North Coast KelpFest!: Low tide Seaweed Walk with Kathy Ann Miller
Low Tide Seaweed Walk with Kathy Ann Miller
This is a North Coast KelpFest! Event.
Register HERE (required)
Saturday, May 25, 7:00 am - 9:30 am
MacKerricher State Park
Meet at MacKerricher State Park parking lot for a rare morning adventure! We’ll take advantage of the low tide, walking along the bluffs and scrambling down the cliffs to a remarkable reef outcropping where we will get a close up look at the seaweed biodiversity for which the Mendocino Coast is so famous. This excursion is led by seaweed guru Kathy Ann Miller of UC Berkeley. Wear sturdy boots and layered clothing. Park representatives will share about local information and tidepool etiquette.
Capacity: 25 people
Fee: $20
North Coast KelpFest!: A Kelp Afternoon with Kathy Ann Miller and Friends
A Kelp Afternoon with Kathy Ann Miller and Friends
Saturday, May 25, 4 - 5:30 pm
Noyo Center Marine Field Station
This is a North Coast KelpFest! Event.
Register HERE (required)
Come to the Noyo Marine Field Station for a series of engaging kelp lectures led by seaweed and kelp taxonomist Kathy Ann Miller as she describes the life and times of bull kelp and its fellow marine algae. Other speakers will include Tristin McHugh of The Nature Conservancy as well as Jocelyn Enevoldson and Laurie Richmond of Kelp RISES, and Ali Boutros of UC Santa Cruz. The panel will discuss Albion, Casper, and Big River kelp recovery efforts.
Capacity: 50
Fee: $15
Kelp Recovery Program Demonstration Day
Visit the KelpFest! Website for more information on this event.
Noyo Center Talks Science: Greater Farallones Kelp Restoration Project
6:00 PM on Zoom
Guests: Rietta Hohman
The Greater Farallones Kelp Restoration Project is a joint initiative of NOAA’s Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries and Greater Farallones Association, in partnership with various groups, communities, and agencies. The goal of the project is to restore lost kelp forest habitat along the northern California coastline and enhance the habitat’s resilience to climate impacts for future protection. Efforts were launched in 2023 to better understand the best restoration techniques and methodologies for the region, and will be advancing a multi-year project to restore up to 27 acres of kelp forest habitat in the sanctuary.
Photo: Keith Johnson
Rietta Hohman is the Kelp Restoration Project Manager for Greater Farallones Association and Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries. Her role involves investigating and implementing strategies for kelp forest restoration and research in the sanctuary, as well as advancing opportunities for stakeholders, community, and tribal engagement. Rietta holds an MS in Environmental Management with a focus on ecology.
Science Social at the Noyo Center with Virj Kan
Virj Kan is a designer, engineer, media artist, and entrepreneur, based in Berkeley and Mendocino. Her work investigates new paradigms for design, through transdisciplinary research and technology development. This program will focus on her work with purple urchins and creating materials that serve as alternatives to plastics and other less environmentally friendly products currently in use. A Q&A follows the program. Wine, beer and non-alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase.
This event is open to the public with a $10 suggested donation to attend.
Noyo Center Marine Field Station
32430 N. Harbor Drive
Fort Bragg, CA
Noyo Center Talks Science: Smelts.org
6:00 PM on Zoom
Guests: Zack Klyver and Richard Riels
Sea Mammal Education Learning Technology Society (SMELTS) is a solution-based organization that designs and builds tools and technologies to reduce the negative impact of human activity on marine life. SMELTS has developed a patented Line-Free/Ropeless Lift Bag fishing technology for bottom set fisheries that allows fishers to fish and whales to live without the danger of entanglement.
Visit the SMELTS WEBSITE
Noyo Center Talks Science: Gray whales: Finding ways to adapt to changing conditions and threats.
This talk examines some of the challenges gray whales have faced in recent decades including a recent mortality event. It will examine in detail how one group of gray whales called the Sounders found a unique high-risk solution to the challenge they were facing and why that has worked out well for them. John Calambokidis has been studying gray whales including the Sounders and the Pacific Coast Feeding Aggregation for more than 30 years and will talk about the insights they have gained from long term tracking of individuals, deployment of suction cup attached tags, and drone-based research.
Our guest speaker for this program is John Calambokidis, a Senior Research Biologist and one of the founders of Cascadia Research Collective, a non-profit research organization formed in 1979 based in Olympia, Washington.
