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INTERTIDAL SYSTEMS |
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When the 51-foot, steel hull seiner ran aground, it crushed granite rock and scraped off algae and invertebrates. As the ship was flipped further up the shore during removal via large tow truck winches, tractor tires effectively cushioned against further rock crushing. However, this was a two-day process and, where the ship and tires were left in the surf overnight, wave agitation created rubble beds beneath them. The habitats impacted were lower intertidal surf grass beds, mid-intertidal mussel beds, and higher intertidal red algae assemblages. Public
Concerns Spur Action in Pacific
Grove In early May 1999 citizens brought to
the Pacific Grove City Council their
concerns about the perceived declining
health of the local tidepool areas. They
attributed the decline to the impact of
human activities and urged the Council to
push for more aggressive conservation
measures. It was clear, however, that controversy
existed over the status of the tidepools.
The City Council decided to establish a
Task Force of individuals with interest
and expertise in marine conservation to
address the issue. Prospective members
were invited from marine research
institutions, local government entities,
environmental organizations, and citizens.
The Task Force hoped to bring together
concerned citizens and researchers to
accomplish the common goal of increased
protection. The City Council specifically directed
the Task Force to focus efforts on
educational opportunities and to identify
research that could clarify the threats to
this special natural resource. The
tidepool areas along the shoreline of
Pacific Grove are already protected—by
the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary
and the Pacific Grove Marine Gardens Fish
Refuge and through a city ordinance.
Despite these protective measures,
however, some confusion exists over the
jurisdictional authority and specific
limitations in the area. Initial efforts
of the Task Force sought to clarify
these. The Task Force's next charge is to
develop educational signs for the
shoreline area to increase awareness of
both the value of these resources and
their protected status. It is also working
with BAY NET, a local volunteer network
affiliated with the Sanctuary, to see if
tidepool interpretation can become part of
that group's program. Lastly, a Task Force
subcommittee is developing a research
program to gather comparative data on
local tidepool areas and to identify
possible explanations for degradation that
might exist. Sanctuary staff have been intricately
involved with the Task Force, contributing
to many of the successes accomplished so
far. Awareness about marine resources is
high throughout the entire Sanctuary
region and the efforts in Pacific Grove
are simply another step in the ongoing
process of local citizens leading the way
to protect the marine environment that
they value so much. --Michelle Knight Restoration of rocky shores is often discussed after oil spills and ship groundings,or as mitigation for construction projects. A few restoration efforts have been experimented with, but the methods were expensive and had limited success. In particular, moving individual plants is a lot of work and most die because they have adapted to a specific microhabitat and orientation. We transplanted intact red algal assemblages on boulders into the rubble beds created during the salvage operation. In this case (moving assemblages rather than individual plants), more than 80 percent of the transplants remained after two years; now we would like to learn if this method enhances recruitment by providing a local source of spores. Ship groundings are obvious events; however, as human coastal populations increase, visitation (which is less obvious) is a growing concern. As expressed at a past Sanctuary Currents Symposium and in the scientific literature, lower biodiversity and smaller size of rocky shore organisms have been correlated with increased human access in southern California. In the Sanctuary this year, the question is being addressed by management agencies through a draft Master Plan for the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, creation of a tidepool advisory committee by the city of Pacific Grove, and a list of recommendations by the Sanctuary Advisory Council's working groups. It is clear that there is a need to monitor rocky shore systems in order to distinguish between human impacts and natural variability, and then to assess the effectiveness of management practices in cases where they need to be implemented. In collaboration with Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, the Sanctuary completed a review of forty-eight current and historic rocky shore monitoring programs within the Sanctuary boundaries. While this habitat and region of the world are among the most studied and the rocky shores maintain relatively high biodiversity, there remain extensive information gaps on the Big Sur coast and boulder habitats (it is much easier to work on flat rock benches). Moreover, comprehensive long-term monitoring is missing. A significant component of this work was begun this year as the UCSC-led Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans set up fourteen rocky shore monitoring stations, and it will be working closely with the Sanctuary on resource management issues. --Andrew DeVogelaere |
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Last modified on: March 31,
2000