A Manhattan Beach, Calif. aquarium is urging the coastal community to join dolphin environment conservation efforts.
The recent event, “Why Dolphins Surf?,” introduced Roundhouse Aquarium Teaching Center’s Dolphin Project to members of the Manhattan Beach community while encouraging people to clean up coastal trash. Coastal bottlenose dolphins are thought of as “members of our community,” said Roundhouse Aquarium board member and event organizer Lynne Gross.
Just before California’s annual Coastal Cleanup day in late September, the Manhattan Beach Library hosted a panel hypothesizing an answer to the question of why dolphins surf: to utilize the water pressure for parasite removal, to maintain the pecking order, to practice survival skills, or simply just for fun.
The aquarium hosts events such as these as part of their 7-year-old awareness and conservation initiative, which leads biannual lectures across the Central Los Angeles County coast, informing attendees on the importance of environmental consciousness for the sake of dolphins.
According to panelist and surf shop owner Jason Shanks, many surfers’ investment in the protection of dolphins can be described as “inherent.” Shanks shared at the September event that a big part of surf culture is unconsciously collecting trash, storing it inside one’s wetsuit lining, while out on your board.
Many surfers view the ocean as their “playground,” making it “even more” of their responsibility to conserve the health of the waters, he said.
For others, caring about the welfare of dolphins doesn’t just stem from their “entertaining” surfing antics, but from legislative provisions.
The Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits the harassment of marine animals in the U.S. Roberts deconstructed this act to address a concern of many surfers: How do you respect this doctrine “when the animals are coming up to you?”
Instances such as being approached by a cetacean while surfing qualifies as level B harassment -– disturbance, not injury — provided that the surfer does not consciously touch the animal nor inflict harm, according to former biology professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills, John Roberts.
Roundhouse Aquarium believes the principal threat facing South Bay dolphins is food scarcity.
Panel member Eric Martin, an aquarist and co-director of the Dolphin Project, explained that the blubber animals have is toxic. Due to overfishing, “If the animals can’t find the food for them to eat, they have to go on to [eat] their [toxic] fat reserves,” he said. This is effectively dangerous and such conditions often spark preemptive migration away from the South Bay.
Even when they have sufficient food, there is another auxiliary force stunting local dolphin population growth: toxins in the water.
“The dolphins we see, they may not be in the best health,” said Loyola Marymount University emeritus environmental science professor, current watershed manager and panelist John Dorsey.
In April, a marine neurotoxin identified as domoic acid was discovered in high concentrations at Santa Monica Pier. The Pseudo-nitzschia algae is linked to causing skin lesions on the marine life that passed through polluted areas.
Runoff was named as the likely cause for the algal bloom.
Although Dorsey attests that Santa Monica “has come a really long way since the 1970s and 80s,” there is still more work to be done.
Roundhouse Aquarium promoted their Coastal Cleanup event that was set to take place Saturday morning on California’s Coastal Cleanup Day.
Roberts compelled the roughly 80 attendees to vote for clean street initiatives such as the pilot program Interceptor 007 that collected over 124 tons of trash before it reached Ballona Creek in Marina Del Ray over a 2-year period. Programs like these divert murky street water away from the storm systems — which eventually release into the ocean — and into planters that feed directly into the ground.
“If we love our dolphins I think it’s worthwhile doing it,” he said.
The hour-long panel concluded with the unveiling of a music video Gross edited together from footage of Martin’s dolphin-surfing encounters to the song “Surfin’ USA” by the Beach Boys and another call to action.
Martin told the story of an 83-year-old woman who he sees walking Manhattan Beach every morning, picking up trash. “She’s a firecracker.”
“I saw her about a week ago, and I said, ‘You’re still doing it,’ and she goes ‘Who in the hell else is going to?’” Martin said. “We need more people like her.”