Año Nuevo Island is an important marine mammal colony

Why count?

Every year, thousands of seals and sea lions haul out on Año Nuevo Island to give birth, molt, and rest. The secluded shores of the island make a perfect spot for northern elephant seal and California sea lion mothers to give birth and nurse their pups. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz are interested in tracking the number of animals that haul out onto the island's beaches. To study when and where the animals haul out, researchers took drone photos of the island about every two weeks for the past four years.

Although the island is small, thousands of animals can inhabit it at a time, which is where citizen scientists like you come in! We need your help to count each individual animal on a given day. We have divided the drone photos into small sections - some sections may be full of animals, and some may be empty. By helping us classify these photos, you can be part of a collaborative project to better understand how many seals, sea lions, and birds are on Año Nuevo Island during different times of the year, and how the population sizes fluctuate between years. This information can provide important insight into the health of different pinniped and bird populations as well as emphasize the importance of continued protection of Año Nuevo Island and the surrounding areas in Monterey Bay.

This project will potentially allow researchers to investigate three important topics:

1. The effectiveness of citizen science in simple but large-scale data analysis.
2. A comparison of the success of censuses from the ground versus aerial photographs.
3. Investigation of the changes of seal, sea lion, and bird populations in recent years.

Thank you for volunteering your time as a citizen scientist to help us with this important project!

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Want to see the island in real time?

Check out our live cam!

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Drones offer a unique perspective

Many researchers have traveled out to Año Nuevo Island to census the animals there, but with at least 3,000 very active animals to count at any given time, this can be extremely difficult. That's why drones are an invaluable tool for animal censuses.

Since the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 prohibits the disturbance of marine mammals, and drone use is prohibited within State Parks, our research team needed special permissions to obtain these photographs. After receiving permission to fly a drone within the State Parks and over water in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, we were careful not to disturb the animals on the island by flying the drone high in the air. As you can see by the many sleeping sea lions in the photos, the researchers were successful in capturing photos without altering the animals' behavior.

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Funding

_{UC Santa Cruz Packard Foundation Ocean Science & Technology Endowment}

_{Año Nuevo Reserve}

_{NOAA's Marine Mammal Laboratory}

_{The Center to Advance Mentored, Inquiry-Based Opportunities (CAMINO) in ecology and conservation. CAMINO is an inclusive community that aims to propel excellence by diverse undergraduates in ecology and conservation. Learn more here.}

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Additional Resources

For more information on seals and sea lions, check out our education page.
Have a question? Try our FAQ page, or send us a message!

Año Nuevo Research Facebook Page
Año Nuevo Natural Reserve
Año Nuevo State Park Website

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Data collected under the following permits:

NMFS 19108
MBNMS 2017-018
CostD1709