Cynthia Yeh's CBE summer 2012 internship experience

Marine Reserves – Mr. Puffin’s story

Marine Reserves are stricter Marine Protected Areas.

Marine Reserves are Not popular with the fishermen,…nor politicians, but they are important to the sustainability of seafood. Let’s being tonight’s story.

SUBJECT: TUFTED PUFFIN

Mr. Puffin (he’s a Mr. in his breeding plumage) lives on the Pacific coast. He migrates looking for food and female puffins. Puffins usually live north of San Francisco, but they’ve been spotted as far south as San Diego, California. They extremely good looks conceals the fact that they are very conservative animals.

Once a pair commits to having a family, they slowly work together to build their nest (in a strong warm cave), and they both raise the young-ling until it flutters off on its own. These puffins form long lasting paired bonds, unlike those promiscuous dolphins.

Since Mr. Puffin can:

Fly!

Swim!

 

 and

 

 

 

 

 

He’s provides his observations between protected and unprotected fisheries and how it’s much like his observation of protected and unprotected old growth forests-remember the spotted owl?

The obvious difference, is that Mr. Puffin relies on Marine Reserves to provide his family anchovies while there’s not really anything he wants to eat from Old Growth Forests.

Marine reserves do not allow ANY fishing or development in its waters. Eco-tourism is allowed. This differs from Marine Protected Areas which allow an extent of fishing and extractive activities such as extracting oil.

Marine reserves are undesired by fishermen because it denies them access to regenerated or virgin fisheries. However, if these marine reserves are also exploited….then there will no more fish left! You see, the magical thing about having SOME marine reserves, the thing that fishermen need to appreciate, is that it’s proven to increase fish stock by 446%! and this overpopulation of fish spills into Non-protected waters providing fishermen their prey. Again and again, studies show that marine reserves are positive in every way!

We’ll give you one reason why marine reserves are effective. Mr. Puffin saw Mr. Red wander for weeks looking for a mate, but he couldn’t find one! Mr. Red isn’t a fast moving animal nor does he have the best sense of vision or smell. He’s approach is to crawl around until he bumps into a potential mate. Mr. Red does not live in a marine reserve, he lives in Santa Cruz where there’s a 4 abalone limit per-recreational fisher. While this seems like good management system for preventing over-harvesting of abalone, Mr. Bachelor Red would beg to differ. It would increase Mr. Red’s chances of finding a female if Santa Cruz split the habitat into 1/2 a marine reserve and 1/2 still open to fishermen (still with a catch limit, but maybe the limit can be set higher).

Mr. Abalone Red is a mollusk who needs mates in close proximity in order to propagate.

Mr. Puffin has seen the destruction of clear cut forests.

Clearcut and burned for agriculture.

A healthy and balanced ecosystem has a diversity of trees and creatures.

 

He also sees the benefits of protecting select forests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Forests are habitats and Oceans are also habitats, then Mr. Puffin concludes that there needs to be more Marine Reserves to ensure that some fragile ecosystems are preserved. Ecosystems like Sequoia National Park in California!

 

 

 

Do you know how many granite tables could be made from this National park? Answer: LOTS!

 

REFLECTION:I know I’m not in a foreign country, but California often seems like a whole country with many secrets. I’m born a Californian and this was my first visit to this National Park south of Yosemite. I’ve read it was an undertaking to establish these national parks, but thankfully they still exist and they are indeed breath-taking. I know the world is happier for preserving these tiny pots of ecosystems and I hope we can say the same for marine ecosystems years from now.

Posted by on July 11th, 2012 at 5:33 am | Comments & Trackbacks (3)




3 Responses to “Marine Reserves – Mr. Puffin’s story”

  1.   Betty Aynaga Says:

    Hi Cynthia!

    Thanks for the info on puffins–they’ve always been one of my favorite birds.

    Sequoia National Park is breath-taking–literally; it has the worst pollution of any national park in the country. It’s sad to think of what may become of those amazing trees.

  2.   cynthia Says:

    I love your comments Connie! Thanks for your support =)I’ll work on trying to blog more about work. Hum…I wonder what sea creature to exhibit for that? Is there a sitting and typing sea creature?

  3.   Connie Says:

    Love your blog! It could be a summer internship in and of itself. Great info, graphics and observations!

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