Illustrations by Amanda Alten

Secretary of Veteran Affairs and retired U.S. Army General Eric Shinseki announced plans on March 21 to build a new Veterans Administration (VA) clinic in the city of Marina, Calif.

The 100,000–square foot facility is expected to provide quality health care for veterans on the Central Coast. The state-of-the-art facility will serve thousands of veterans, retired and active military personnel and their families. The 16-month project is designed to address a large portion of veterans’ basic medical needs closer to home, including specialty health care services and programs for both men and women of service.

Congressman Sam Farr serves California’s 17th Congressional District and is a ranking member of the Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and related agencies. He said the new site is a sign of hope for returning veterans.

“The VA’s site selection moves us one big step closer to beginning construction and reaching our long-awaited dream,” Farr said in a prepared statement. “After their brave service, our Central Coast veterans deserve a medical facility that meets their needs close to home.”

There are over 22.7 million veterans across the United States, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. In California alone, nearly two million veterans served in various U.S. conflicts, including the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. The new Marina location is intended to provide quality health care for all who served in the military and make resources accessible for current and future generations of dedicated veterans.

The VA ordered the medical facility’s creation to reach underserved veterans. Several proposals were filed for a new VA clinic to provide in-depth services to supplement the existing VA clinic in Monterey, which is part of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System.

Based on land availability, Marina was the best choice for the new clinic.

Bruce Delgado, mayor of Marina, said the project was especially pertinent in addressing the needs of veterans previously served by the Fort Ord U.S. Army posting. Spanning from Marina to Laguna Seca, Fort Ord closed in 1994 after 77 years of use.

“When the army closed on Fort Ord, it left a big hole in our community,” Delgado said. “There was a need to resuscitate our community and it definitely is a pride issue.”

Local organizations that serve veterans are excited for the new facility. Non-profit Monterey Bay Veterans, Inc., like the Monterey VA clinic, offers medical assistance to retired service members, assisting about 25,000 veterans annually.

James Bogan, a volunteer of the Monterey Bay Veterans, Inc., and Veterans Committee Chair, said the new VA medical facility is a critical step toward better services for veterans.

“A major problem is going to the closest facility, which is in Palo Alto or even Fairfield,” Bogan said. “This is extremely difficult. Thanks to this larger clinic, our vets will have local care now.”

Bogan, a disabled Vietnam veteran, has seen community struggles that he hopes the new facility can alleviate.

“I understand the need for a medical clinic or organization,” Bogan said. “I suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, but my disability does not matter. It’s time to give back to other veterans and their families, since they are the floor of the community.”

Marina mayor Delgado was thrilled and hopes the medical facility will strengthen the community and generate income for local businesses.

“Marina is such a small town, but whenever you build or construct something that is in the $80 million range, you know that it is going to create a lot of jobs during that year of construction,” Delgado said. “It is a catalyst project that can visually and financially encourage other businesses to consider moving to our area, plus across the nation where there are veterans that need clinics like this one.”

Coral reefs are one part of the marine ecosystem threatened by warming oceans. Photo by Devika Agarwal.

Flamingos and other wading birds perch in swamps, which could be flooded as a result of sea level rise. Photo by Devika Agarwal.

Warmer beaches could alter the male to female ratio of sea turtles in the oceans, threatening their population. Photo by Devika Agarwal.

A group of children on a field trip view splashing penguins, which may soon have to migrate further north to feed their population. Photo by Devika Agarwal.

A talk-back station invites aquarium visitors to share their feelings and ideas about global warming. Photo by Devika Agarwal.

As swarms of tropical fish dart in and out of porous corals, vibrant colors pop against the paler branches of the reef. Children gaze in awe, their hands and noses pressed to the glass, eyes following each animal’s every move.

Visitors to the Monterey Bay Aquarium may not realize that the ocean home of marine life — from spotted jellies gliding effortlessly through the water to delicate flamingos tip-toeing through salty marshes — could soon be a very different place.

With the exhibit “Hot Pink Flamingos: Stories of Hope in a Changing Sea,” which tells the stories of species all around the world affected by global warming, the aquarium hopes to inspire awareness of climate change.

