An extreme heat wave off California’s coast seemed like an anomaly 10 years ago. But as the ocean warms, the catastrophe may be a glimpse of the future.

The weathered UC Davis Marine Laboratory looms in thick fog on the edge of the ocean near Bodega Bay. Inside, an experiment is playing out that gives a badly-needed boost to Northern California’s kelp forests—underwater cathedrals of green and gold that nearly vanished from the the north coast a decade ago.

For a chance to admire great resilience, go wading on a (safe) sandy ocean beach. Where shallow waves slosh onshore, you may find the Pacific mole crab, aka sand crab, Emerita analoga—a creature at home in impermanence.

Scientists surveying marine life off our coastline have been watching marine mammals roll in for the Bay Area seafood buffet.

On a sunny afternoon just north of Bodega Bay, two large troughs of water bubbled in the sunlight, toward the ocean. Swirling in the eddy of bubbles were slimy forest green blades of kelp.

With a new $4.9 million grant through NOAA’s Office of Habitat Conservation, Greater Farallones Association is restoring imperiled bull kelp forests in Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in California using innovative techniques.

In this episode of the American Shoreline Podcast, hosts Peter Ravella and Tyler Buckingham engage with NOAA scientists Doug George and Sara Hutto in a discussion about their groundbreaking research on carbon hotspots along Northern California’s coast.

Rietta Hohman is leading the charge to restore bull kelp in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, working with multiple agencies and partners to implement a strategic plan they hope will reverse stunning declines in kelp growth over the past decade.

“Aren’t they so cute?” says Rachael Karm, a Sonoma State University research technician, who’s peering into an open-topped tub of swirling seawater, alongside researchers Julieta Gómez and Rietta Hohman, of the Greater Farallones Association. The objects of their admiration are tiny, brown algal sprouts clinging to submerged PVC pipes, illuminated by Barbie-pink grow lights. They look about as consequential as the scum in a dirty fish tank. But these little babies—two-month-old sporophytes of bull kelp, Nereocystis luetkeana—could represent the future of Northern California’s imperiled kelp forests.

Earlier this month, Bay Area researchers […] made baby kelp grow on twine in a lab, then wrapped the twine around clay bricks and deposited them into Drakes Bay, a part of Point Reyes National Seashore that was once dense with the golden, towering strands of seaweed. […]. The restoration will take place within the marine sanctuary, 3,300 square miles of protected waters from Marin County to Mendocino County where about 80 miles of coastline have lost kelp forest and with it opportunities for recreational abalone diving.

A unique ocean-going restoration effort is just getting underway along the Sonoma Coast and its goal is to rescue an underwater forest that’s critical to marine life. […] “So kelp loss has been a devastating issue along the Northern California coastline, particularly in Sonoma and Mendocino County. And so the scale of loss is incredible. It’s over 90 percent since 2014,” says Rietta Hohman, who’s leading the cutting-edge kelp restoration project for the Greater Farallones Association and the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

Alarmed by the rapid loss of the bull kelp forests along the northern California coast in the past decade, researchers are hoping to unlock the key to reviving the vibrant underwater ecosystems along the coast of Marin and Sonoma counties. […] This week, researchers with the Greater Farallones Association—the nonprofit partner of the marine sanctuary—and Sonoma State University will tie lengths of twine that have been infused with bull kelp spores onto hundreds of bricks, which will then be tossed into different parts of the bay.

Bull kelp forests off the Sonoma-Mendocino coast have declined significantly in recent years due to a combination of environmental factors including a shift in urchin populations and a large ocean heatwave connected to climate change. Listen to two of our ocean experts speak about this important project and how restoring kelp forest within NOAA Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary will help wildlife and people, and help combat climate change.

Greater Farallones Association delivered a school-wide assembly to K-6th grade students at Orchard School on nature-based solutions to climate change. We highlighted the importance of the role whales play in the carbon cycle and talked about our efforts alongside Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries to reduce the risk of ship strikes to endangered whales through voluntary vessel speed reduction initiatives.

