The seas were rough, the marine layer hung over us, but the wildlife was inspiring Sunday at the Farallon Islands, our local Galapagos, and beyond to the edge of the continental shelf break where predators and prey aggregate in the late spring and summer following strong coastal upwelling.  This feeding hotspot attracts large numbers of marine birds and mammals breeding locally, and from as far as New Zealand, Chile and Hawaii. Most of my fellow passengers on the ship were San Francisco tourists whom I came to much admire for their chutzpah to spend a vacation day on 8 foot swells, heavy fog and chill winds, and no lattes in sight. Most of the poor folk were underdressed for the cold and wet weather beyond the islands, and many got seasick. (photo by Ron LeValley)

Just past the Golden Gate and regularly out to the Farallon Islands, we encountered hundreds of Common Murre dads and chicks. Dads feed the chicks and teach them to dive for fish for 1-2 months after they leave the colony.  (It remains a mystery why it almost always males that guard and raise chicks at sea.) The baby Murres were recently fledged from the large colony at southeast Farallon Island, and the smaller colony at Devil’s Slide Rock. This suggests a good breeding year for Murres and other fish-eating seabirds! Last year, for the first time ever recorded, there was near-total total reproductive failure of the species at Devil’s Slide and the Farallones, due to low availability of forage fish. This year there are chicks everywhere. Such is the boom and bust life of seabirds, especially in an increasingly unpredictable ocean environment.

A very significant boost to Murres and other marine life is the newly established marine protected areas surrounding the Farallon Islands.  Audubon California, Rick Johnson at Marin Audubon, federal seabird managers and many others worked for nearly a year to achieve these permanent no-fishing areas to allow rockfish and other key forage species to recover and replenish surrounding fished areas.

Another boost came in 2006 when federal ocean managers, urged by local scientists and advocates,  formally adopted a permanent ban on harvesting krill in California, Oregon and Washington. Krill are small, shrimplike creatures that are the linchpin of the marine ecosystem and the sole prey of the biggest creature on earth - blue whales– and one of the smallest seabirds, Cassin’s Auklet. Because of this little-heralded but highly significant conservation victory, the small but slowly increasing population of blue whales, and the Cassin’s Auklets at the Farallon Islands, will never suffer from competing with humans for their food in this key foraging area for both species.

To read more about breeding seabirds at the Farallones and the experience of living on the islands as a seabird biologist, go to http://losfarallones.blogspot.com/