Global warming, or the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere due to increasing levels of greenhouse gases, has been a topic of intense worldwide debate for the past several years. Despite detractors, there is a scientific consensus that the planet’s climate has begun to warm and will continue to do so in the future due to increasing levels of carbon emissions.

“Climate change is a very sobering topic,” Raul Nava, an Assistant Exhibit Developer for “Hot Pink Flamingos,” said. “What we want visitors to understand is that we are all trying to wrap our heads around climate change. But we have found that there is hope. There is power in numbers.”

The Phenomenon

Climate variation is nothing new. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide have always been a part of the atmosphere. However, since the 18th century industrial revolution, human consumption of fossil fuels has led to rising carbon dioxide emissions. Scientists fear this will lead to a rapid increase in the Earth’s atmospheric temperature.

Just ask Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences Gary Griggs, a distinguished professor of earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz.

“Right now, globally, we are about 85 percent dependent on fossil fuels,” Griggs said. “In the next hour [around the world], we’re going to burn about 150 million gallons of oil, 15 billion cubic feet of natural gas, and about a million tons of coal. Cumulatively, those are going to put, per hour, about a million tons of carbon dioxide into the ocean.”

Mark Snyder, assistant project earth scientist at the Climate Change and Impacts Laboratory at UCSC, uses climate modeling to predict the future temperature and greenhouse gas levels in the Earth’s atmosphere. Snyder and other researchers use scenarios established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of 3,000 scientists that last released a report in 2007, to calibrate future temperature and carbon dioxide levels.

“Right now, we’re essentially on one of the more extreme scenario curves, in terms of the rate of CO2,” Snyder said. “The sort of rapid climate change that people have looked at could definitely be happening as a result of this rate.”

According to the IPCC, global temperatures could rise between 2 and 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, leading to a sea level rise of anywhere between .6 and 2 feet, as ice caps melt. UCSC professors and Monterey Bay Aquarium researcher’s estimates are less conservative. Such scenarios could put many parts of Santa Cruz under water.

There are still many unknowns about how climate change will affect oceans, but the Monterey Bay Aquarium is raising awareness of the changing seas.

Changing Seas

“Hot Pink Flamingos” is tucked away on the bottom level of the aquarium. Upon entering, viewers are drawn to hundreds of fish, in all colors of the rainbow, whizzing from side to side in the “Acid Oceans” exhibit. The fish aren’t literally swimming in acid, but in the future, marine ecosystems dependant on coral reefs could be threatened by changes in ocean pH.

“The ocean is becoming more acidic, which affects the coral reefs and all the animals that depend on the reefs,” said Angela Hains, public relations senior associate manager at the aquarium.

Acidic water affects the ocean’s levels of calcium carbonate, which many organisms use to build shells.

“Certain types of plankton that make calcium carbonate shells are going to dissolve,” Professor Griggs said.

Corals and plankton may not be the most fierce, colorful, or interesting animals in the aquarium, but both are vital to the food web that feeds larger marine animals and even humans. The larger aquarium is also home to sea otters and black-tipped reef sharks.

“Even if [some] animals are not affected by ocean acidification or warming, the loss or the change in abundance of some other species they depend upon can affect them indirectly,” Jim Barry, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) said.

Beyond “Acid Oceans” lies a tank of spotted jellies in shades of translucent brown, dotted with white spots — some have tentacles tangled in webs, while others drift, solitary, through the center of the tank.

Jellyfish are especially sensitive to the temperature of their environment.

“Warmer temperatures threaten some tropical spotted jellies and sea turtles, species who live at the edge of their temperature limits,” Assistant Exhibit Developer Nava said.

Sea turtles have temperature-dependent sex determination, which means that the temperature at which their eggs are incubated determines the turtle’s sex — warmer eggs become females, while cooler ones become male. Warmer oceans could lead to warmer beaches, which could alter turtle sex ratios and lead to a decline in population.

“Scientists are concerned that we may tip the balance for them,” Nava said. “Some beaches are already on the edge and produce more females than males.”

