Scott Benson, from Monterey Bay, CA. Upon returning from Papua Barat, Indonesia, I was happy to find good weather conditions for a local aerial survey. It had been two months since our last aerial survey so we decided to take advantage of the good sighting conditions to see if we could find leatherbacks or jellyfish aggregations.

So, last week, Karin Forney and I were joined by local marine wildlife experts Katherine Whitaker, Kelly Newton, and Lisa Wertz. These three women have been involved with local monitoring projects or have worked as naturalists aboard whale-watching boats for more than 10 years.

We flew the same set of transect lines that we covered during May, Point Sur to the Russian River, and surveyed some fine-scale lines in areas that looked promising within the study area. That's Karin in the photo above, entering data. Below is a shot of Pigeon Point lighthouse.

We found many moon jellies (Aurelia labiata) in Carmel Bay and the southern half of Monterey Bay (from the height we were flying, they look like a snowstorm in the ocean, below), but only a handful of sea nettles (Chrysaora fuscescens). Leatherbacks that forage off central California tend to select sea nettles over other available jellyfish, so we’d like to see more sea nettles. The water color was brown at several locations, particularly north of Monterey Bay. This is usually a good sign of suitable jellyfish habitat, so the sea nettles may have been present but too deep for us to see.
We surveyed an area off southern San Mateo county coast where we encountered about 40 humpback whales foraging on small bait fish (anchovy or sardine) among abundant sooty shearwaters and common murres. (Katherine took this shot of one of the humbacks.) The water was a nice brown/red color, and we spotted three large sun fish (Mola mola). This was a good sign, because sun fish also consume jellyfish and we’ve often found leatherbacks in the vicinity of large sun fish.

About 30 minutes into our fine-scale survey north of Pigeon Point, Katherine announced the sighting of a large leatherback, our first of the 2007 season. Although we could only find a few scattered sea nettles, we figured there must have been more deeper in the water. Following our survey, the fog moved over the coast and drew the curtain again. During the end of August through the end of September the foggy conditions should yield to bright sunshine and we should be able to fly more often.

If you’re on or over the water anywhere between Monterey Bay and Bodega Bay and spot a leatherback, please send us an email through this site and let us know where and when you found the animal. We'll note it here. If you have photos, we'll post them, too. We’re getting ready for some close encounters with these long-distance swimmers for tagging and tracking studies.