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Save Our Shores

California Sea Lion-
This animal has a high forehead and barks loudly and frequently.

On the second day of my trip I was very fortunate to have Amy Zumwalt, Northern Sanctuary Coordinator for Save Our Shores, meet with me at Half Moon Bay State Beach where I had spent the night. She even brought bagels and coffee!

Save Our Shores was created in 1978 in response to the threat of offshore oil drilling and helped to get Monterey Bay recognized as a National Marine Sanctuary. The Sanctuary actually covers 25% of the California coast, including Monterey Canyon which extends 50 miles out from Monterey Bay and is 10,000 feet deep! That's twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.

This is the largest of the 12 marine sanctuaries in the U.S. In fact, the only larger marine sanctuary in the world is the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The Marine Sanctuary designation means more regulations, including no oil drilling, but it does not offer complete preservation. For this reason, Save Our Shores now works to keep this sanctuary protected through education, policy research, and citizen action.

Save Our Shores educational programs, including slide shows, teach people how what we do on land effects our oceans. For example, if you dump motor oil into a storm drain in the Bay Area it will flow directly into the Bay or the ocean and harm the wildlife.

One recent area for policy research concerns Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFA). LFA creates a sound in the ocean that is "10,000 times louder and a billion times more intense than the levels known to disturb gray whales." (Sanctuary Watch Newsletter, Summer 2000) LFA has been under development by the U.S. Navy since the early 1980's to detect submarines. Does it affect breeding and migration patterns of gray whales and other wildlife? Save Our Shores wants to make sure that the best interests of wildlife are taken into account when projects like LFA are developed.

Save Our Shores also encourages citizen action. "We encourage people to be the eyes and ears for a healthy sanctuary," says Amy. Since what we do on land has everything to do with the water quality of the ocean getting people involved is very important. Here are some easy things Amy says we can do to help:

pick up trash
participate in a beach clean-up (or organize your own!)
eat organic (no pesticides/herbicides in the water)
wash your car at a car wash (They treat the water before it goes down the drain.)
recycle your motor oil and keep your car well maintained

You can get more info about Save Our Shores at www.saveourshores.org or call 650-560-9533. And, visit the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary at www.mbnms.nos.noaa.gov.

Here's Amy Zumwalt and myself at Half Moon Bay State Beach.

Mike@Kahncious.Net

Environmental Volunteers
3921 E. Bayshore Rd., Palo Alto, CA 94303
(650) 961-0545, (650) 961-0548 fax
www.EVols.org, info@EVols.org