#cordell-bank

#cordell-bank

"They didn't even try to fly away. They just feebly made noise," a woman told the Santa Barbara Independent on Saturday after spotting over two dozen dead or dying cormorants near Goleta Beach. "A few were on their stomachs, wings spread [and] gasping for breath.... Heartbreaking."

"Not only are acts like that illegal, but it's really harming a very important, like, a biodiversity hotspot that we have right out here," Brent Fish, an aquarist with Birch Aquarium, stated.

The crowd atop the Hermosa Beach Pier watched with bated breath as a local fisherman, stripped down to his underwear and armed with only a pair of scissors, waded into the water in an attempt to free a juvenile great white shark.

Condors, once reduced to a mere 23 individuals, have seen their population rise to over 600 due to extensive conservation efforts. However, they are not thriving as expected.

California cannot afford to sell off its public resources for private profits. Doing so hurts San Francisco Bay and is not in the best interest of anyone who lives in the Bay Area and enjoys our shorelines.

We've documented sightings of glass squids to better understand the remarkable transformations they undergo from hatchlings to adults. This new observation, captured in ultra high-resolution 4K, allowed us to zoom in on a juvenile likely no bigger than a baby carrot and reveal more details than we have been able to see before.

The resolution, drawn up by 3rd District Supervisor Justin Cummings, states that deep-sea mining remains an unproven, speculative industry with no demonstrated record of safe commercial-scale operation, while existing coastal and ocean economies including fisheries, tourism, recreation, and cultural practices depend upon healthy marine ecosystems that could be jeopardized by seabed mining impacts.

Out of an abundance of caution, access is being paused to give wildlife space and allow for ongoing monitoring. The investigation involves scientists from UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, along with California State Parks, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the California Department of Public Health, the California Marine Mammal Stranding Network, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NOAA Fisheries.

Shark attacks returned to near-average levels in 2025 after a dip the previous year, according to the latest report from the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File, published Wednesday. Researchers recorded 65 unprovoked shark bites worldwide last year, slightly below the 10-year average of 72, but an increase from 2024. Nine of those bites were fatal, higher than the 10-year average of six fatalities.

Mendocino County is throwing four different whale fests, on the four weekends of March, each in a separate coastal community. After that comes Monterey, in April, with its big annual celebration full of science and wharf fun.

For decades, whale watching has been a seasonal ritual along the Sonoma Coast, drawing locals to wind-swept bluffs, binoculars in hand. Now the pastime has earned national notice: Travel + Leisure has declared Sonoma County the best place in the country to see whales. In a story published Feb. 3, the magazine said there is "no better place" in the United States for whale watching than the stretch of coastline

In February 2023, an article in the Mexican press announced the capture of a vessel some 195 nautical miles from the port of Lazaro Cardenas in the state of Michoacan. It had been carrying nearly 700 pounds of cocaine packaged in plastic-wrapped bricks, in addition to 1,650 liters of hydrocarbons in 33 plastic containers. Two Ecuadorian fishermen were among the five detainees, and their immigration records showed unusual activity.

It looked like the silvery blade of a knife. Peering through his goggles, diver Ted Judah had laid eyes on a deep-sea creature rarely encountered by humans. He and wife Linda were diving off McAbee Beach in Monterey County in late December when, near the surface, he spotted the undulating thing. It was some kind of ribbon fish, he wrote in a post on the Facebook group Monterey County Dive Reports. Kevin Lewand solved the mystery.

But as he swept his flashlight through the dark waters, something unexpected emerged. Inching through the beam of light, an alien creature crawled across the surface of the sand, resembling an inch-long cluster of ghostly leaves fringed with silvery filigree and capped with a pair of antennae-like stalks. It immediately caught my eye, said Gosliner, Invertebrate Zoology Curator for the California Academy of Sciences. I've been diving there for 30 years and this one immediately struck me as different.

"It's too soon to tell" exactly what new campaigns might look like in Monterey, Packard said, but Gray has "a terrific track record of big public education campaigns that focus on specific issues that move the needle on bigger policy."

For travelers looking to get to know the many-varied charms of the Golden State, discovering it through the best beaches in California is never a bad idea. The state's coastline spans a vast 3,427 miles after all. Among its 420 public beautiful beaches are plentiful opportunities to swim, lay out, look at tide pools, surf to your heart's content, or watch the sunset.

They turned to wearable shark deterrents, including magnetic ankle bands designed to overwhelm a shark's electroreceptors - the sensitive "sixth sense" pores the predators use to detect the faint electrical heartbeats of nearby prey. Other products on the market rely on electrical currents, while some use scent. Erica Fox, a seasoned triathlete and Kelp Krawlers member, was wearing one such device Dec. 21, 2025, when she was found dead. Her body was discovered along the Davenport shoreline in Santa Cruz County, about 25 miles from where she was last seen. Fox's death - now under investigation and suspected to have involved a shark - has sparked scrutiny among swim club members about whether the devices meaningfully reduce risk. A Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office spokesperson said the agency could not confirm whether an autopsy had been performed or whether Fox had suffered a shark bite. Witnesses reported seeing a shark breach just offshore at Lovers Point that morning, where Fox was leading a group of about a dozen swimmers. Many of them had purchased Sharkbanz-branded products after a 2022 attack injured fellow Kelp Krawlers member Steve Bruemmer, who survived but suffered serious injuries.

She looks really good for what I can see through the window,

It was off-limits to the public for a century until recently, when a nonprofit land trust called the Wildlands Conservancy liberated the coastline following 10 years of planning. Accessing the preserve is allowed after reaching the farthest end of Bodega Harbour, a scenic coastal community of 700 homes linked within an 18-hole golf course. But once word about the hike began to spread last month, locals began saying their neighborhood was upended overnight by hundreds of cars.

Within a few minutes of moving down the estuary from Jack London Square, it started looking like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Boats, big and small, sank or half-sunk along the length of the estuary. Spicer pointed out a large sailboat listing on its side, which neighbors say has been disabled for months. "It was actually anchored in the center of the channel for quite some time. A lot of our community members reported it," she said.

Everyone is not happy. Where to park? For all the flora it offers and 360-degree views it commands of the Pacific Ocean and Farallon Islands and the fjord-like valley carved by the estero, or tidal estuary, which serves as the border dividing Marin and Sonoma counties the preserve does have a few flaws, the most glaring of which is this: No dedicated parking lot.