Bay Nature stories about the Pacific Ocean.

Don’t Miss the Summertime Blues!

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This summer has been a great year for whale watching in Monterey Bay. The giant blues showed up early and have stuck around, making for daily sightings of these amazing animals. Humpbacks are lunge-feeding and breaching. At the heart of it all? The humble krill…

Charting Climate Change on the Central Coast

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The Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, along with its sister sanctuaries to the north and south, Cordell Banks and Monterey Bay, are sentinels for the effects of global warming on ocean waters. And, as documented in a new report released, Central California’s offshore waters and coastline are already showing the effects of global warming.

The Sounds of the Sea, Performed

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A team of artists has collected more than 1,000 recordings of people sharing their thoughts about the oceans. Hear voices from from scientists and schoolchildren, people in the United States, Europe, Asia. A sound collage from the collection premieres at Cal Academy on June 3.

No Normal for Coastal Waters

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Nesting failures for cormorants on the Farallones and Alcatraz are just the most obvious expression of unprecedented, and confusing, conditions faced by wildlife in the waters off our shores.

Turning Back the Plastic Tide

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An innovative program uses albatrosses as “winged ambassadors” to help middle school students learn about the distant consequences of plastics that end up in our ocean.

Elephant Seals and Climate Change

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A new study suggests that warmer ocean temperatures brought on by climate change may permanently skew sex ratios of northern elephant seals, the huge seals that visit a few Bay Area locations to breed.