Local Beach COMBERS survey Central Coast beaches

Keeping track of what’s on California’s Coast, a local volunteer group called Beach COMBERS walks designated beaches every month collecting data. These days their job is even more important.

Crews are assigned beaches and over time, become familiar with the area and what to expect. June’s survey is especially important because it is the first survey in the aftermath of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill.

“We did send out an email to all the Beach COMBERS to be on the lookout for any oiled birds and to collect any oiled birds that were found on the beach,” said Beach COMBERS volunteer Patty Brown.

She and her husband, Paul Fleischman are two of dozens of members that participate in the monthly survey. The data they’re collecting may seem a little depressing — They are counting and cataloging dead birds and sea mammals. During this particular survey, the two made a rare find.

“Something that I’m pretty sure is a petrel of some sort,” Brown said. “Possibly a forked-tailed or storm, I’m not sure which one.”

They scour Marina State Beach from Reservation Road to the Salinas River Refuge. It’s an area considered “high deposit,” meaning, a lot of animal carcasses wash ashore there.

“So today on a stretch of beach a little over three miles,” Fleishman said, “We found about 30 animals. Generally it’s almost 100% birds. Today, it was 80% sea mammals. Mainly sea lions, some elephant seals, we found an otter, we found a harbor porpoise, from all ages. We found one just born, one with the umbilicus and the afterbirth still attached, to full adults.”

They’re paying close attention to any oiled birds that may have been down in Santa Barbara. NOAA recently said there were low chances of oiled birds traveling nearly 200 miles to Monterey Bay. None of the birds found at Marina State Beach has traces of oil.
The information this group has been collecting for years goes into a database. That database serves as a baseline, something scientists can reference in case a catastrophic event ever happened here.

“Instead of saying, ‘Hey look, there’s a lot of things on the beach, that’s really unusual,'” Brown explains, “You can actually go back and quantify that. You can go off actual numbers instead of hunches.”

Beach COMBERS volunteers are specially trained in identifying animal carcasses, including their sex, age and in some cases, how long ago they died. After this specialized training, new volunteers are paired up with seasoned volunteers for in the field training.