Research Technical Report

Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Historical Ecology

Phase I: Historical Sources Survey Report

Executive Summary

Historical ecological research is a way to document the environmental history of an area, providing information to resource managers, and ecologists that are trying to make sense of current trends occurring in altered ecosystems. However for scientists and historians trying to characterize historical baselines or gain insight into historical populations, it is important to gather historical information to assess what data are available before scientific questions can be asked. This report presents the results of a historic sources survey of documents and manuscripts relevant to NOAA’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS) historical ecology. The initial research phase, as reported on here, provides methods on research and examines the breadth of these sources and their efficacy in providing information about the marine animal populations and environmental history of MBNMS. This report presents a summary of the hundreds of documents found in federal, state, and local repositories that relate directly or indirectly to the historical ecology of MBNMS and from which biological indicators of marine ecosystems may be derived.