MPA Collaborative Network

Today is ! This year, celebrates “Ocean protection needs human connection,” and we wholeheartedly agree!

We’re highlighting a different kind of protection, one that is focused on haul out sites and rookeries called Special Closures. Haul outs are where marine mammals get out of the ocean to get warm, dry, and to rest. Rookeries are breeding grounds for birds and mammals, or bird nesting sites.

Special Closures are unique. While most don’t define Special Closures as an ‘MPA’ per se, these are important designations that limit disturbances to wildlife during specific seasons or in sensitive habitats. These disturbances include both predator (e.g., a lack of foxes on offshore rocks and islands) and human. ! We encourage you to view and experience wildlife that make use of these Special Closures - with proper wildlife viewing etiquette and distances of course!

FEATURED: Our very own Jamie Blatter - enamored and in awe of the thousands of birds - with a spotting scope at one such Special Closure in Humboldt County: Castle Rock Special Closure!

MPA Day (always the 1st of August) was first started in South Africa. In addition to Underwater Parks Day in January, it is worth celebrating the achievements of the MPA network in California!

- fur seals are in South Africa AND in one of these Special Closures. Pop into the comments and guess which Special Closure pictured has fur seals!

At the end of June, as the month of community science bioblitz events for wrapped up, three members of MPA Collaborative Network visited Montana de Oro State Park in San Luis Obispo county.

*~*
Lea Graham, our CSU COAST intern for the summer of 2025, shared: “Tidepooling at Hazard Reef was such a fun and rewarding experience! I got to enjoy exploring the different intertidal zones and the marine creatures within them while also making a meaningful contribution to a community science initiative.
*~*
Using the app, each of us uploaded at least 24 different species to help crowdsource information about marine biodiversity.
*~*
To learn more about how Snapshot helps provide over a decade’s worth of ‘snapshot’ data to inform coastal management, especially in the intertidal zone (tidepools), check out: tinyurl.com/tides-2025.

This Juneteenth, take a moment to read a submission from a member of the MPACN Black Community Group!

“As I wrap up the California Coast In Color Residency, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to reclaim space.

Juneteenth is about freedom, but it’s also about memory. It’s about honoring the stories that have been erased and making space for new ones to be told, especially our stories, in places we’ve been pushed out of for too long.

Black people have always had a relationship with the water. It’s spiritual, ancestral, joyful, and powerful. That connection deserves to be seen, centered, and celebrated.

I’m also proud to be part of the MPA Collaborative Network’s Black Community Group, a space where Black folks in marine science, conservation, and coastal love come together and build community. If you feel connected to the ocean, you belong in this story too.

We’re not just revisiting the coast, we’re actively rewriting what it means to belong here ✨”