#Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary

[montereybayaquarium]

Happy National Marine Sanctuary Day! 🌊🎉

Today, we celebrate our protected waters throughout the U.S., including the ocean and the Great Lakes.

We have even more to sea-lebrate this year as we look forward to the official designation of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary on California’s Central Coast. 

Once final, 4,500 square miles of coastal waters from Morro Bay to the Channel Islands will receive important protections to help safeguard its ecological, historical, and cultural ocean resources. It will become California’s fifth national marine sanctuary, joining Monterey Bay, Cordell Bank, Greater Farallones, and Channel Islands national marine sanctuaries.

Learn more about this historic designation.

📸 Photo courtesy of @noaasanctuaries

[noaasanctuaries]

Meet Dr. Nancy Foster Scholar, Serina Moheed! Serina is a PhD student at the University of California, Davis studying host-pathogen relationships in marine coastal ecosystems. Join Serina as she brings us through a day in her life in Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

[bowsonmyblunts]

Mercenary

The dimly lit ceiling light burned a soft pink through your eyelids. You didn't want to wake up, not yet,

Your whole body bolted forward to the ice cold water that trickled down your body. You blinked at the shadow in front of you. Your handed down dark army green tactical vest drenched in water. "talk about rude awakening..." You grunted out squinting at the person in front of you; or more specifically people. "Whatever it is no. I'm not interested." You spit in a raspy voice looking down at your ashy black boots. Your hands shuffled against the burning ropes on your wrist.

"Come on Oliveria you haven't even heard what we had to say." Your eyes shot up venomously at the blue eyed women.

"Don't you fucking call me that Jill." Your voice was small but dangerous. Your eyes darted around the room: Rebecca Chamber, Chris Redfield, Claire Redfield. Jill opened her mouth to spit an insult at you but any irritation in her body left as she saw the gilt of Carlos in your eyes. You saw the way her eyes softened. You sighed and rested your arms on the top of your vest.

"Whaddaya want?" Chris's eyes widened and he swiftly brought his hand to his gun. Claire quickly grabbed at him and shook her head.

"We need help," She hands you a folder.

Twelve cases wherein people had died after being mysteriously infected by an advanced strain of the T-virus and were found with needle marks on their bodies.

Claire followed your eyes interrupting as you had gotten the gist of the operation.

"I discovered an orca infected with the same T-virus strain as the victims from Chris's case swimming near the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, which there had also happened to have been several missing whales." She handed you another folder; this containing photographs. Your face remained still as you looked over the grotesque imagery. Your eyes caught the name of an island.

"The victims had visited Alcatraz Island before they died..." You finally concluded. Jill nodded slowly and cautiously. She knew that if you refused they'd barely be a chance they would make it out alive without a serious amount of casualties. The tension around was thick. You stood up and dusted off your clothes.

"Alright let's do this, and maybe next time you could just tap me on the shoulder, thought I was gonna get tortured or something." You grinned walking through them and out the door.

SORRY I HAVEN'T POSTED just wanted to write down this idea sorry i know the beginning is a little shitty, I changed my idea

Another short story cos I have no motivation to write a full one. maybe part 2 with leon.

[graveyardrabbit]

Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Visitor Center, San Francisco

[nj-stone]

There's a whale in the San Francisco Bay right now, something never before seen in March https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/whale-is-in-the-San-Francisco-Bay-right-now-photos-16029835.php via @SFGate

[typhlonectes]

GOOD NEWS:  Blue whale numbers boom off San Francisco coast

The largest animals on Earth have gathered 30 miles offshore from San Francisco in potentially record-breaking numbers this week.

Endangered blue whales are feeding on abundant krill in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. Researchers recorded seeing 47 blue whales a short distance from the Farallon Islands on Saturday, and NOAA marine animal experts are describing this season for blues as “exceptional.”

“It’s been an excellent year for upwelling, for ocean productivity. But to have 47 blues feeding in one area, each can eat up to 6-tons of tiny shrimp-like krill per day, probably sets a record. The scientists on the island could not see their entire feeding group, so 47 is a conservative number,” NOAA Greater Farallones spokeswoman Mary Jane Schramm said...

