Cover
& Introduction

Sanctuary Program
Accomplishments

Beach Systems

Rocky Intertidal
& Subtidal Systems

Open Ocean
& Deep Water
Systems

The Physical
Environment

Wetlands
& Watersheds

Endangered
& Threatened
Species

Marine Mammals

Bird Populations

Harvested
Species

Exotic Species

Human
Interactions

Site Profile:
The San Juan

Credits

2003 Program Activities for the
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary

Dedicated in 1992, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary is the largest of thirteen sanctuaries nationwide managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Encompassing more than 5,300 square miles of water, its boundaries stretch along the central California coast from the Marin County headlands south to Cambria. The sanctuary features many diverse communities, including wave-swept beaches, lush kelp forests, and one of the deepest underwater canyons in North America. An abundance of life, from tiny plankton to huge blue whales, thrives in these waters.

Our mission – to understand and protect the coastal ecosystem and cultural resources of central California – is carried out through the work of four program divisions: resource protection, education and outreach, research, and program operations. A summary of each program’s major accomplishments and activities for 2003 follows. This year’s report also includes a review of activities surrounding the Joint Management Plan Review (JMPR).

Sensitive habitats and species, a long stretch of adjacent, populated coastline, and multiple uses of the marine environment all lead to a variety of resource protection issues in the sanctuary region. The goal of the Resource Protection Program is to initiate and carry out strategies to reduce or prevent detrimental human impacts.

Sanctuary volunteers conducting watershed monitoring photo Bridget Hoover for NOAA/MBNMS

Effective protection requires partnerships with many other agencies and organizations. This year the activities and partnerships of the Resource Protection team involved conducting evaluations and leading a multitude of stakeholders in the planning and review of a range of issues for the JMPR, including marine protected areas, tidepools, dredge disposal, wildlife disturbance, motorized personal watercraft, coastal armoring, desalination, trawling habitat impacts, krill harvesting, beach closures, and water quality. Many key partnerships were strengthened through these groups, and we began drawing on them for the long-term task of carrying out the draft plans.

Enforcement took on a new focus as we recruited a uniformed officer who improved our outreach capabilities, visibility in the field, and ability to enforce sanctuary regulations. The new officer already has sixty cases under investigation, ranging from harassment of marine mammals and unauthorized sanctuary discharges to low-flying aircraft. Two trainings were conducted for forty enforcement partners from the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), California State Parks, and local governments to provide information on the sanctuary and cross-deputize rangers who will enforce sanctuary regulations. It was a busy year for emergency response as well, with seventy calls requiring either follow-up or site visits, including field work to ensure adequate removal of fuel and oil from vessel groundings.

Brad Damitz for NOAA/MBNMS

The Resource Protection team reviewed fifty-four permit requests (37 approved; 5 pending; 7 no permit required; 3 withdrawn or abandoned; 2 denied), issuing permits or authorizations for activities such as seabed disturbance, discharges to the sanctuary, and overflights below 1,000 feet in restricted zones. Various conditions were imposed on these activities to reduce or eliminate threats to the sanctuary. We also reviewed and commented on a variety of projects, plans, or policies under development by other agencies to ensure that they adequately protected sanctuary resources. Plans reviewed ranged from municipal issues such as seawalls, to county general plans, to state fishery management plans.

The Water Quality Protection Program and its many partners continued efforts to reduce contaminated runoff in the sanctuary’s watersheds and complete a detailed evaluation of the implementation of four completed plans. Carrying out the sanctuary’s Agriculture and Rural Lands Plan, staff at the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Foundation, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, County Farm Bureaus, Resource Conservation Districts, and others collaborated with local farmers and ranchers in thirteen watershed working groups to improve sediment, nitrate, and pesticide management. In our local cities, we conducted six technical trainings with public works and planning staff on management practices to reduce contaminants in urban runoff.

