Coastal Clean-Up:

Today Celine, Andy, Tom and I were on the otter team. Before starting our observations in the harbor, we decided to take a stroll on the south side of Moss Landing State Beach. Turns out that today is California’s annual Coastal Clean-Up Day, organized by the Ocean Conservancy, We all agreed that it would benefit our otters and dolphins if we rolled up our sleeves and pitched in.

We were provided with two sets of bags- one for garbage and one for recyclables and we took along a data sheet to keep track of select items that we found such as cigarette butts, food wrappers, boating materials etc.

Along the beach, we encountered all types of debris. Some of the more interesting items included a children’s flip-flop and a full bottle of Corona. There were a few dead marine mammals as well including a harbor seal and a very bloated sea lion. We also found LOTS of balloons, which are extremely harmful to marine wildlife. After 90 minutes of combing the beach, we turned in 25lbs of waste! Hopefully our efforts, combined with others across the California Coastline, made a significant impact in cleaning up our marine habitat.