Read more: https://www.kron4.com/news/blue-whale-numbers-boom-off-san-francisco-coast

[sciencespies]

Turns out there's another ocean creature that scares the hell out of great white sharks

https://sciencespies.com/nature/turns-out-theres-another-ocean-creature-that-scares-the-hell-out-of-great-white-sharks/

Turns out there's another ocean creature that scares the hell out of great white sharks

Just when you think orcas couldn’t possible be any more awesome, they get even better. A study in 2019 showed these whales are really good at scaring off the most feared beast in the sea. Yep. Orcas have toppled the great white shark off their ‘apex predator’ throne.

A team of marine scientists found that great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) will make themselves extremely scarce whenever they detect the presence of orcas (Orcinus orca).

“When confronted by orcas, white sharks will immediately vacate their preferred hunting ground and will not return for up to a year, even though the orcas are only passing through,” said marine ecologist Salvador Jorgensen of Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The team collected data from two sources: the comings and goings of 165 great white sharks GPS tagged between 2006 and 2013; and 27 years of population data of orcas, sharks and seals collected by Point Blue Conservation Science at Southeast Farallon Island off the coast of San Francisco.

The team also documented four encounters between great white sharks and orcas in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, which they could then analyse against the other data.

The data revealed that whenever orcas showed up in the region – as in, every single time – the sharks made a swift exit, stage left, and stayed away until the next season. They would choof off within minutes, even when the orcas only hung around for less than an hour.

And there was a surprising beneficiary: the elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostrous) that inhabit the coastline and are preyed upon by the great white sharks.

“On average we document around 40 elephant seal predation events by white sharks at Southeast Farallon Island each season,” said marine biologist Scot Anderson of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. “After orcas show up, we don’t see a single shark and there are no more kills.”

Transient orcas have also been known to eat the elephant seals, but these visiting whales only show up infrequently. Resident killer whales feed on fish.

The sharks didn’t always go far. Sometimes they would only move a safe distance along the coast, where they were close to different elephant seal colonies. Sometimes, though, they would head out to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the region dubbed the White Shark Café.

These are not tiny sharks, either. Some of them measure over 5.5 metres (18 feet) from nose to tail, and are probably pretty used to getting their own way wherever they go. But 5.5 metres is on the small side for orcas, which can prey on whales much larger than that, so they’re unlikely to be pushed around easily.

In addition, orcas have been observed preying on great white sharks around the world, including near the Farallon Islands. It’s still a little unclear why, but the orca-killed sharks that wash ashore (one is pictured at the top of the page) are missing their livers – their delicious, oil-rich, full-of-vitamins livers.

Whether the sharks are instinctively avoiding the predators that can so handily eviscerate them, however, or whether transients in the past have bullied the sharks away from the elephant seal food source is still an unknown.

“I think this demonstrates how food chains are not always linear,” Jorgensen said.

“So-called lateral interactions between top predators are fairly well known on land but are much harder to document in the ocean. And because this one happens so infrequently, it may take us a while longer to fully understand the dynamics.”

The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

A version of this article was first published in April 2019.

#Nature

[csnews]

Rare Hubbs’ beaked whale found washed ashore, deceased, at Point Reyes

Peter Fimrite - August 20, 2019

An extremely rare beaked whale was found washed up on a beach at Point Reyes National Seashore this week, prompting animated excitement among normally self-possessed marine scientists.

The dead 9-foot-long whale was found Monday morning on Drakes Beach by participants in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Beach Watch Program, which surveys beaches along the coast every two weeks.

“I’ve been doing this for 16 years now, so whenever you find something different like that it’s exciting,” said Dominique Richard, a retired mathematician, who with his survey partner, Gordon Bennett, found the animal just above the tide line. “It’s rare, and it was completely out of the blue. It was totally unexpected.”

The decomposing carcass had been scavenged a bit by sharks, so it wasn’t immediately clear what species it was. Richard and Bennett measured the whale, which they at first thought was a bottlenose dolphin, and took numerous photographs.

Biologists with the California Academy of Sciences and National Park Service scientists hauled away the entire carcass Tuesday and plan to conduct a necropsy, but they have tentatively identified it as a newborn Hubbs’ beaked whale.

Tissue samples were sent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla (San Diego County) to confirm the species. That will take about a month.

