Cordell Bank-NOAA

The Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary is located 42 miles off the coast of San Francisco and is one of 14 marine protected areas managed by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. Designated by Congress in 1989, the sanctuary’s productive waters are a destination feeding area for local and migratory marine life. In total, the sanctuary protects an area of 529 square miles.  The centerpiece of the sanctuary is Cordell Bank, a four-and-a-half mile (7.2 km) by nine-and-a-half mile (15.2 km) rocky undersea feature located 22 miles (35 km) west of the Point Reyes headlands. The bank sits at the edge of the continental shelf and rises abruptly from the soft sediments of the shelf to within 115 feet (35 m) of the ocean surface. Cordell Bank falls within the California Current ecosystem, one of four major eastern boundary currents in the world.  As such, it supports a rich biological community that includes local species as well as migratory sea turtles, fishes, seabirds and marine mammals that travel up to thousands of miles to feed around the bank.

The new report indicates that the overall condition of the sanctuary’s marine life and habitats is fair to good, but identifies several emerging threats to sanctuary resources.  According to Dan Howard, sanctuary superintendent, the peer reviewed  report will provide a baseline for monitoring changes to sanctuary resources and will help NOAA to better understand and respond to these emerging threats.

A  summary of the findings include:

• Global issues of concern such as marine debris, ocean acidification and invasive species have the potential to degrade fragile sanctuary resources and habitats.
• Water quality in the sanctuary is generally good due to the sanctuary’s offshore location and distance from major urban population centers
• Seafloor habitat quality was rated lower, primarily due to prior impacts from fishing gear that came into contact with the sanctuary’s rocky reef and soft sediment habitats.
• Populations of rockfish, salmon, some seabird species, and leatherback sea turtles that use the sanctuary are depleted, but that fishery closures are helping to rebuild depleted fish stocks.
• Additional research is needed about contaminants and invasive species.

The full sanctuary condition report is available online, if you would like more detail on NOAA’s findings.

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