Field Updates, October 2019: Eelgrass Mapping, Ground-truthing, and Cal Poly Partnerships

Eelgrass fieldwork depends on tides Fall is a busy eelgrass season for field staff at the Estuary Program. The exact timing of our field work depends on when the good low-tides occur, which varies slightly from year to year. This year, October had a few days that had tides low enough to expose the eelgrass during daylight hours. This doesn’t always happen—sometimes the low tides we need happen after sundown and before sunrise. We were glad to see good tides in combination with good timing because we have a few different projects going on. Monitoring permanent eelgrass plots First …

Be Sea Otter Savvy 3: More Than Just a Pretty Face

October 25, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program brent hughes california sea otter dr. james estes elkhorn slough fur trade Gena Bentall kelp forest keystone species monterey bay monterey predator diversity project morro bay otter-star project sea otter sea otter extinction sea otter savvy sea star wasting disease sea star wasting syndrome southern sea otter trophic cascade urchin barren what is a keystone species Be Sea Otter Savvy Blog Posts Guest post

This is the third post to our blog series, Be Sea Otter Savvy, written by Gena Bentall, sea otter biologist and Program Coordinator for Sea Otter Savvy. Posts in this series include tips on how to help sea otters thrive and information about sea otters’ behavior, biology, and their role in the estuary and ocean ecosystems. When I was a little girl holding my mom’s hand on the shore in Pacific Grove in 1970, looking out at two sea otters rising and falling on a gentle swell, I knew them only from their faces in books. I knew nothing of …

The “Smalls”: The Teeniest, Tiniest Sea Slugs In California

October 11, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program aeolids anudibranchmom dotos eubranchus MBNEP morro bay morro bay national estuary program nudibranch Robin Agarwal sea slugs Blog Posts Guest post Sea Slug of the Month Wildlife spotlight

Guest post by Robin Agarwal This is the fourth post in our Sea Slug of the Month series. Find tips for spotting nudibranchs from the comfort of your local dock at the end of this post! So you’ve been tidepooling along your local reefs and you’ve found a few nudibranchs: Opalescents, Sea Lemons, Spanish Shawls, Hopkins’s Rose, Triophas. Maybe you’ve practically tripped over ginormous squishy Sea Hares. Boring, right? What a snooze, all those flamboyant colors, shapes, and bizarre anatomy. After all, those nudibranchs are over an inch long, and therefore way too easy to find. If this is …

Field Updates September, 2019: Stream Profiling and Bay Monitoring

October 4, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program auto level autolevel survey bay monitoring creek profiling eelgrass field updates field work MBNEP morro bay national estuary program stadia rod stream profiling water quality Field Updates

Fall is in full effect here on the Central Coast, and we are enjoying the crisp mornings and clear days that go along with it. Fall is typically the slowest time of year for fieldwork so we are mostly catching up on activities back here at the office and planning upcoming projects, but that’s not to say we haven’t been out in the field this month. Thank you, cleanup volunteers! We hope some of you got out this month for Creeks to Coast Cleanup Day, where nearly 2,000 wonderful volunteers picked up about 11,500 pounds of trash from our …

Creeks to Coast Cleanup Success in Morro Bay

September 27, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program beach cleanup creeks to coast cleanup ecoslo estuary program international coastal cleanup day marine debris MBNEP morro bay morro bay national estuary program ocean conservancy Blog Posts

No matter how far inland we live, we’re all connected to the ocean by water. Rain washes downhill and into stormdrains, creeks, and rivers before entering the sea. So, if we’re going to keep plastics, other harmful debris, and pollutants out of the estuary and ocean, we have to start inland. That’s the idea behind the Creeks to Coast cleanup, a set of 49 cleanups organized by local nonprofit ECOSLO. This massive cleanup effort took place last weekend all across San Luis Obispo County on International Coastal Cleanup Day. During the course of three hours, 1,840 volunteers picked …

