Day 5 - Dolphin Observation Survey

Our sea conditions today were less than ideal with large swells that made it difficult to go close to the surf and to observe dolphins. The bottlenose dolphin stay in the surf area within the inshore waters no further than two kilometers off shore and can easily be seen from the beach. The near shore waters are a highly productive spawning ground for coastal fish which attracts dolphins to this area of the surf. We were not able to get any photo-identification from the boat today due to the swells.
We were able to encounter a number of sea otters in the swells milling around or resting around the kelp and we counted over 100 sea lions just congregating on the rocks near one of the Monterey harbors. We saw a sea lion that had fresh shark wounds which will make it difficult for him to forage and survive.
We observed many brown pelicans in the sea that have also been endangered due to human impact of contaminates in the ocean.
Please consider what we can do to improve environmental conditions that impact our oceans and wildlife; especially toxic chemicals that pollute our watershed and runoff into the ocean.