What Washed Ashore in 2023
Science Social and Zoom Program

Original Presentation: Wednesday, December 13

Join us as Sarah Grimes, Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator from Noyo Center for Marine Science, gives us a report of WHAT and WHO has washed Ashore in 2023.

Doors open at the Noyo Center Marine Field Station in Noyo Harbor at 5 PM for this program. Wine, beer, and non-alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase. Following the presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the work of the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

There is no admission for this event, although your donations support our programming and the costs associated with bringing you these presentations. Thank you for your support! DONATE here.

Noyo Center Marine Field Station
32430 N. Harbor Drive
Fort Bragg, CA 95437

Guest Speaker: Sue Coulter

It is estimated that about 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic has been produced since the 1950s – the weight of roughly a billion elephants or 47 million blue whales. Join Noyo Center for Marine Science Education Program Coordinator, Sue ‘Magoo’ Coulter for a look at the plastic problem, what is currently being done in the state legislatively, and how other states and countries around the world are making strides toward change. 

We will also hear about what Noyo Center’s education team has been doing with our student programs to raise awareness about this growing issue, along with highlighting some of the activism being done to help make changes. 

Steve Peletz presents a photographic tour of scientific research expeditions in the Eastern Pacific to tag and track migratory sharks. Steve will discuss the science and biologists’ success advocating for more and larger marine protected areas (MPA’s) in the face of drastic overfishing in the area. Learn about today’s conservation battles in the Americas, next steps for researchers, and what ordinary citizens can do to help slow the carnage.

Volunteer research divers (community scientists) help biologists who identify shark migration patterns, then use that information to convince policymakers in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Ecuador to establish, enlarge and connect MPA’s in the Pacific. Habitat protection is critical to combat overfishing and illegal fishing of endangered species.

Steve Peletz is a research diver, underwater photographer and freelance journalist currently working on a film about shark conservation. He taught scientific research diving at UC Berkeley, later began photographing and filming whales, dolphins, sharks and manta rays around the world. Today, Steve assists shark, turtle, and ray biologists at Migramar as they tag and track migratory species in the Eastern Pacific.

Title: The Spore Solution: The Complicated California Kelp Conundrum and What is Happening Now

Guest Presenter: Elizabeth Carpenter

Original broadcast:
Saturday, September 30, 2023

Sea Otter Awareness Week is September 24-30. This year's theme, "Restoring Missing Links," recognizes that sea otters remain absent from large portions of their historical range while celebrating the active efforts of conservation groups to restore a continuous population of these charismatic creatures and other missing elements along the Pacific coast. Explore all the activities and events taking place during Sea Otter Awareness Week 2023 HERE.

For our final We Were Here sea otter program event, join the Noyo Center for Marine Science and take a deep dive into the metaphorical golden kelp forest with Elizabeth Carpenter. Elizabeth will describe the variety of mechanisms that led to the demise of the California kelp forest systems and the efforts currently in place to help revive them. She will venture into the nuanced ecology of kelp forest communities, including a short discussion on what role sea otters may play in the recovery efforts if reintroduced. Hear perspectives from the fishers directly affected by the devastating loss of kelp and learn about their contributions to the cause. Nature is never simple, but Elizabeth will break down the science and share a hopeful new restoration approach that may just be the key to assisting the kelp to get back to its former glory.

Tales of Northern California Whales

Biologist Bill Keener of The Marine Mammal Center will present the results of the latest studies on the cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) in San Francisco Bay and coast of Northern California. This is a story about the health of this busy marine ecosystem, and how we are learning to live with four species that we can all see from shore: harbor porpoises, bottlenose dolphins, humpback whales and gray whales.

Bill Keener is a scientist with The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California where he studies the local whales, dolphins, and porpoises. He documented the return of harbor porpoises to San Francisco Bay after an absence of 65 years and studied their unusual social lives. He created the first northern California bottlenose dolphin photo-ID catalog. His latest research is focused on gray whales and humpback whales, and the conservation implications of increasing numbers of whales along our coast.

You’ve probably heard of them, but have you actually seen a western snowy plover? They are masters of disguise. With their sand-colored feathers, speckled eggs and chicks they blend in perfectly to their beach and dune environment. Despite this clever camouflage, snowy plovers are a threatened species due to habitat loss, predation, and human-caused disturbance.

Join local State Park biologist Alison Cebula for a presentation on the lives of these remarkable little shorebirds and the challenges they face. Learn not only how to tell a plover from a sanderling, but also how you can help protect one of our most charming wild neighbors.

Alison grew up in Fort Bragg and studied coastal ecology and natural history with Teresa Sholars and Greg Grantham at College of the Redwoods. Her adventures in field biology include habitat restoration at the Grand Canyon, reintroduction of Aplomado falcons in Texas with the Peregrine Fund, raptor migration counts and nest surveys for HawkWatch International, ecosystem monitoring with the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem Project, and volunteering for the Winter Wolf Study at Yellowstone National Park.

 For the past 12 years her passion for conservation has focused on snowy plovers. She currently coordinates the Western Snowy Plover Management Program for California State Parks Mendocino Sector. 

Dr. Pádraig J. Duignan has over three decades of experience in marine mammal diagnostics and research in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom and Ireland, placing him as one of the top research pathologists in his field of study.