“The best guess at this point, without having verified its species, though, is that it may have died from “maternal separation” — being orphaned,” said Mary Jane Schramm, spokeswoman for the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, based in San Francisco. “No other cause is suspected.”

Not much is known about the beaked whales except that they are the deepest diving whales. Of the 22 known species, the Cuvier’s, Hubbs’, Baird’s and Blainville’s beaked whales are known to visit Northern California.

The adult whales can measure 13 feet to 43 feet in length and weigh from 1 ton to 13 tons.

One of eight tagged Cuvier’s beaked whales in a 2013 study at the Channel Islands in Southern California was recorded diving to 9,874 feet and staying there for 2 hours and 17 minutes. It was the deepest dive by a whale ever recorded and so unexpected that scientists thought at first that the monitoring equipment had malfunctioned.

Marine biologists still haven’t figured out how beaked whales are able to dive to such depths, where the pressure would kill other mammals.

“They are very cryptic and hard to spot. ... We know so little about beaked whales” because “extremely deep diving animals are rarely seen,” Schramm said. “They are so little studied that scientists cannot comfortably put them into a category.”

One thing that is known is that they are extremely sensitive to noises, especially sonar. The most notable sightings of the whales have occurred during mass stranding events during Navy sonar tests in the Bahamas, Mediterranean and around the Canary Islands, she said.

It is believed that sonar prompts the whales to panic and surface rapidly, causing decompression. Postmortems of stranded beaked whales after sonar tests have found hemorrhaging near the ears.

Sonar is not believed to be the cause of death for the Point Reyes whale, Schramm said, because Naval sonar exercises are not done in the Bay Area.

Beaked whales are named for their beaks, which are similar to those on dolphins. They also lack the central notch on their tail flukes that other whales have. Females of the species have teeth, but they generally do not break through the gums.

Schramm said the beaked whale might never have been found if it weren’t for the beach watch program, which has surveyed 54 beaches, from Point Arena in Mendocino County to Año Nuevo State Park in San Mateo County for the past 25 years.

A Hubbs’ whale was found alive on Ocean Beach in 1989. It survived for several days before succumbing despite round-the-clock care, Schramm said.

[hudsonespie]

Clean Marine Program Awards Shipping Companies for Slowing Speeds

The Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies program recognized 16 global shipping companies for reducing speeds to 10 knots or less in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Southern California Region in 2020. 

The voluntary program is an initiative to cut air pollution, protect endangered whales, and reduce underwater noise. The 2020 program ran from May 15, 2020 through November 15, 2020. 

Awards

Three award tiers and financial incentives recognize participating companies, based on the percent of distance their fleet traveled through the Vessel Speed Reduction (VSR) zones at speeds of 10 knots or less. Credit was only given if the average speed of a transit through an entire VSR Zone did not exceed 12 knots.

“We are delighted to be able to set an industry example by voluntarily reducing vessel speeds in areas where endangered whale species regularly feed, helping us improve the way we do business, while continuing to deeply care for our environment,” said Stanley Kwiaton, MSC General Manager of Port Operations - West Coast.

MSC, Hapag-Lloyd, Yang Ming, and MOL ACE notably achieved the Sapphire tier in the large company category (greater than 30 transits) by slowing down more than 800 transits, combined. Swire Shipping achieved the Sapphire tier in the small company category (less than 30 transits). For their outstanding commitment, all five of these companies earned the Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies Whale Tail award. 

“Biodiversity is an integral part of our sustainability strategy,” said Wolfram Guntermann, Director Regulatory Affairs & Sustainability at Hapag-Lloyd, calling the program a “remarkable initiative.” 

Seven companies – COSCO Shipping Lines, Evergreen, GALI, “K” Line, Maersk, Wallenius Wilhelmsen, and Swire Shipping – generously declined their financial incentive payment. Those funds will be reinvested in the 2021 program.

The 10-knot target follows the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) and the United States Coast Guard’s request for all vessels (300 gross tons or larger) to slow down during the months of peak blue, humpback, and fin whale abundance to protect these endangered whales from deadly ship strikes.

Ship strikes continue to be a global threat to all large whale populations. Reducing fatal ship strikes is a major priority of NOAA’s, especially in NOAA’s West Coast national marine sanctuaries.

