Inside look at local nonprofit preserving and researching Monterey Bay
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) is usually closed to the public, but this weekend they invited everybody in to see what they’re all about.
“Being able to see one of the premiere institutions that has been kept secret for so long is always a pleasure,” said Isaac Gendler of Berkeley.
At MBARI’S annual open house, visitors got to learn about and play with cutting edge science and technology being implemented at the nonprofit research center located in Moss Landing.
“They have the research for college students and adults that will understand more, but also exposing it to kids,” said Jessica Rosenau of Pennsylvania. “I think it’s great and it’s a nice size where it’s not overwhelming.”
Since the 80’s, MBARI has anchored itself as a leader in advanced research and education in ocean science and technology.
“We have some robots, they’re called ROV’s, remote operated vehicles, those can dive down to two and a half miles deep,” said Kim Fulton-Bennett of MBARI. “They’re probably only about five or eight institutions in the world that have that kind of capability.”
Having those resources at their fingertips has resulted in conservation efforts and lots of discoveries.
“We put a hydrophone, an underwater microphone out in the bay a couple of years ago. We thought oh we’ll just you know hear what’s out there,” said Bennett. “Well we discovered there’s kinds of whales living in the bay that nobody even knew where here.”
MBARI said with so much change happening in the ocean right now, they’re studying how the bay waters are warming up, becoming more acidic and decreasing in oxygen.
“That’s affecting abalone,” said Bennett. “We want to know how is that affecting not just the adults but the babies. It turns out the babies are really sensitive to this very small change in acidification.”
People we talked to said MBARI’S research and outreach events like the open house communicate just how important scientific resources are.
“The only way to advance your nations infrastructure is to make it more sustainable and not just to open up more petroleum,” said Gendler.