By offering a variety of trainings and regional events, the Sanctuary Citizen Watershed Monitoring Network continued to involve a large number of volunteers in water quality monitoring activities. The popularity of our annual Snapshot Day led to its expansion into a state-wide coastal event this year, and the 155 volunteers who collected water samples in the sanctuary’s watersheds found many areas high in nitrates and coliform bacteria. Urban Watch, a summertime volunteer monitoring program conducted with local cities, included toxicity analyses for the first time, in collaboration with Granite Canyon Laboratory. First Flush, a volunteer event to monitor contaminants flushed off streets by the first heavy rains, expanded to four cities: Pacific Grove, Monterey, Santa Cruz, and Half Moon Bay. This program found very high levels of mortality for fish larvae and mussels exposed to contaminants from our local storm drains. Staff have been working with local cities and counties to use these data to identify sources, reduce levels of contamination, improve permit programs, and target public education.

As we head into 2004, the Resource Protection team will con-tinue our existing efforts and move ahead with initial phases of implementation for the many new plans in the JMPR. We look forward to continuing joint efforts with our partners to protect sanctuary resources.

Student Silvino Suarez identifies a crab during a crab monitoring project at Elkhorn Slough Reserve. photo Karen Grimmer for NOAA/MBNMS

The goal of our Education and Outreach Program – to promote understanding and stewardship of the sanctuary – is carried out, in large part, through interpretation. Historically, interpretation has come in the form of giving meaning to the resources and sharing it in a form that is pleasing and understandable to others. Interpretation of our natural resources, the issues facing them, the research we conduct to understand them, and how we can all protect them is at the heart of the Education and Outreach Program. This year, interpretation took on new meaning – that of actual translation from the English language to Spanish, in the form of our MERITO (Multicultural Education for Resource Issues Threatening Oceans) program.

Piloted in late 2002, MERITO has blossomed into a very active and highly participatory program for the Latino communities in the Monterey Bay region. With funding support from the National Marine Sanctuary Program headquarters, we hired two dedicated staff who were able to: reach more than 5,500 Spanish-speaking individuals with direct programming; develop and field-test a full-year middle school curriculum focused on watershed and ocean protection; provide in-the-field experiences for 180 Hispanic community members; translate and print materials for use at Elkhorn Slough; publish a bilingual marine-themed storybook – Coralito’s Bay; launch a dual language web site; develop assessment methods for all MERITO programming; host two internships through California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB); and secure funding to train twenty-five Hispanic-serving teachers in marine resource issues.

Families explore and learn about sanctuary wildlife during MERITO’s kayak day. photo Michelle Templeton for NOAA/MBNMS

Marine issue interpretation continued through the year (in English too) through a variety of new programming. The very popular Threatened & Thriving poster series was joined by a complementary lecture series. Local artist Kirsten Carlson’s artwork is stunning and clearly represents the six threatened and six thriving species highlighted by the program. This popular topic was also chosen as the theme for this year’s Sanctuary Currents Symposium, Threatened and Thriving Species of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The symposium, co-hosted by the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments and CSUMB, was the largest to date and drew clear connections between actions on land and their consequences at sea.

Interpretation of resource issues continued in the tidepools with the adoption of a student-centered intertidal monitoring program – LiMPETS (Long-term Monitoring Program and Experiential Training for Students). The program, developed and initiated by UCSC professor emeritus Dr. John Pearse, has been adopted by all five national marine sanctuaries on the West Coast, bringing teachers and students into the field to monitor the intertidal zone at specific locations. A dedicated web site exists (http://limpets.noaa.gov), and it will be followed by a database that will allow students along the West Coast to input and compare data collected over time at their sites and others.

Interpretation of data became a new focus for the education team this year, with the September exploration of the Montebello (a Union Oil tanker, sunk by a Japanese submarine in 1941, that lies just south of the sanctuary boundary near Cambria). It became clear that having an education staff member as part of the expedition was the best way to help us report on the expedition’s activities. By understanding what takes place on such cruises, we can showcase some of the exciting research the sanctuary is conducting and help everyone make the connection between the value of research and its role in protecting the sanctuary. We hope to participate fully this next research season and bring even more of the sanctuary to the public.

Finally, and with great excitement, the sanctuary chose a location for its proposed interpretive center – in Santa Cruz – to be developed with various partners. This is an exceptional opportunity for the program to showcase this sanctuary and the larger sanctuary system, encourage stewardship, and promote the many ways to enjoy this resource. Concurrently, two smaller interpretive facilities are in initial planning stages, one in the southern region at William R. Hearst Memorial State Beach and the other to the north at Pigeon Point Light Station. These smaller facilities are being developed in partnership with California State Parks and should be open by the fall of 2004 for all to enjoy.