“One of Yang Ming’s priorities has been promoting the sustainability of the ocean and coastal environments,” said Leo Chiang, Vice President of Marine Operations. “That is why we take immense pride in being a volunteer in the Blue Whales and Blue Skies Program.”

Ocean-going vessels transiting the California coast generate nitrogen oxides (NOx, a precursor to smog), sulfur oxides (SOx), particle pollution, and greenhouse gases. These vessels account for more than 200 tons of NOx per day emitted off the coast of California, which affects ozone levels onshore in many regions of the state. 

The VSR incentive program has expanded in scope and environmental benefits each year, including 2020, which marked the sixth year. The 2021 program began on May 15, 2021, and runs through November 15, 2021. Eighteen companies are currently enrolled in the 2021 program.

The Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies program is a collaborative effort by Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District; Ventura County Air Pollution Control District; Bay Area Air Quality Management District; Channel Islands, Greater Farallones, and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries; The Volgenau Foundation; California Marine Sanctuary Foundation; Greater Farallones Association; National Marine Sanctuary Foundation; and Environmental Defense Center.

from Storage Containers https://maritime-executive.com/article/clean-marine-program-awards-shipping-companies-for-slowing-speeds via http://www.rssmix.com/

[sharkstewards]

Celebrating and saving sharks at Virtual Sharktoberfest 2020 with Shark Stewards, the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary #whiteshark, #savesharks

[dayapart]

Rewatering

Mono Lake is being rewatered. Saline lakes are on the decline globally because of water diversions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_Lake

From the 30-year example of rewatering Mono Lake, it is clear that the rivers and aquifers of the Central Valley (California) can be rewatered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_%28California%29

Rewatering the Central Valley rivers and aquifers will increase the water flow through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, San Francisco Bay and to offshore marine sancturaries such as Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and managed fisheries such as at Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. https://farallones.noaa.gov/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordell_Bank_National_Marine_Sanctuary https://cordellbank.noaa.gov/visit/fishing.html

(via California_Terrain_Map.jpg (JPEG Image, 3000 × 2765 pixels) - Scaled (26%)) http://www.gelib.com/page/3

See also pinned map of selected locations. https://goo.gl/maps/Ga4egG4sMHSHPJiq8

[noaasanctuaries]

🥁 Drum roll, please! 🥁

We would like to introduce you to the winners of the 2023 Get Into Your Sanctuary Photo Contest.

Sanctuary Life

1st: Douglas Hoffman in Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary

2nd: Jean Zuo in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary

3rd: Douglas Croft in Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary

Sanctuary Recreation

1st: Chuck Graham in Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary

2nd: Daniel Eidsmoe in Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary

3rd: Bryan Dort in Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary

Sanctuary Views

1st: Bruce Sudweeks in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary

2nd: Martin McClure in Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary

3rd: Courtney Stanford in Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary

Sanctuaries at Home

1st: Laurie Santoro

2nd: Tina Morrison

3rd: Jenn Fletcher

Sanctuaries Around the World

1st: María Rodríguez-Salinas

2nd: Lawrence Alex Wu

3rd: Kayvon Malek

Congratulations to all the outstanding photographers who entered our 2023 Get Into Your Sanctuary Photo Contest. Don’t forget to check out the winners and honorable mentions on our results page:

Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we feature each winner in our #EarthIsBlue campaign!

[davitydave]

Marine Explorers Summer Camp (at NOAA's Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzyDIrFBQLy/?igshid=1c1xqx6kx8365

[rjzimmerman]

While trump and his secretary of the interior, ryan zinke, are “reviewing” the national monuments, trump has ordered that some of the marine sanctuaries and preserves and monuments created or expanded by Presidents Bush and Obama also be reviewed. This review is occur under the auspices of the Department of Commerce and its secretary, wilbur ross, specifically by the NOAA, which oversees the marine sanctuaries and preserves and monuments. Why? Because trump is determined to disassemble anything done by President Obama, and because his oil industry friends covetously eye anything they can’t have.

Comments are due by July 26.

Here are some of the sanctuaries off the shores of California under review:

Excerpt:

Eleven national marine sanctuaries and monuments — from Monterey Bay to New England to the South Pacific — could lose protections under new details of a Trump Administration plan released Monday that seeks to expand offshore oil and gas drilling.