Cuesta College dives in to help study eelgrass declines in Morro Bay

September 20, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program cal poly cuesta college Dauphiene Parks eelgrass estuary program field work genetic testing labyrinthula Laurie McConnico MBNEP microbiology morro bay morro bay national estuary program research study science students Silvio Favoreto slime mold Field Updates Guest post

A guest post by Dauphiene Parks During June 2019, a group of fourteen spirited Cuesta College Marine Microbiology students came together under the kind and careful guidance of professors Laurie McConnico and Silvio Favoreto. The mission was to explore the Morro Bay Estuary and examine the local eelgrass population. We quickly learned that 97% of the eelgrass in the Morro Bay Estuary has been lost, and that eelgrass habitats can provide an estimated $87,000 in ecosystem services annually. We were excited to be a part of this class that allowed us to earn college credit and work on a …

Flaming Eye-Candy in the Tidepools: Spanish Shawl Nudibranchs, by Robin Agarwal

September 13, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program Blog Posts Guest post Sea Slug of the Month Wildlife spotlight

Two spanish shawl nudibranchs eat Eudendrium hydroids

This is the third post in our Sea Slug of the Month series. Find tips for spotting nudibranchs in the intertidal zone at the end of this post! Spanish Shawl nudibranchs If you live your life in saturated color, this is the sea slug for you. One of the great treasures of a few hours’ worth of tidepooling along the California Central Coast during the lowest tides of the season is the possibility of seeing multiple species of nudibranchs. Commonly called sea slugs, a term that includes many other families of molluscan cousins, nudibranchs are shell-less marine …

Field Updates, August 2019: Creeks, Stream Profile Survey, Upper Watershed Views

September 6, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program aggradation ca erosion field updates field work fieldwork great blue heron MBNEP monitoring morro bay morro bay national estuary program Morro Bay views restoration road restoration roads project rolling dips stream profile watershed Field Updates

As summer winds down here along the Central Coast, schools are back in session and fall is just around the corner. Though this time of year is slower for field work as most of the field team is busy entering data and writing reports on our various projects, we still got to check out a few different places in our beautiful watershed. Creeks Our long-term monitoring program in the creeks continues with our staff and the help of volunteers. To see what we use the data we gather for, or learn more about what we do out at …

Floodplain Restoration Project Sneak Peek in Photographs

September 2, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program california conservation corps creek restoration estuary program field work fieldwork flood plain floodplain floodplain restoration MBNEP monitoring morro bay restoration riparian area riparian restoration Watershed Stewards Program Field Updates Photograph Friday

Estuary Program staff and many of our partners, including the California Conservation Corps, the Watershed Stewards Program, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, have been hard at work on a large-scale floodplain restoration project in the Morro Bay watershed. This Labor Day, we are sharing a few photographs from the project site to celebrate the efforts of everyone involved in this project. From those with their boots on the ground to those involved in the land purchase, planning, and permitting processes, every single person who has worked on this longterm endeavor has contributed something essential. We …

Twenty-Five Years After the Highway 41 Fire of August 1994

August 16, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program cal fire Cuesta Grade fire estuary program fire fire plan fire preparation fire safety fire season go Highway 41 Fire morro bay morro bay national estuary program ready set wildfire Blog Posts

The smoke plume grows as the Highway 41 fire spreads. Photograph by Ruth Ann Angus, August 1994.

Watching the Highway 41 Fire from the Morro Bay estuary On August 14, 1994, the Highway 41 fire broke out on the Cuesta Grade. Ruth Ann Angus, local photographer, writer, and long-time supporter of the Estuary Program, was out kayaking on the bay with a friend when the Highway 41 blaze began. As Ruth Ann recalls, “We paddled all the way back to Sweet Springs and as we turned around there, I spotted the puff of smoke in the sky. I knew it was bad so we immediately began paddling back to the Marina area….” She took photos on …