Audublog

Underwater meadows in San Francisco Bay

Protecting and growing eelgrass beds is a big part of helping birds in San Francisco Bay.

Eelgrass
Eelgrass creates an underwater meadow. Photo: Eric Heupel

You have to keep moving or your feet will sink so deep into the mud that you won’t be able to get out. That’s just one of the lessons restoration project manager Courtney Gutman learned on several mornings in June as she helped plant eelgrass cuttings in Audubon California’s Richardson Bay Sanctuary.

By protecting native eelgrass (Zostera marina) and piloting these types of restoration research  we hope to enhance the survival of Pacific herring and a wide variety of invertebrates, which are vital food sources for waterbirds, such as Surf Scoter, Greater and Lesser Scaup, Ruddy Duck, Bufflehead, Western and Clark’s Grebe, and American Coot. Richardson Bay, having the second largest established eelgrass beds in the San Francisco Bay, is one of the most important feeding grounds on the West Coast. That’s why our staff is partnering with Dr. Kathy Boyer of San Francisco State University and Keith Merkel of Merkel & Associates to explore new ways to restore eelgrass on our sanctuary and throughout the San Francisco Bay.

For Gutman, that meant putting on a wetsuit at three o’clock in the morning to stand in a foot-deep of icy low tide for six hours, planting eelgrass from various locations across the bay under different methods using an underwater rope and headlamps to guide her – and loving it. “Watching the sun come up over the Tiburon hills was really something,” she says, “and the possibility that we can take what we learn and show members of the community just how important Richardson Bay really is, encouraging widespread community supported protection and restoration efforts is thrilling.”

The living laboratory in Richardson Bay is part of a larger San Francisco Bay Waterbird Program that takes advantage of Audubon California’s unique assets to support a wide variety of birds in one of the most vital places for birds along the Pacific Flyway. In recent months, we’ve mapped and designated two new Important Bird Areas, enlisted chapter members and others from the community to closely monitor waterbird populations, begun construction on a massive habitat enhancement  project at Sonoma Creek (at the north end of the San Francisco Bay), and sponsored or supported legislation related to pollution spills to protect the bay. 

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