At an intense pace, the research team continues to provide information to resource managers and the public, while conducting research to learn more about the sanctuary ecosystem.

photo Andrew DeVogelaere for NOAA/MBNMS

This year, the Research Program worked closely with the Sanctuary Advisory Council (SAC), working groups, and the general public in revising the sanctuary management plan. It is clear from this work that much basic science still must be done, and that we will have to monitor trends in natural resources in order to develop and evaluate the best ways to manage the sanctuary. While developing our new management plan, we continued to address questions such as how the invasive alga, Undaria, is spreading up the California coast and if it can be removed from Monterey Harbor (see p. 21). Another effort, now complete, was supporting the study of effects of human access to the rocky shores of Point Pinos (see p. 7). What we’ve learned at Point Pinos and in Monterey Harbor is being incorporated into our revised management plan, so these lessons can be applied throughout the central California coast. At the national level, the federal government is planning to develop an integrated ocean observing system in which buoys and other instrumentation will provide real-time and predictive assessments of ocean currents and other parameters, somewhat like weather reports. Look forward to reading more about this in future Ecosystem Observations issues, as – because of the aggregation of world-class marine research institutions in the sanctuary region – this area has been selected for two pilot ocean observing projects: the Center for Integrated Marine Technology and the Center for Integrated Coastal Observatory Research and Education.

The ability to share central California monitoring information among a range of interest groups, from the general public to scientists, has made great strides with the release of the Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network (SIMoN) web site (see www.mbnms-simon.org). This portal provides general information on sanctuary habitats, relevant maps and figures associated with these habitats and important sanctuary issues, summary information on more than fifty monitoring projects, education links, and much more. We have a great opportunity in our sanctuary because of the wealth of information gathered by our many regional scientists; however, this also provides a great challenge in organizing the information so that it is available in a form that can be located and used easily. Scientists and decision makers are already using the site extensively, but we want to hear more from the public. Let us know your monitoring information needs and desires by viewing the web site and clicking on a comment button (at the bottom of every page). Help us make this a community site – the first place we all look when we want information on the health of our sanctuary.

The staff has been busy developing and tracking other SIMoN-sponsored efforts. These include a new mapping project to characterize shallow (less than eighty meters) regions of the sanctuary; assessing the impacts of the Duke Power plant’s offshore, warm water plume; developing a model of water circulation in Elkhorn Slough; describing the plankton and mudflat organisms of Elkhorn Slough; ongoing sanctuary-wide surveys of kelp forest canopies, including testing new aerial imaging systems; and completing the sixth year of our Beach COMBERS volunteer program, in which we continue to learn about our offshore sanctuary by surveying beachcast marine birds and mammals along our beaches. The sanctuary facilitates research by providing program funds, obtaining grants to pass along to our partners, and simply making people aware of interesting questions; however, this year we have taken advantage of our in-house expertise to become more active in a series of research cruises (see p. 4). Results from all of the above work was presented at seven scientific conferences this year, two of which were international.

Sanctuary Research Cruises

photo Chad King for NOAA/MBNMS In partnership with many other research institutions, the sanctuary research team organized and participated in five major research cruises in 2003. Using NOAA’s 224-foot R/V McArthur, we completed geologic mapping of the Partington Canyon area, off the Big Sur coast. This information will help us characterize an area proposed for communication cable routes, link onshore and offshore sediment movement processes that are critical to understanding impacts of potential dumping options for the maintenance of Highway 1 (also see p. 6), and provide a habitat basis for ongoing discussions on the appropriateness of designating no-take reserves. Also along the Big Sur Coast, we used the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary’s 62-foot R/V Shearwater to begin a detailed assessment of kelp forests and rocky shores that may be impacted by landslides and road maintenance operations. This information will be used in developing the Big Sur Coast Highway Management Plan. With MBARI’s 117-foot R/V Western Flyer, 110-foot R/V Pt. Lobos, and remotely operated vehicles, a diverse team of scientists completed an environmental assessment on a science cable linking a hydrophone on the Pioneer Seamount to Half Moon Bay. This information is being used to develop national policies on cable laying in marine sanctuaries and to make a decision on the fate of this cable. The two-person submersible Delta was used in a combined mission with NOAA Fisheries and the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Objectives of this cruise included initiating long-term monitoring of fish and invertebrate populations, assessing changes in fish populations by comparing results with previous surveys in Soquel Canyon, mapping deep-sea habitats, and assessing the structural status of the Montebello. The location of long-term monitoring stations will be determined based on this initial survey, and we found that the Montebello has not been leaking oil. The diverse expertise of sanctuary staff and the outstanding scientists and research institutions in the region make it possible to address management needs for information on complex issues such as these.