Past the jellies are two turtles gliding by the glass, their dark eyes looking out at the children staring back at them. Though an Earth 100 years into the future may seem distant for humans, it’s all in a turtle’s lifetime.

Flamingos — perhaps the most flamboyant of all birds in the marine ecosystem — face equal challenges.

All over the world, rising sea levels could force wading birds to move inland to marshes that are disappearing quickly.

Nava emphasized that although many birds can fly and migrate to different areas, the question is whether there will be enough wetlands left.

“We know that they can move and survive in different environments, but will there be other birds there doing the same thing?” Nava said.

Hitting Home

“Hot Pink Flamingos” features species from all of the world’s oceans that are facing the effects of global warming, and the local Monterey Bay may be facing many of the same changes.

According to the Bay Conservation Development Commission, if sea levels rise by three feet, the entire San Francisco International Airport, which currently sits within 16 inches of sea level, could be covered within the next 100 years. In Santa Cruz, the Boardwalk, Main Beach, parts of the harbor, and even downtown, which is built on a flood plain, could be inundated by the rising tide.

“If we keep going at the rate we’ve seen for the last 50 years, sea level would rise about one foot in the next 100 years, but most people are predicting that in the next 100 years, it’s going to go up a lot faster,” Professor Griggs said.

Ocean acidification, warming, and species migration northwards could also change the bay’s unique ecosystem.

Stories of Action

Despite the feelings of hopelessness that climate change can bring, “Hot Pink Flamingos” focuses on stories of hope and inspiration.

“A lot of times, people are overwhelmed on this subject. Our message is that it’s OK to feel worried, it’s OK to feel hopeful, and, most importantly, you’re not the only one,” Nava said.

The exhibit features “talk back points” throughout, stations at which visitors can share their feelings on climate change or their ideas. Dispersed between species are stations where visitors can post note cards sharing their personal stories or use a touch screen to share their emotions, whether hopeful or helpless.

Visitors can see examples of cities around the world that are cutting their carbon footprints through innovative public transportation systems and religious groups that are working toward creating a better planet for children by using solar energy or growing gardens.

Erin Loury, a CSU graduate student from the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, was visiting the exhibit while planning a trip for teachers who would then incorporate climate change education into their curricula.

“It’s really great that people are getting to see animals they may have heard about but maybe not seen,” Loury said. “They have to care about something before they can care if it disappears.”

Why Hope?

If ocean species are on the path to disappearance, why try?

According to Nava, marine ecosystems have a vast potential for adaptability.

“Life is resilient,” Nava said. “Nature is very capable of adaptation — we know that. We can bounce back. The question is whether we are going to have enough time.”

This isn’t the first time that oceans, and Earth in general, have experienced climate change. But because of human activity and emissions, the rate of change is faster than in previous periods.

“In the past, we’ve seen changes in ocean temperature and chemistry. Those changes happened over millions of years. The difference is that [now] these changes are happening over hundreds of years,” Nava said.

Nava explained that although many scientists think there could be a point at which change is irreversible, that doesn’t mean giving up now.

Jim Barry, a senior scientist at MBARI, stated that despite evidence of changes already happening in the Monterey Bay, people should take action in any way to reduce their energy use and emissions.

“You sort of think about global warming as an on-off switch,” Barry said. “[But] it’s not global warming or no global warming — it’s how much global warming, and the more we do to conserve energy, to use alternative energy … the less warming we will see, and the slower warming will occur, so we will give ecosystems a better chance.”

At the end of the exhibit, visitors are asked to commit to do one thing in order to combat climate change — examples included bringing a reusable bag to the grocery store or skipping a hamburger to reduce methane emissions.

Visitors are rewarded with a video of their photo transposed onto a person carrying out their pledge.

One option is simply to talk about what they learned from the aquarium, an idea that Nava says encapsulates the goal of the exhibit.

“It’s a success to me if someone walks out of here and understands that their actions ripple out,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing anyone can take from this exhibit.”

Photo by Morgan Grana.

