April Roundup 2009 – springtime, sea otters and Open House next month

We want to grab your attention right up front and remind you that the Reserve Open House is planned for Saturday, May 9^th.  The gate will open at 9:00 AM; scientists will be on hand to answer your questions and show you their studies; and the trails will be groomed and ready for wandering feet.  Please make your plans now to come for a visit.  Call us at 667-2543 if you have questions or if you have time to come over and help with trail work. 

 

Now that we have your attention, have you noticed how Spring is busting out all over?

While the news is all about our failing economy, it looks like Mother Nature’s portfolio is recovering very nicely from last summer’s fires.    We saw that display of pink in front of Deetjen’s several weeks ago.  But Mother Nature is outdoing herself with the display of gold and blue up above the Coast Gallery and Timber Top.  The California Poppies and Lupine are simply gorgeous and uplifting, a product of our gentle winter rains.  Up here at Whale Point, the California Quail are starting to choose partners and some of the boys are getting very fresh with the girls.  This morning we spotted a male Hooded Oriole.  He was busy eating the red petals off the Columbine out by the pond.  The first Barn Swallow showed up yesterday and is already checking out the nests at both buildings. And finally, one sure sign that Spring is taking over from Winter:  the cars are starting to get dusty again.

 

For several weeks, we’ve been watching an amazing parade of whales also.  It seems that they all headed north at the same time.  We would like to think we can tell the babies by the smaller spouts, but a pair of binoculars helps as well.  And there is another group of folks looking out to sea with their binoculars.  They are the Sea Otter scientists, who have been living at Big Creek since last November while conducting their research.  They are a consortium of folks from the US Geological Survey, UC Santa Cruz, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the California Department of Fish and Game.  The group is joined by a host of volunteer researchers and interns.

 

In November, the group captured and tagged more than 30 sea otters along the Big Sur coast.  Most of these otters were also instrumented with VHF radio transmitters and archival time-depth recorders.  The otters were released where they were captured, and are now being monitored by the research team for the next 3 year period.  The team is collecting data on age-specific survival, reproduction, individual health, contaminant exposure, disease incidence, diet and feeding behavior, activity budgets, individual movements and habitat use.  The Big Sur study area, due in no small part to its remote nature, is characterized by low human impact and minimal pollution.  Data obtained from this area can be contrasted with data from ongoing telemetry-based population studies on sea otters in Monterey, an area of high human impact and pollution levels.  Data from these 2 study areas will allow the team to make inferences about the relationships between near-shore water quality, chemical/pathogen pollution, and sea otter population health and demography.

 

Members of the research team monitor the otters from sunrise to sunset, 7 days a week.  The longer days of spring are allowing more time to collect data.  The team has been delighted to see a few tiny new faces through their spotting scopes in recent weeks.  In the past month, at least 6 of the tagged otters have had pups.  This brings an exciting new element into the research, as the team gets to watch the pups grow from a helpless ball of fur, to a rambunctious juvenile, and eventually into an adult otter.  The team has been able to note the remarkable individuality of each otter.  For example, certain otters appear to be excellent mothers, while others appear to be less cut-out for the task.  Some otters have favorite prey items for which they devote the majority of their foraging time.  Other otters even seem to have their favorite resting locations within a kelp bed.

 

For the past 10-15 years, elevated mortality, especially in reproductive females, has limited the rate of recovery of the California Sea Otter population and prevented its delisting from “threatened” status.  As apex marine predators in near shore habitat, they are considered a “Keystone Species”, meaning the presence or absence of sea otters can have a profound impact on the biodiversity and productivity of kelp forest communities.  Furthermore, the proximity of kelp forests (the sea otters principle habitat) to the densely-human populated coastline, combined with the abundance of filter feeding invertebrates in the otters diet, makes the southern sea otter especially susceptible to human-induced stressors in the environment.  As such, the sea otter has become an effective sentinel for the health of our coastal ocean.

 

The Big Sur Sea Otter Research Team is working hard to learn what the otters have to tell us about the health of California’s ocean.  Equally as important, these biologists are refining our knowledge of sea otter behavior and ecology by gathering data that will help to ensure the survival of a species that was once on the brink of extinction. The team will be on hand to answer your questions at the May 9^th Open House.  Come on down and meet these great young scientists!  And you can always find more information about the goings on at the Reserve at http://bigcreekblog.ucnrs.org.

 

Terry Hallock and Feynner Arias