A busy year unfolded as we continue our review of the sanctuary’s management plan. All staff contributed to the review, hosting numerous meetings to develop a set of action plans that will eventually make up a new management plan for the sanctuary. Beginning in January 2003, we organized and facilitated sixteen different working groups, who provided key recommendations on a wide range of issues identified as priorities during the review’s scoping phase in 2002.

More than 350 people attended a public hearing in Santa Cruz to provide review and comment on the action plans for the Joint Management Plan Review. photo Brad Damitz for NOAA/MBNMS

Working groups comprised of staff, stakeholders, SAC members, and content experts characterized each issue – developing strategies and proposed actions for coastal development, ecosystem protection, water quality, partnerships, administrative operations, wildlife disturbance, and many other issues. A total of 223 experts and stakeholders participated in sixty-six meetings to develop the first draft of action plans. During the summer, these plans were presented to the public and the SAC for their review and comment. After much deliberation, the SAC provided sixty-eight specific recommended modifications to the action plans. All together, the working groups and SAC recommended 567 specific actions for inclusion in the new management plan.

In the coming months, the staff will incorporate these recommendations and put the finishing touches on the action plans, completing a draft management plan. We will release this document along with a Draft Environmental Impact Statement in the fall of 2004, and the public will be invited to attend hearings to provide comment on both. A final management plan is scheduled for release in 2005.

A management plan is the guiding document for each sanctuary, identifying how it will operate over the next five to ten years. The plan sets priorities for resource protection, education, and research programs as well as resources, staff required, regulatory goals, and implementation priorities. This is the first time the management plan for the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary has been reviewed since its designation in 1992. The National Marine Sanctuaries Act requires that each sanctuary periodically review its management plan, ensuring that it will continue to conserve, protect, and enhance its nationally significant living and cultural resources. For more information about the JMPR, please visit http://sanctuaries.nos.noaa.gov/jointplan/.

Our Program Operations team continued to provide necessary administrative and operational support, allowing us to stay focused on our mission and goals. In an ongoing effort to expand outreach and education in the southern region, we were offered an opportunity by California State Parks in San Simeon to rent and refurbish a building at William R. Hearst Memorial State Beach to serve as a new sanctuary office and interpretive facility. Our patrol vessel Sharkcat has two new engines to monitor permitted activities and support education and research efforts better.

Our staff worked closely with the SAC, dedicating a majority of time to the JMPR. In June we presented the SAC with a series of action plans addressing each priority management issue. At least 350 community members attended a public hearing in late July, voicing their opinions about the plans to the council. In all, 176 public comments were received. During deliberations over three days, the SAC provided its recommended modifications to the plans, which staff will incorporate as they produce a draft management plan.

Other topics addressed by the SAC included reauthorization of the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, future membership composition of the council, and cruise ships. Several new members joined the SAC this year, including new representatives from the CDFG, California State Parks, and the U.S. Coast Guard. New at-large and tourism alternate seats were also appointed.

The Monterey Bay Sanctuary Foundation continued to support the sanctuary’s mission, playing an integral role in the administration and management of the Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network (SIMoN). SIMoN staff grew this year to include two scientists, an outreach specialist, and a data analyst, and we all celebrated as the new SIMoN web site (www.mbnms-simon.org) was launched in October.

As we come to the close of another busy year, we look forward to the continued support of our volunteers and partners as we carry out the sanctuary’s mission. For more information about the sanctuary, please visit our web site at http://montereybay.noaa.gov.