A volunteer deposits a needle into the biohazard box. The needle shown was among several needles found that day. Photo by Morgan Grana.

A child drops a hypodermic needle into a biohazard box with a poster draped over it that reads “Save Our Shores.” The box is already host to several needles found at the beach that day. The child is volunteering at a cleanup on Main Beach, in front of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Save Our Shores organizes cleanups throughout the year to preserve the local environment of the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary.

A Brief History

Save Our Shores is a local nonprofit organization based in Santa Cruz that organizes cleanups and raises awareness of threats to the marine ecosystem. Whether for monthly cleanups, where any community member can participate, or group cleanups, where specific organizations participate, Save Our Shores motivates the community to volunteer to preserve the marine environment in which they live. The organization’s pamphlet reads, “We show them how their actions affect the marine environment, and offer the choice to make a positive impact.”

Save Our Shores has served to facilitate a “thriving and healthy marine ecosystem as a result of an informed and compassionate public” in the Santa Cruz area since they fought offshore drilling on the central coast 20 years ago. In order to prevent offshore drilling, Save Our Shores has traveled across the state since 1985 to gather support for offshore drilling prohibition. The momentum the organization generated during their campaign across California provided support for the establishment of a National Marine Sanctuary. In 1992, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was established, and since the sanctuary’s conception, the organization has influenced cleanup in the protected area they helped establish.

At their watershed cleanups, Save Our Shores provides volunteers with supplies for cleanup; such as receptacles for collecting trash along the waterways, gloves, the biohazard box, and cards to keep tally the types and quantity of trash found. Before letting the volunteers loose on the litter, a Save Our Shores representative gives a short presentation about the amount and types of trash found in marine ecosystems.

“It’s important to help the environment we live in, and especially because Santa Cruz is such a beach town, it is important to keep the ocean ecosystem thriving and healthy,” said Tori Lord, an intern with Save Our Shores and fourth-year environmental studies major.

Save Our Shores’ office sits on the harbor, its front windows looking out onto the sea of docked sailboats. Here, the nonprofit organizes monthly waterway cleanups throughout the Santa Cruz area, with both specific groups and the general community.

Last year, Save Our Shores collected over 26,000 pounds of trash and 9,000 pounds of recycling, a total that was reached by adding up the quantity of trash collected from all of the cleanups they run throughout the year.

Trash collected at local waterways contributes to this amount. Save Our Shore’s mantra, “Awareness, Advocacy, Action,” is now being directed at the rivers as well.

“We are starting to run more river cleanups, because they are in much worse condition,” said Emily Glanville, Program Manager at Save Our Shores. “We’re really focusing our education on pathways of pollution. I think we have gotten people to not litter on the beach, but we want to foster that kind of awareness for all watersheds.”

Photo by Morgan Grana.

A Shifting Focus

Save Our Shores has begun to focus on rivers and all waterways in the area because they eventually lead to the ocean and are contributing to the amount and type of debris found on the beaches and in the marine habitat.

“Our beaches are getting cleaner because we run a ton of beach cleanups. We hope that it is because of the awareness [we’ve raised],” Glanville said. “Our rivers are a different story. It is much easier to leave a mess at a river. I think that people have a hard time connecting the trash on the rivers and the harm that it causes.”

Despite Save Our Shores’ increased involvement in river cleanup, it has not decreased its involvement with ocean conservation. They still conduct the same number of ocean cleanups.

Glanville said that the high levels of traffic and people that frequent the rivers furthers the importance of their involvement with that endeavor. The debris found at the rivers includes heavier objects, such as tires, washers, dryers and other various household items. The trash typically found on the beaches usually consists of significantly lighter items, like cigarette butts and bits of paper.

Much of the garbage picked up at their beach cleanups — like the one at Main Beach — is in fact attributed to runoff from rivers. For example, the San Lorenzo River pours into the ocean at Main Beach and deposits trash from the river onto the shore.

Needles, like the one found at the Main Beach cleanup, are among the various types of copious amounts of trash found at watersheds and oceans throughout the Santa Cruz area. They indicate how the beaches and the rivers are connected.

