What We're Protecting
What Might Have Been
Thank You!
Protecting Land, One Property at a Time
Who We Are, What We Do
Kayaking Tips for Elkhorn Slough
Map: Elkhorn Slough Access
ESF Recognizes the Reserve
Members-only Kayak Tour
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What We're Protecting

These kayakers pause to take in a rare sight. Ninety percent of California's wetlands have been lost, and thousands of species, like these harbor seals, flock to what is left (see "What Might Have Been," below).

Elkhorn Slough winds seven miles inland from the very center of Monterey Bay. Those who love Elkhorn Slough often call it the “cosmic center of the universe.” It is usually said with a self-deprecating smile, because we know there are many special places left in this much-used world. But the phrase also captures our belief that this is a truly special treasure that deserves our care and protection.

One measure of its importance is simply that wetland habitat is exceedingly rare in California. California’s geography, with its dramatic meeting of mountains and ocean, has relatively few estuaries to start with. Estuaries make up only 10 to 20 percent of our coastline, compared to 80 to 90 percent of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. And we have lost 90 percent of this rare resource in the last 150 years of intensive human settlement. For the birds, marine mammals, and fish that depend on estuaries, Elkhorn Slough is one of the last great places.

That’s why more than 340 species of birds can be seen here, and why Elkhorn Slough regularly ranks among the top five places in the country during the annual Audubon bird counts. Its importance as part of the great fall and spring migrations led the American Birding Conservancy to declare it “globally important.”

Birds aren’t the only creatures that rely on this rare resource. Water-borne visitors can see the seals and otters which rely on the slough for food and a safe place to rest and pup. Seal numbers are greatest from May through August when pupping and molting take place. These numbers have steadily increased since 1989 when Seal Bend (map, page 7) was closed to human access. Seal Bend is also a popular spot for sea otters, whose number has grown in the last decade. Like the seals, the otters are here for the food (clams and mussels) and for the protection from both rough water and predators like white sharks.

Elkhorn Slough plays the same biological role for less visible species, like fish. Over 100 species of fishes have been identified in Elkhorn Slough, and the vast majority of them are marine fishes from Monterey Bay. Recent research shows that the slough is a vital nursery for commercially important fish like English sole.

Elkhorn Slough Foundation Executive Director Mark Silberstein has worked to protect Elkhorn Slough since he was a biology graduate student at the Moss Landing Marine Lab in the 1970s. He ticks off the data backing up the “cosmic center of the universe” moniker: 550 species of marine invertebrates, 300+ species of birds, 100+ species of fish, hundreds of species of plants, and countless species of insects (researchers have just begun to count them). “There are thousands and thousands of species in this small drainage that runs from ridge tops to the deep sea,” he says. “This diversity is remarkable and rare.”

It is easy to experience this biological richness when we hike the trails at the Reserve, or take a kayak or boat trip on the slough, or just stand and watch from the shore. We point to egrets and pelicans and seals and otters. We breathe in the salty, marshy air. We watch hawks gliding over oaks. And we feel something that is hard to feel in our crowded built-up state. That is what we are protecting – the web of natural life and the feeling we get when we experience it.

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What Might Have Been
Condos, marinas, an oil refinery, a freeway...

It is not difficult to imagine what might have been in Elkhorn Slough. You’ve seen it all over California and pretty much anyplace where land meets water. Condos, yacht harbors, refineries, power plants – the heavy footprint of human development where water and land meet. 95 percent of San Francisco Bay’s wetlands have been filled, and almost all of its shore has been developed. Newport Bay in southern California is ringed by housing and filled with pleasure boats.

Elkhorn Slough has a harbor, a railroad running through it, and California’s largest power plant. It also has more than 7000 acres of protected land, half of which is owned or managed by the Elkhorn Slough Foundation.

Much of what is now protected was once slated for the same kind of development we see all over California. Thirty and forty years ago the “grand vision” for the slough was industrial, commercial, and residential development. Humble Oil wanted to build a 50,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Moro Cojo Slough. At the time, many people hoped it would be the cornerstone of a 3800-acre industrial zone. PG&E considered building a nuclear power plant next to the existing power plant.

This map shows what the slough would look like today if some of the many projects proposed for the area had actually been built.

If an industrial zone wasn’t going to happen, it seemed that some other development would. Developers planned a marina and hundreds of condos along the north bank of the main channel – the same place that has become a haven for seals and otters. Cal Trans was also looking into building a freeway through the slough, adding a couple of the ubiquitous clover leaf exits that spawn still more development. The map above gives you a picture of what might have been.

History changed
In the last thirty years, each of these proposals was dropped – and a new future for Elkhorn Slough began to take shape. The land where the oil refinery was to go is now owned by the Elkhorn Slough Foundation, which is restoring the 400-acre wetland. The Packard family bought the land where the condos were planned. The California Department of Fish and Game acquired the proposed marina site.

A new grand vision for the slough began to take shape: It would be protected as a rare biological treasure. The Nature Conservancy acquired key farmlands along the upper reaches of the slough, farms that were then posing a major threat through soil erosion. The Elkhorn Slough Foundation has managed these ranches for ten years – and dramatically reduced the runoff into the slough. A major effort led in 1980 to the formation of the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, one of just 27 such reserves nationwide.

The Elkhorn Slough Foundation was formed 22 years ago and has been a leader in protecting Elkhorn Slough ever since. Today the Foundation owns or manages 3500 acres – the largest conservation holdings in the watershed.

A kayaker's view of "what might have been."

Behind all of these efforts to stop what might have been is a sea change in how the public has come to see the possible future of Elkhorn Slough. Millions of dollars in public and private funds have been in-vested, not in refineries or developments, but in the slough itself and the hundreds of species of birds, fish and invertebrates that make it a biological treasure. We can never go back to what was, but we can go forward to a future where humans and nature live in a balance in this small corner of the world. To the community of people who have invested in the conservation of the slough, that is a grand vision indeed.

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Kayaking Tips for
Elkhorn Slough
Advice from local experts will make for
more enjoyable paddling

We talked to the managers of two local kayak shops – Michael Roberts at Kayak Connection and Josh Mendenhall at Monterey Bay Kayaks – and collected these pearls of local kayaking wisdom. All these tips assume you will be launching at the Moss Landing Harbor – if you put in at Kirby Park and paddle south, the tides and winds will have the opposite effect.

Click here to see this photo in 3D!

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