'Beach Watch' Celebrates 20th Anniversary

NOS's flagship formal volunteer program, called Beach Watch, just celebrated its 20th anniversary at central California's Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary (NMS). The sanctuary protects 1,282 square miles of coastal and offshore Pacific waters, providing critical breeding and pupping habitat for northern elephant seals, harbor seals, Steller sea lions, California sea lions, and northern fur seals. Its bountiful waters also support the largest seabird rookery in the contiguous United States.

In monthly surveys, volunteers count and record the number of both live and dead birds and marine mammals that they observe along the beach; record human activities such as the number of visitors, dog walkers, swimmers, and surfers; note the presence of any oil, tar balls, marine debris, algae, or invertebrates such as jellyfish; and take photos to illustrate shoreline conditions.

"This information has proved invaluable in managing the sanctuary," says Sanctuary Research Coordinator Jan Roletto, who first conceived of the Beach Watch program in response to the threat of oil spills in the sanctuary. "Documenting dead animals establishes baseline mortality rates and trends, which can be compared during a human-induced disturbance like an oil spill or hazmat event. Similarly, live bird and mammal counts provide seasonal and spatial trends for coastal wildlife and known locations of threatened and endangered species to direct resource protection efforts."

Roletto also notes that Beach Watch data on visitor activities offers insight into people's effects on wildlife. A large number of people in an area may, for example, reduce the shorebird population. Beach Watch surveys have also alerted sanctuary managers and other authorities to hazmat events and even mortality incidents, which are the simultaneous deaths of large numbers of seabirds or marine mammals.