“It’s weird, cigarette butts used to be the main thing, now we are finding more condoms and syringes,” said Jessica Glanz, an intern with Save Our Shores, as she stands behind the table, instructing volunteers on the proper methods of trash disposal at Main Beach. Glanz is a Clean Boating and Sustainable Seafood Intern with Save Our Shores and a third-year marine biology major at UC Santa Cruz.

Inhabitants along the rivers may be contributing to the increased presence of needles and other drug paraphernalia being found on the beaches.

“There might be a few people who use on the beach but it is from the homeless encampments on the river and then the river washes them into the ocean,” said Dennis Gagne, Save Our Shores volunteer.

Save Our Shores does not intervene with homeless encampments, but they do acknowledge the damaging effects of such infrastructure on the environment.

“We don’t ever break up homeless encampments. It’s a hard situation that I feel has not been addressed correctly,” Glanville said. “From an environmental perspective, it is bad to have people living along the river without bathrooms, but without the proper infrastructure coming from the city and county, there isn’t anywhere for these people to go.”

Many volunteers at the beach cleanup brought their children with them, and one volunteer braved bringing their stroller onto the sand. Photo by Morgan Grana.

Volunteers for Save Our Shores looked throughout the beach for tiny pieces of trash mixed in all with the wood. Photo by Morgan Grana.

Getting Their Hands Dirty

To facilitate community involvement, Save Our Shores works with community organizations ranging from grade school children to adult sport leagues, coordinating things like beach adoption. In the adoption process, an organization will adopt a local beach and then participate in a minimum number of beach cleanups at their locale.

One blustery February afternoon, at the cleanup aforementioned, nearly 30 Santa Cruz Roller Derby Girls and members of their families showed up to their newly adopted beach, Main Beach, to do one of the three mandatory beach clean-ups required as part of the adoption process. Main Beach is a place that many of the Derby Girls have frequented.

“A lot of our girls grew up here and have an affinity for the beach and keeping the beach cleaned up,” said Derby Girl Salt Ann Battery. “Having grown up here, a lot of us want to help out and because Santa Cruz supports us, we want to show that we are thankful and set an example of community support.”

The cleanup illustrated the intertwined relationships of the community, the beaches and the rivers.

Talking Trash

Save Our Shores works with groups of children frequently, and in light of the debris being found, volunteers are fearful for the youth present at the cleanups.

At the office, Kate Purcell, volunteer coordinator with Save Our Shores, described how the dangerous debris is especially a cause for concern at cleanups with school groups.

“Needles and syringes have increased and it is really worrisome for us, because we have so many school groups who go out,” Purcell said. “It is just scary.”

The possibility of needles and syringes lurking beneath the surface has prompted the staff at cleanups to make a request to children at play.

“Sometimes we recommend that kids don’t dig, because there might be hidden danger. To me, that’s just so sad,” Purcell said. “One of those quintessential childhood experiences is threatened because of the mess.”

Save Our Shores has each volunteer carefully mark what items they collect at cleanups to ensure a thorough bookkeeping of the type and amount of trash collected at each cleanup. The removal of syringes and needles factor in to keeping the beaches safe.

“The state beaches would be pretty dismal without the beach cleanups,” Purcell said. “Save Our Shores is really providing a service to the community. We’re keeping them safe. People don’t realize that cleaning the beaches keeps it safe for children.”

As of mid-March this year, Save Our Shores had collected a total of 2,764 pounds of trash, and 797.5 pounds of recycling at their 18 beach cleanups and 11 river cleanups.

Their close tally of the types of litter picked up at the cleanups allows them to generate accurate and helpful breakdowns of the data.

The top five items picked up at the cleanups, are as follows: 8,230 Styrofoam pieces, 6,545 plastic pieces, 4,025 cigarette butts, 2,503 plastic food wrappers, and 2,430 glass pieces.

The amount of trash that Save Our Shores removes from all watersheds reflects the organization’s role in continuing to preserve the sanctuary they fought so hard to establish 20 years ago. The nonprofit continues to preserve the community and ocean ecosystem that hundreds of marine animals and nearly 700,000 people that live along the Monterey Bay coast call home.

