California Coast & Ocean

Friends of Elephant Seals Get a Boost
In 1992, the first pup was born to a small colony of elephant seals that had recently established itself at Piedras Blancas, seven miles north of San Simeon in San Luis Obispo County. During the 2006-2007 birthing season, 4,100 pups were born to the colony, which has now grown to 15,000 seals. This population boom is part of the remarkable recovery of these giant marine mammals, a species that was hunted to near-extinction in the 1800s--but as the colony expanded in the mid-1990s to beaches strung along busy Highway 1, it also created a dangerous situation for both animals and humans. As the crowds of gawkers grew, people began to get too close to the seals and sometimes harassed them, putting themselves in danger of being attacked. (See Coast & Ocean, Vol. 14, no. 1.)

In 1997, a group of coastal residents formed Friends of the Elephant Seal (www.elephantseal.org) to provide docents to answer questions and help ensure the safety of both visitors and seals. Today, volunteer docents are on duty nearly every day of the year, six hours a day. In September the Conservancy granted $40,000 to this all-volunteer organization to help it to continue its program over the next two years and recruit and train new volunteers. The number of visitors has increased beyond the group’s ability to manage solely on its own resources. The group’s volunteers interact with about 85,000 visitors a year.

SOS Will Try Top-to-Bottom Cleanup in Three Watersheds
To help citizen volunteers reduce the volume of trash flowing to beaches and into the ocean, the Coastal Conservancy approved $100,000 to the nonprofit Save Our Shores (SOS) in September. The funds will go toward launching a stewardship effort that will extend along three watersheds into nearshore waters of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. If this comprehensive effort is successful on the Pajaro River, the San Lorenzo River, and Arana Gulch, it could become a model for other coastal watersheds in the state.

The SOS effort will rely on community participation, encouraging people to change their personal behavior, and working with local governments and businesses toward changing practices that now generate some of the trash flowing downstream.

Work groups of trained volunteers will gather for monthly cleanups at storm drains, along creeks and rivers, along the shore, and in nearshore waters. Scuba divers will gather trash they find in kelp beds and other marine habitats. The volunteers will catalog what they find and try to determine its sources.

The group will identify “hot spots” where trash tends to accumulate, then work with local governments, businesses, and the public to assess why it collects there and how it can be reduced. SOS might, for example, help a carry-out food shop to adopt biodegradable containers, or recommend that a park provide more trash cans. The organization will also assess how local communities collect trash and recycle, review local litter laws and their enforcement, and perhaps suggest changes that might be helpful.

SOS began in 1978 as a grassroots response to the threat of offshore oil drilling, and has been a leader in stewardship activities on Monterey Bay ever since.

New Public Boat Launch for San Francisco
The only public boat launch in the City and County of San Francisco is falling apart. Built in the 1960s at Pier 52 in Mission Bay, the launch is not suitable for modern boats. Its ramp is so steep that it looks like “a skateboarder’s dream,” according to Conservancy project manager Joan Cardellino. Now, with the help of $200,000 from the Conservancy, the Port of San Francisco will build a modern ramp that has two lanes instead of one and can be used by both motorized and non-motorized boats. The new launch will also have a floating dock that is designed specifically for kayakers and is accessible to boaters with physical disabilities. The site will be a key link in the new San Francisco Bay Water Trail (see Coast & Ocean, Vol. 22, no. 2).

Pier 52 is a half-mile south of the Giants’ baseball stadium; to the west is the new Mission Bay commercial and housing development. The Port has been working with the boating community for 10 years to develop a new launch in Mission Bay, but the project was delayed in part by construction of the stadium and Mission Bay and the rerouting of China Basin Street/Terry Francois Boulevard. Because of the delay, the funding allocated for the project by the Port and the State Department of Boating and Waterways was no longer sufficient to pay for its construction. The Conservancy funds will make up the shortfall. The Port will maintain the launch and add public facilities such as a cafe or equipment rental kiosk as funding allows.