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John Calambokidis periodically serves as an Adjunct Faculty at the Evergreen State College teaching a course on marine mammals. His primary interests are the biology of marine mammals and the impacts of humans. He has served as Project Director of over 200 projects. He has authored two books on marine mammals (on blue whales and a guide to marine mammals) as well more than 175 publications in scientific journals, 150 technical reports, and 200 scientific presentations. He has conducted studies on a variety of marine mammals in the North Pacific from Central America to Alaska. He served as Project Manager for major projects such as the SPLASH Pacific-wide study of humpback whales and the Southern California Behavioral Response Study to sonar. He has directed long-term research on the status, movements, and underwater behavior of blue, humpback, and gray whales. Some of his recent research has included attaching tags to whales with suction cups to examine their feeding behavior and vocalizations. His work has been covered on shows by National Geographic, Discovery Channel, BBC, and others. He has received awards from the American Cetacean Society for Lifetime Achievement in Marine Mammal Science (in 2012), from the Washington chapter of Wildlife Society for Lifetime Leadership in Conservation (2019), and the Olympia Rotary Club Environmental Protection Award (2018). goes here
Mendonoma Whale and Seal Study at The Crow’s Nest Interpretive Center
More information HERE
Photo: NOAA
Noyo Center Talks Science: Challenge at the Edge: Climate Change, Sea-Level Rise and California's Coast
Guest Presenter: Gary Griggs
Read more about Gary’s work and books
at gary-griggs.com.
The shoreline is one of the most important lines on the planet and the majority of the world’s largest cities were built on coastlines. But the shoreline is moving inland, and we are in the way. As sea level rises in response to a warming plant, ice melts and seawater expands. We are already feeling the impacts of a rising sea along the California coast, including coastal flooding, shoreline retreat and coastal erosion, but this is a global issue. With climate change and sea-level rise, we have three choices for the future: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation and suffering we will experience.
Gary Griggs is a Distinguished Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz. His research, teaching, writing and lectures have focused on the coast of California and include coastal processes, hazards, and the impacts of and responses to sea-level rise. In 1998 he received the Outstanding Physical and Biological Sciences Faculty Award at U.C. Santa Cruz, and the Alumni Association honored him with a Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006. The California Coastal Commission and Sunset Magazine named him one of California’s Coastal Heroes in 2009, and in 2010 he was elected to the California Academy of Sciences. Gary chaired a committee in 2017 recommended by Governor Brown to update California’s sea-level rise projections.
Gary has written 14 books including: Living with the Changing California Coast; Introduction to California’s Beaches and Coast; The California Coast from the Air; Coasts in Crisis – A Global Challenge; The Edge – The Pressured Past and Precarious Future of California’s Coast; Between Paradise and Peril – The Natural Disaster History of the Monterey Bay Region; The Ominous Ocean: Rogue Waves, Rip Currents and other Dangers along the Shoreline and at Sea; and most recently California Catastrophes – The Natural Disaster History of the Golden State.
Noyo Center Talks Science: Wave Powered Sustainable Desalination Systems
In this presentation we welcome Oneka Technologies Chief Commercial Office Shawn Meyer-Steele, who is presenting information about the development of a system that turns seawater into fresh water in an innovative and sustainable way by harnessing wave energy.
Noyo Center Talks Science: The Value of Whales and Threats to Their Survival
Our guest presenters for this program are Tree and Scott Mercer from Mendonoma Whale and Seal Study.
Scott Mercer began studying marine mammals in 1974, with a lengthy investigation of the feeding ecology of the Southern sea otter in Monterey Bay. Upon returning to his native Northern New England, he founded New England Whale Watch, Inc in 1978. Using his trips as a public education and research platform, Scott was a ”Major Contributor” to the North Atlantic Humpback, North Atlantic finback, and North Atlantic Right Whale Catalogs of Identified Individuals. He is co-author of The Great Whale Book published in 1982 with colleagues at The University of New Hampshire, where Scott taught a marine mammal class for fourteen years. He also taught science classes for Southern Maine Community College and a shipboard graduate level class for Wheelock College in Boston. Recently Scott was interviewed by National Marine Fisheries for a documentary on the History of Whale Watching in New England. He is cofounder of a cetacean and seabird research station on Brier Island in Nova Scotia, Canada. He flew aerial surveys for the New England Aquarium and led trips for Seafarers Expeditions. In 2014, Scott and his wife Theresa (Tree) began the Mendonoma Whale and Seal Study, doing most of their field work from the Point Arena Lighthouse Peninsula. Since 2014, they have investigated the biodiversity of marine mammals on the Sonoma and Mendocino Coasts, including a daily census of the north and south migrations of gray whales. They present their findings at major conferences.