Illustration by Kenny Srivijittakar.

Sean Van Sommeran and his research team at the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation have spotted three great white sharks in Santa Cruz since October. Photo by Morgan Grana.

Next time you are out in the waters of Santa Cruz, don’t assume that the fin you spot out in the distance belongs to a dolphin. This time of year, it could belong to a ferociously hungry, 20-foot-long great white shark.

Lifeguards, researchers and boaters in Santa Cruz County have made numerous sightings of great white sharks in Carmel Bay, Marina, Moss Landing and Monterey Bay since the beginning of August. Over the summer, Seacliff beach, New Brighton state beaches, and Capitola city beaches were closed to swimmers and surfers after a shark was spotted.

While it may not be common knowledge that great whites migrate to areas in and around the Monterey Bay, Sean Van Sommeran, the executive director of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation in Santa Cruz, said that this is actually very common activity for the sharks.

Sommeran coined the term “Sharktober” at his research center to give a name for the time of year when shark activity is most prevalent.

“I see great whites on a regular basis beginning in July,” Sommeran said. “With the increased number of people using the coastline in the summer and with the improvements in technology, shark sightings are much more common.”

Sommeran said that since October his research team alone has spotted three great whites. The number of great whites seen in these areas has increased dramatically from previous years due to increased technology and the ability to explore new territories.

Great White sharks are highly migratory because their prey — elephant seals and bait fish — swim in areas as large as their predators do. Additionally, the seasonal water temperature and swell shifts have influence over their migration.

“The environment acts as a kind of conveyer belt in an airport that moves the animals within them along the current and that’s why we see them in the Monterey Bay,” Sommeran said. “They are just following their prey and are moved along by the natural conditions.”

Giacomo Bernardi, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCSC, said that there are two reasons why new technology has been so much more useful in discovering new deep sea animals.

“We are discovering more about the deep sea in rural habitats because we are probing it a lot more with updated submersibles and cameras,” Bernardi said. “And traditionally we discovered new species of animals from fishermen bringing them back, but because many fisheries have crashed, fishermen are resorting to go to more remote places to catch fish and they are finding these new species in the water.”

New Shark Discovery

The increase in technology has assisted researchers and scientists in the discovery of more shark species. A new breed of ghost shark that resides in the deep sea was discovered on the coast of Southern California in mid-September.

The black ghost shark is the 12th new species of ghost shark discovered in the past three years. Technically the black ghost shark is a chimaera, which comprises the oldest and most enigmatic groups of fish alive today, according to Science Daily.

Professor Bernardi said that the ghost sharks are also called rat fish and their names are based on their appearance.

“The name comes from the strange looking faces that they have,” Bernardi said. “Cartilaginous fish often look weird and they dwell in the deep waters.”

Bernardi is fascinated that researchers are still uncovering new species that has likely been around for millions of years in an area so close-by.

“It’s a major deal when a new species of chimaera is discovered because chimaeras are so ancient and they have been delegated to particularly dark and cold environments,” Bernardi said. “This discovery only underscores how little we know about the deep sea. I find it amazing that fairly big animals can be very inconspicuous.”

Sora Kim, a graduate student at UCSC with a degree in marine sciences, said that the reason we do not know very much about the chimaeras and sharks is because of their adaptations to stay out of human sight.

“We also don’t fish them regularly and they are not a regular part of our consumption, so we don’t know a lot about their population numbers,” Kim said. “It is hard to watch what they do because they are underwater and they travel such long distances, so in the world of science there is still a lot that is unknown about sharks.”

Misunderstood Monsters

From Hollywood representations to urban legends, sharks have long been portrayed as vicious killers with a taste for human blood.

Lauren Smith, a second-year marine biology major at UCSC, recently completed a nine-day field study in Bahia de las Animas. While she knows her fear of sharks may be a little unfounded, she was nonetheless happy not to encounter one during her time there.