The areas total 425 million acres of coral reefs, sandy beaches, and habitat for whales, dolphins, turtles, birds and fish — equal in size to roughly one-fifth of the Lower 48 states.

“These are America’s most sensitive ocean areas,” said Richard Charter of Bodega Bay, a senior fellow with the Ocean Foundation, an environmental group. “Trump is going for the jugular of the marine environment here. It’s incoherent.”

On April 28, President Trump signed an executive order requiring U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to review any actions taken since 2007 that expanded existing national marine sanctuaries or monuments or established new ones, and to report back to the White House in October.

“Today we are unleashing American energy and clearing the way for thousands and thousands of high-paying American energy jobs,” Trump said then at a White House ceremony.

The federal notice showed areas that could be reduced in size are:

Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary: In 2008, Bush expanded the sanctuary, which stretches from the Marin Headlands to Hearst Castle, by 496,000 acres to include Davidson Seamount, a dormant underwater volcano 80 miles southwest of Monterey that scientists with high-tech underwater subs found is thick with 10-foot tall coral forests, fields of colorful sponges, crabs and anemones that close like Venus flytraps. The entire Monterey Bay sanctuary, first set aside by Congress and President George Bush Sr., in 1992, would not be affected, but the seamount area could be removed.

Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries: In 2015, Obama more than doubled the size of two Northern California marine sanctuaries, extending them by 50 miles from the Marin County coast up the rugged Sonoma and Mendocino coasts. That expansion could be revoked, clearing the way for oil drilling there.

Channel Islands: Bush made minor boundary adjustments to expand this sanctuary off Southern California by 9,600 acres near where oil companies have drilled for generations.

American Samoa: Obama expanded the national marine sanctuary here by 8.7 million acres in 2012.

Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument: In 2016, Obama vastly expanded this area off the northwest Hawaiian Islands, first set aside for protection by Bush,  creating the largest ocean preserve in the United States to protect 10 mostly uninhabited islands from Midway Atoll to reefs west of Kauai that are thick with sea turtles, tropical fish, monk seals and albatrosses.

Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary: In 2014, Obama roughly doubled the size of this sanctuary on Lake Huron in Michigan that is the site of 116 historic shipwrecks popular with divers and researchers.

Other sanctuaries and ocean monuments established in the last 10 years that could be revoked entirely are:

Marianas Trench Marine National Monument: Set aside by Bush in January, 2009, this monument bans oil and gas drilling and other industrial activity across 60 million acres near Guam and the Mariana Islands, both U.S. possessions, to protect the Marianas Trench, the world’s deepest ocean area, at more than 6 miles deep.

Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument: 3.1 million acres set aside by Obama in 2016 off the New England Coast where coral reefs, sea mounts, sperm whales and other features are located. Five commercial fishing groups have filed suit to overturn the designation.

Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument: Established by Bush in 2009 and expanded by Obama in 2014, this 55 million-acre area includes Wake Island, Johnston Atoll, Palmyra Atoll and other South Pacific islands known for their whales, monk seals and coral reefs.

Rose Atoll Marine National Monument: 8 million acres east of American Samoa and established by Bush, the area is rich with giant clams and reef sharks.

[typhlonectes]

Tufted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata), Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, 30 miles off the coast of California, USA

photograph by Elizabeth Labunski / USFWS

[walksanfrancisco]

Walking San Francisco & Thinking Out Loud As I was heading to the Crissy Field parking lot behind the Warming Hut I noticed all the sailboats and had to stop. The star of this pic is Alcatraz but the terra cotta rooftop of the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Visitor Center on the Crissy Field Airfield adds a bunch of bright orange. The faded white building picks up the boat sails and the silver grey bay water but the big story in this picture is the "Blue Whale" statue on loan from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Made from recycled plastic collected in California, the sculpture seeks to address the serious issue of plastic pollution threatening our oceans. #pollution #bluewhale #walksanfrancisco #walkingtours #seriouswalkers #tourguide #recycle #alwayssf #sanfrancitizens #sanfranciscosightseeing #sanfranciscotour #picoftheday https://www.instagram.com/p/BtKveWeA3NZ/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=bj8v4a8j9ga