Noyo Center Science Social: What Washed Ashore in 2023
What Washed Ashore in 2023
Science Social and Zoom Program
Original Presentation: Wednesday, December 13
Join us as Sarah Grimes, Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator from Noyo Center for Marine Science, gives us a report of WHAT and WHO has washed Ashore in 2023.
Doors open at the Noyo Center Marine Field Station in Noyo Harbor at 5 PM for this program. Wine, beer, and non-alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase. Following the presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the work of the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network.
There is no admission for this event, although your donations support our programming and the costs associated with bringing you these presentations. Thank you for your support! DONATE here.
Noyo Center Marine Field Station
32430 N. Harbor Drive
Fort Bragg, CA 95437
Lit Boat Parade: Noyo Harbor
Lit Boat Parade
Sunday, Dec. 3 | 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Admission $5 Adults | Under 18 Free
Noyo Center Marine Field Station (map)
32430 N. Harbor Drive, Fort Bragg
Bundle up and come down to Noyo Harbor for the annual Lit Boat Parade, Sunday, December 3rd! This is an awesome community event with beautifully decorated Lit Boats cruising through Noyo Harbor, including our own Noyo Center entry!
The parade starts at 6:30 pm and Noyo Center’s Marine Field Station will be open from 5:30-7:30 pm, with parade viewing from our deck. Admission is $5, kids under 18 are free. Inside there will be wine and beer for purchase, along with hot cider, cocoa, chili, clam chowder, and special holiday cookies for sale, benefiting our education and research programs.
We're hoping the weather cooperates, but if the parade is cancelled we will still be open (minus the admission fee) for holiday cheer and food and drink to kick off the season.
Thank you for your support!
Noyo Center Talks Science: Talking Trash
Guest Speaker: Sue Coulter
It is estimated that about 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic has been produced since the 1950s – the weight of roughly a billion elephants or 47 million blue whales. Join Noyo Center for Marine Science Education Program Coordinator, Sue ‘Magoo’ Coulter for a look at the plastic problem, what is currently being done in the state legislatively, and how other states and countries around the world are making strides toward change.
We will also hear about what Noyo Center’s education team has been doing with our student programs to raise awareness about this growing issue, along with highlighting some of the activism being done to help make changes.
Photo: Greenpeace.org
Noyo Center Talks Science with Steve Peletz: Traveling Life of Sharks in the Eastern Pacific
Steve Peletz presents a photographic tour of scientific research expeditions in the Eastern Pacific to tag and track migratory sharks. Steve will discuss the science and biologists’ success advocating for more and larger marine protected areas (MPA’s) in the face of drastic overfishing in the area. Learn about today’s conservation battles in the Americas, next steps for researchers, and what ordinary citizens can do to help slow the carnage.
Volunteer research divers (community scientists) help biologists who identify shark migration patterns, then use that information to convince policymakers in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Ecuador to establish, enlarge and connect MPA’s in the Pacific. Habitat protection is critical to combat overfishing and illegal fishing of endangered species.
Steve Peletz is a research diver, underwater photographer and freelance journalist currently working on a film about shark conservation. He taught scientific research diving at UC Berkeley, later began photographing and filming whales, dolphins, sharks and manta rays around the world. Today, Steve assists shark, turtle, and ray biologists at Migramar as they tag and track migratory species in the Eastern Pacific.
California Kelp Conundrum: Noyo Center and Sea Otter Savvy YouTube Live Stream Event
Title: The Spore Solution: The Complicated California Kelp Conundrum and What is Happening Now
Guest Presenter: Elizabeth Carpenter
Original broadcast:
Saturday, September 30, 2023
Sea Otter Awareness Week is September 24-30. This year's theme, "Restoring Missing Links," recognizes that sea otters remain absent from large portions of their historical range while celebrating the active efforts of conservation groups to restore a continuous population of these charismatic creatures and other missing elements along the Pacific coast. Explore all the activities and events taking place during Sea Otter Awareness Week 2023 HERE.
For our final We Were Here sea otter program event, join the Noyo Center for Marine Science and take a deep dive into the metaphorical golden kelp forest with Elizabeth Carpenter. Elizabeth will describe the variety of mechanisms that led to the demise of the California kelp forest systems and the efforts currently in place to help revive them. She will venture into the nuanced ecology of kelp forest communities, including a short discussion on what role sea otters may play in the recovery efforts if reintroduced. Hear perspectives from the fishers directly affected by the devastating loss of kelp and learn about their contributions to the cause. Nature is never simple, but Elizabeth will break down the science and share a hopeful new restoration approach that may just be the key to assisting the kelp to get back to its former glory.