Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve and Big Creek State Marine Reserve

Protected by the Santa Lucia Mountains and rocky cliffs, and included within the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the Big Sur coast includes some of the most pristine coastal habitats in central California. In the center of this area, the University of California Natural Reserve System and the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) operate two adjacent natural reserves. The Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve extends from the rocky shoreline up through redwood forest, coastal scrub, coastal grassland, mixed conifer-hardwood forest, oak woodland, pine woodland, and chemise chaparral, topping at more than 3,000 feet (910 meters) above sea level. The Big Creek State Marine Reserve is co-administered with the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG). It begins at the shoreline and extends offshore to a depth of 300 feet (ninety-two meters), including rocky shoreline, sand beaches, rocky reefs and pinnacles, sand canyons, boulder fields, sandy bottom, and other soft bottom habitats. Formerly known as the Big Creek Ecological Reserve, this no-take marine reserve is dedicated to “scientific research related to the management and enhancement of marine resources.” With a combined area of more than 5,600 acres (22.6 square kilometers), these reserves comprise a unique mountain/shoreline/ocean shelf ecosystem, protected against future development and available for scientific and educational purposes.

View of Big Creek Canyon and flanking ridges showing forest and grassland habitats. Big Creek joins Devil’s Creek (center left) and runs down the canyon to the ocean. photo Geoff Phillips

At these sites the university’s primary mission is to contribute to the understanding of ecological processes as they occur in intact, protected natural systems through on-site research and education and to provide a benchmark for interpreting long-term environmental change. To this end the university supports facilities and programs at the site that are carefully designed to balance long-term protection with teaching, research, and public service. These currently include two in-residence staff, overnight accommodations for visitors (both indoor and camping), library and specimen collections, a carefully managed road and trail system, automated weather stations, and a database and Internet web site designed to support teaching and research.

View of Big Creek Cove. This is the principal access point for researchers entering the marine reserve. photo John Smiley

The centerpiece of the reserves is Big Creek, a perennial stream with four major forks, fed by hundreds of free-flowing springs. Originating in the Ventana Wilderness Area to the northeast, Big Creek and tributaries maintain a flow of more than three cubic feet per second even in the driest years. This provides permanent habitat for anadromous steelhead (Oncorhychus mykiss) and Pacific lamprey (Lampetra tridentata) coming up from the ocean, as well as for freshwater stream residents such as Water Ouzels (Cinclus mexicanus), Belted Kingfishers (Ceryle alcyon), and resident rainbow trout (Oncorhychus mykiss). The mouth of Big Creek is spanned by a 500-foot concrete arch bridge, which carries traffic 100 feet overhead, abating noise and creating a safe access point for wildlife and reserve visitors to travel down to the shoreline. Big Creek enters the ocean in Big Creek cove, a rocky inlet protected to the north and west by a promontory rock and reef. Although not a harbor, the cove does provide a relatively safe landing for skiffs and inflatable craft and is the principal access point for entering the marine reserve. Several studies and surveys focus on the creek, including monthly water quality measurements, steelhead monitoring by classes and volunteers, steelhead research by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), a volunteer stream insect survey, and a stream gravel and geomorphology survey by UC Berkeley. Stream flow data are available. Square Black Rock, a massive cube rising forty feet above sea level and surrounded by rock shelf, reefs, and pinnacles, lies 1,000 feet offshore. Between the rock and the shoreline is the Big Creek kelp forest, dominated by giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) and bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana). The kelp forest sustains dense populations of kelp forest fishes and other organisms; each spring and summer it also serves as a nursery for up to 150 harbor seal pups (Phoca vitulina) born on beaches within the reserve. Offshore from the rock and to the south of the mouth of Big Creek lies a soft-bottom plain that extends from the beaches to the outer edge of the reserve. A steep coastal slope begins at about the edge of the reserve and drops sharply to a system of submarine canyons and ridges.

The reserve is an important site for counting and measuring fish populations not subject to fishing pressure. This is a diver’s eye view of the reserve. photo Steve Clabuesch

CDFG and NMFS have conducted surveys of subtidal habitats and fish assemblages and have jointly produced a map of the marine reserve bottom habitats as well as baseline data on the numbers, species, and sizes of fish inside and outside of the marine reserve. More recently NMFS tested a new laser scanning technology in the marine reserve in an effort to improve techniques for counting, measuring, and identifying fishes. Its findings have highlighted the value of no-take marine reserves in sustaining larger and more numerous fish. The deep-water surveys have also revealed a need to capture additional deep-water habitats within the reserve so as to protect a representative sample of habitats, particularly hard-bottom habitats in waters deeper than 100 feet. One proposal would extend the boundary to three miles from shore, which would extend the depth to about 2,500 feet (760 meters).

UCSC faculty and the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Study of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) have recently set up a long-term study of biological community assemblages inside and outside the reserve. Their goal is to understand ecosystem processes and environmental change, both human-induced and natural, and to communicate their findings in a constructive way to policy makers, resource managers, and the general public. They chose to work at Big Creek because of the protection offered by the marine reserve as well as for the opportunity to work at the mouth of a pristine wild stream. The reserve also sponsors the Big Sur Skiff Fishing Survey, a cooperative agreement among a group of commercial fishermen who launch skiffs across the beaches in Big Sur and catch nearshore fishes for market. The survey generates fishery-dependent data on fish sizes and assemblages and has an eleven-year record for about ten species caught in waters outside the marine reserve. The data show fluctuations in the average length of some species, but overall, the mean length has not declined, suggesting that healthy fish populations may remain in many of those areas. In addition to long-term projects, the reserve also supports graduate and undergraduate thesis projects. Current graduate student projects range from studying rockfish recruitment and genetics to intertidal community responses to disturbance from highway construction and maintenance. Undergraduate projects include measurements of kelp forest fish sizes inside and outside of the marine reserve boundaries.

The combined Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve/Big Creek State Marine Reserve offers an ideal situation for studies of water quality, coastal processes, and other areas of investigation into natural ecosystems. Realizing this potential requires implementation of program and facilities improvements, carried out in a way that carefully protects natural values yet facilitates access and study. The long-term goal for these reserves is for them to contribute significantly to our knowledge of coastal ecosystems, now and into the foreseeable future.

John Smiley
Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve