuary better. Like advances in everyday personal technologies, there are almost too many to list. Look-ing back over how things have changed over the past ten years, it is exciting to imagine what is still to come.
Mario Tamburri
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
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