Open Ocean: CINMS

The Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary (CINMS) off the coast of Southern California was designated in 1980. In 2005, NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and CINMS were considering six alternatives for adjusting the sanctuary's boundaries. Identifying how the six options overlaid with the distribution of marine resources was a critical consideration. To address this need, we conducted a biogeographic assessment.

The California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) was formed in 1949 to study the ecological aspects of the Pacific sardine population collapse off California. Today, the focus has shifted to the study of the marine environment off the coast of California, the management of its living resources, and monitoring the indicators of El Nino and climate change.

The California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project was started in July 2005 by the SeaDoc Society (UC Davis Wildlife Health Center). Since its inception, the Project has recovered more than 100 tons of lost fishing gear and other marine debris. The California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project proposes to continue to help reduce the potential impact of lost fishing gear on living marine resources and underwater habitat by retrieving lost fishing gear from Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary (CINMS) and anywhere on the coast where it is a high priority for removal because of demonstrated or potential impacts to marine wildlife and people. 1-888-491-GEAR to report lost, abandoned, and discarded gear. 

Channel Islands Naturalist Corps volunteers are trained by CINMS and CINP to educate the public on board local marine excursion vessels conducting whale watch tours, natural history tours, and island trips. Channel Islands Naturalist Corps volunteers are trained to conduct citizen science on marine mammal field identification and general research. Research objectives of the program include the development of a comprehensive database of incidental marine mammal sightings and reports collected in the Santa Barbara Channel, CINMS and CINP.

Managing the global threat of ocean acidification on a local scale is becoming a concern for policy makers and managers. With few long-term and baseline ocean pH records in place, it is difficult to understand natural and anthropogenic influences on pH variability. With development of pH sensors, monitoring networks are growing along the west coast of the United States.

Biological, geophysical, and anthropogenic sound sources all combine to make up an underwater acoustic environment, or “soundscape.” Because ocean water conducts light very poorly and conducts sound very well, many marine organisms rely on sound for communication, navigation, reproduction, and foraging. Using a network of moored hydrophones around the sanctuary, we can examine how soundscapes vary at each location and across sanctuary habitats.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Benioff Ocean Initiative are piloting a passive acoustic monitoring system to detect, classify, and report whale calls (blue, humpback, and fin) in near real time from a fixed autonomous platform in the Santa Barbara Channel, and provide these detections for use by managers.

  The main research effort is mapping surface ocean currents in the region including the ocean around the CINMS.

Saildrone provides high-resolution ocean data via a fleet of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) to NOAA, the Department of Defense, and other US agencies. Saildrone’s USVs are wind-powered vehicles capable of long duration ocean missions (up to 12 months) and carry a sophisticated solar-powered sensor package that streams real-time data to cost-efficiently augment ship-based methods. Saildrone USVs are 23 feet long and 20 feet high, can be launched from any dock, and travel at an average speed of 3-5 knots. The USVs weigh 1200 lbs and have a 7 ft draft.

The Santa Barbara Channel Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (SBC MBON) is designed to provide a complete picture of marine biodiversity in the region. SBC MBON is developing a widely applicable research model that integrates new information with existing data to improve current research and monitoring programs and provide greater insight into marine biodiversity.

Place-based fisheries and coastal zone managers depend on fine scale bathymetry and habitat maps for an array of critical decisions including: navigational safety, disaster response, endangered species and fisheries management, conservation, research, energy development, and marine planning. Yet, in southern California nearly 90% of U.S. waters remain unmapped at an appropriate resolution. As of 2014, the unmapped area within NOAA’s Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary (CINMS) was over 50% with the majority being characterized by single beam and lead line data from the 1930s. To address this critical information gap, offices across the NOAA family, together with other state and federal partners are uniting and filling the void.

NOAA Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary seeks to (1) maintain consistent marine mammal aerial monitoring to improve our understanding of endangered baleen whale species’ distribution and (2) apply these findings to better inform conservation management actions in the Santa Barbara Channel Region.

The Hook and Line Survey uses rod and reel gear to sample fish in areas that are difficult to survey using traditional methods such as research trawl nets. These areas include hard seafloor habitats like rocky reefs, boulder fields, and large undersea cliffs and pinnacles. Most of the species targeted by the Hook and Line Survey are rockfish, which are taxonomically classified in the genus Sebastes. Key species of rockfish include bocaccio (S. paucispinis), cowcod (S. levis), greenspotted rockfish (S. chlorostictus), and the vermilion rockfish complex (S. miniatus and S. crocotulus).

White abalone are one of seven species of abalone found off southern California, and unfortunately, their population once in the millions, plummeted by 99 percent to about 1,600 to 2,500 individuals due to overfishing and disease.  In 2001, white abalone became the first marine invertebrate to receive Federal protection as an endangered species.  Results from this survey effort will help identify potential priority locations within the historic range of white abalone to enhance wild populations with juvenile white abalone raised in a captive breeding program.