“You are more likely to be killed by a hole dug in the sand than you are to be killed by a shark attack,” Smith said. “But even with that said, I would still be scared to encounter one in the water because with a wetsuit on, a person looks a lot like a seal to a shark.”

Kim explained that sharks hunt sea animals that are easiest to catch and that give them the most nutrients, and humans do not possess either quality.

“In the case of great white sharks, they actually like eating things that are very fatty and have high protein content like seals and sea lions with blubber layers,” Kim said. “Humans are pretty small compared to other animals sharks could eat and we don’t have a very high fat content.”

Sommeran explained that it is normally not the shark attack that kills an unlucky human victim, but rather what occurs after the attack.

“Statistically shark attacks and injuries are really, really rare, but even though attacks are usually not fatal, when people are attacked it is injurious and they are usually far from help or from the shore,” Sommeran said. “Usually I find that people don’t go out too much further than the wave breaks because it gives people the creeps.”

Justin Mendez, a second-year from College Nine, frequently surfs at the beaches in Santa Cruz and has never encountered a shark but he still gets spooked on occasion.

“When I went out last Saturday, I was tripping balls because I thought I saw a shark and we were the only ones out there, so I paddled my ass back in for a little bit,” Mendez said.

On her field study, Smith learned some tricks to evade shark attacks.

“If you put a hand on a shark’s nose, which is full of sensory organs, they will fall back and swim away because they do not understand what it is and they do not want it to happen again,” Smith said.

Part of the work that Sommeran and his team of researchers do is to warn surfers of dangers in areas where there are sharks. However, they still joke about the inexperienced surfers and pedestrians in Santa Cruz.

“We have this ongoing inside joke that the sharks sort of weed out the kooks and keep the crowds down in a lot of the more remote spots in Santa Cruz,” joked Van Sommeran. “They help natural selection create a faster, smarter, and more alert breed of surfer.”

However, Mendez has a different take on the way sharks go about choosing their food.

“It doesn’t really matter to a shark if you are a weak surfer,” Mendez said. “If you are floating around out there, a shark is going to eat the guy who looks most like a seal.”

A Reverse Threat

Despite the fact that sharks pose a threat to humans, they face threats of their own as well. Even though sharks are apex predators, they are still in danger of extinction due to high sea fishing and because of their horrific reputation. Sharks are long-living, slow-growing and easily susceptible to being over-fished. In addition, a lot of small species like ghost sharks and skates get caught in troll fisheries.

Sommeran’s Pelagic Shark Research Foundation has been making efforts to conserve sharks since 1990.

“In many cases this by-catch [of sharks and rays] is discarded,” Sommeran said. “It is also estimated that numerous high-seas commercial fisheries discard more than 210,000 metric tons of sharks and rays annually.”

Several local efforts are targeted at addressing the threats humans cause to sharks.

At the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the tour leaders try to change the negative perception of sharks by emphasizing the danger that can occur from a diminishing shark population.

“Sharks are really in danger and they are a big part of the food chain because they are apex predators, so if you take them out there is going to be a great unbalance,” Ann Veneman, a tour guide at the aquarium, said. “They eat fish that are usually diseased or not as fast as they normally should be, so they are cleaning up the environment.”

Sommeran’s Pelagic Shark Research Foundation has three long-term monitoring programs at Moss Landing where there are critical breeding habitats threatened by a few real estate restoration issues.

In the Monterey Bay Marine Canyons, the foundation is checking pelagic sharks that are heavily affected by open ocean drift drill nets and whale liners. They track the sharks from the Monterey Bay pacific basin to Japan.

Sommeran recognizes the value sharks have in the field of marine biology and is doing all that he can to preserve them for the future.

“Sharks are fascinating for all of the obvious reasons because of their teeth and all that, but they are also interesting for showing a long tenure in the fossil record,” Sommeran said. “They represent some of the earliest, if not earliest, vertebrates of our planet.”

As a surfer, Mendez has developed a respect for sharks despite commonly held misconceptions about these ancient vertebrates.

“Sharks are interesting because everyone freaks out about them and thinks that they are crazy,” Mendez said, “but they are actually pretty calm creatures.”