His research is mainly focused on diseases that impact marine mammals of the West Coast, including coronavirus infection in West Coast marine mammals, domoic acid poisoning in sea lions and sea otters, the epidemiology of leptospirosis in sea lions and phocids, and protozoal pathogens of pinnipeds and sea otters but particularly Sarcocystis myositis in sea lions. He is also an active member of the Sea Lion Cancer Consortium, a group of specialists investigating cancer in California sea lions.

In this presentation our guest speaker is Lei Lani Stelle, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Redlands

Marine mammals in the Southern California bight are exposed to many threats, including disturbances from boat traffic. Dr. Stelle’s talk will focus on how interactions between marine mammals and humans can be studied with new technology. This includes using mobile apps to record sightings by citizen scientists, GIS to map and predict habitat use, eDNA to detect elusive animals, photographic identification to estimate population size and site fidelity, and drones to provide insight into behaviors and interactions.

Dr. Lei Lani Stelle is a Professor of Biology at the University of Redlands, where she leads a research project investigating human impacts on marine mammals in the Southern California bight. She has been working with marine mammals since she was an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz (B.A. Marine Biology), then conducted research on the biomechanics of swimming in Steller sea lions for her M.S. at the University of British Columbia and investigated the foraging ecology of gray whales for her Ph.D. at UC Los Angeles. Her research efforts integrate with her teaching of courses in marine ecology, GIS mapping, and comparative physiology. She has supervised numerous undergraduate and master's thesis projects, presents her work frequently at scientific conferences and has published in journals such as Marine Mammal Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, and the IUCN Otter Specialist Group Bulletin.  She has also been featured in news reports and documentaries, including the recent BBC show “Supercharged Otters”. 

Leptospira in the Marine Ecosystem  

Original Presentation: Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Guest presenter: Katherine Prager, DVM, PhD

Leptospirosis is an infectious disease caused by pathogenic members of the genus Leptospira and causes significant morbidity and mortality worldwide in wildlife, domestic animals, and humans. Leptospira interrogans serovar Pomona has been circulating endemically in the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) population since at least the mid-1980s, causing yearly, seasonal outbreaks of varying magnitude. Learn more HERE.

Katherine Prager is a disease ecologist and wildlife veterinarian with 25 years studying disease in wildlife populations, including 18 years studying infectious disease in endangered canids and 13 years studying Leptospira– a complex, zoonotic, multi-host pathogen – in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Read Katherine’s full bio HERE.

REGISTER FOR THE PROGRAM HERE 

We Were Here: Sea Otter History, Recovery, and Community Outreach 

Guest presenter: Heather Barrett, Science Communication Director & Research Scientist at Sea Otter Savvy

Sea Otter Savvy's We Were Here sea otter program is dedicated to educating communities and stakeholders who are missing sea otters from the historical range. Sea otters did inhabit northern CA and Oregon, are ecologically and culturally significant, and there is increasing discussion regarding range expansion and possible reintroduction. Community awareness and participation is an integral component informing the policy and management actions that lay the framework for the continued recovery and conservation of the southern sea otter. If sea otters are to return to their historical range, stakeholders (including fisheries, industry, tribes, general public and more) need access to engagement opportunities and methods of participating in this discussion.

Heather Barrett’s interest in sea otter conservation and ecology has developed through her undergraduate degree at UC Santa Cruz, internship through the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and graduate research at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. As the Science Communication Director, Heather refines science communication strategies, oversees creation and promotion of science-related materials, leads science-related media relations, and develops special projects for outreach that supports Sea Otter Savvy’s mission. As the Research Scientist, Heather continues her research interests in mitigating human-sea otter conflicts.

REGISTER FOR THE PROGRAM HERE 

Links to material referenced in the presentation:

Sea Otter Savvy:
https://www.seaottersavvy.org

USFWS Feasibility Assessment:
https://www.fws.gov/project/exploring-sea-otter-reintroduction

We Were Here sea otter program:
https://www.seaottersavvy.org/we-were-here-seaotters

Stakeholder survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5X6XDL5

6:30 PM on Zoom

Scott Mercer began studying marine mammals in 1974, with a lengthy investigation of the feeding ecology of the Southern sea otter in Monterey Bay. Upon returning to his native Northern New England, he founded New England Whale Watch, Inc in 1978. Using his trips as a public education and research platform, Scott was a ”Major Contributor” to the North Atlantic Humpback, North Atlantic finback, and North Atlantic Right Whale Catalogs of Identified Individuals.  He is co-author of The Great Whale Book published in 1982 with colleagues at The University of New Hampshire, where Scott taught a marine mammal class for fourteen years. He also taught science classes for Southern Maine Community College and a shipboard graduate level class for Wheelock College in Boston.   Recently Scott was interviewed by National Marine Fisheries for a documentary on the History of Whale Watching in New England. He is cofounder of a cetacean and seabird research station on Brier Island in Nova Scotia, Canada.  He flew aerial surveys for the New England Aquarium and led trips for Seafarers Expeditions. In 2014, Scott and his wife Theresa (Tree) began the Mendonoma Whale and Seal Study, doing most of their field work from the Point Arena Lighthouse Peninsula. Since 2014, they have investigated the biodiversity of marine mammals on the Sonoma and Mendocino Coasts, including a daily census of the north and south migrations of gray whales. They present their findings at major conferences.