The legislation introduced by the San Rafael Democrat last week would establish a new grant program under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It would be funded by $50 million a year over at least the next four years to support projects aimed at conserving, restoring and managing kelp forest ecosystems.

Beach Watch operates in one of the most biodiverse regions of the world. Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary (the Sanctuary) is a 3,295 square mile patch of ocean northwest of San Francisco Bay managed by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Purple urchins are being removed from the waters surrounding the Mendocino coast to see if it will bring back the once-lush kelp forest, which has been decimated by a combination of warm water and the overpopulation of purple urchins.

In recent years, NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, the Greater Farallones Association, and Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary have collaborated with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Ocean Protection Council, and The Nature Conservancy to document the transition from kelp-dominated to urchin-dominated ecosystems along the West Coast, a shift accompanied by a steep decline in biodiversity.

Our Beach Watch staff and west coast wide partners have just published a new paper on the 2015 common murre mortality event. The paper published this week in PLOS ONE links a 2015 common murre die-off to what scientists call the warm water “Blob”—a large-scale ocean warming event in the Pacific Ocean during 2014-2015.

Francesca Koe, who is on the Greater Farallones Association Board of Directors and Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council, has competed in freediving events all over the world, including vibrant tropical seas. Even so, the cold waters off Northern California’s coast are special to her. She is working with the Association, the Sanctuary, and a state-wide kelp recovery network to restore kelp forests.

In early October 2019, Greater Farallones Association staff joined researchers aboard the Nautilus to explore and map the deep sea in the Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries.

Two of our highly-trained Beach Watch program volunteers were the first to spot a rare whale washed ashore at Point Reyes National Seashore while collecting data for the program.

To address the drastic decline in bull kelp along the Northern California coast, the Greater Farallones Association released a recovery plan last month to inform future management decisions.

On May 16th, Greater Farallones, Cordell Bank, and Channel Islands sanctuaries, with support from the Greater Farallones Association, hosted an awards ceremony to recognize shipping companies that participated in NOAA’s 2018 voluntary Vessel Speed Reduction program. The speed reduction efforts are aimed at protecting endangered whales from ship strikes in sanctuary waters.

A new deep-sea coral species described as a small, yellow octocoral and named Chromoplexaura cordellbankensis, was discovered in Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Researchers, including staff from Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and Greater Farallones Association, made the discovery during an expedition aboard the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada in the summer of 2018. Remotely operated vehicles (ROV) were used to collect the individual specimen, and the species was formally described by scientists at the California Academy of Sciences and University of Costa Rica.

Greater Farallones Association with Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries, and other partners, set out for a two-week deep-sea expedition off the Marin coast in August 2018. The goal of the trip is to learn more about the corals, sponges, and other marine life adapted to this unique environment, in order to inform management activities that protect these sensitive areas and important animals.

The Greater Farallones Education Team travels north! From crab costumes to squid dissections, the students at Fort Ross Elementary School and six other schools, learned about sea life and coastal protection through hands-on education.

Sea levels may be rising but one Bay Area beach community is not going down without a fight. In Stinson Beach many believe sand dunes are the key to battling erosion. Dr. Doug George, coastal geologist at the Greater Farallones Association, and Marin County are deep into the process of getting the money together for a study to find solutions. When they do, the study will likely take several years. Public commenting, permitting, will add even more time so beachgoers won’t see construction any time soon.

The European green crab is costing the fishing industry nineteen million dollars a year on the East Coast alone. And now, the invasive species has been spotted up and down the West Coast from British Columbia to here in California. But a group of California ecologists are striking back. The team has focused their efforts on a small inlet in Marin County called Seadrift Lagoon. The key to fending off this species is to let them grow into adulthood.

On Nov. 7, 2007 reports on the Cosco Busan spill reached Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. Staff of the Sanctuary and Greater Farallones Association began to mobilize Farallones Beach Watch volunteers.

The Greater Farallones Association’s LiMPETS program empowered high school students to present their science alongside professionals. “It was incredible to have scientists coming up to us, asking questions about our research. They were all blown away by how we’re only in high school, and we have the opportunity to present at a prestigious conference,” said Frankie Gerraty at The Branson School.