Forty years later the rivers are cleaner, millions of acres have been established as national parks and wilderness areas and over all the air quality has improved. But what about the other 71%? Over half our oxygen comes from the ocean. Fish feed millions and the beauty and complexity of marine life leave us in awe. Yet today, a year after the ravages in the Gulf from the BP Oil spill, 90% of large pelagic shark species are going extinct from overfishing and for their fins. Whales and seals have been hunted to a genetic bottle neck and are hunted still. The wolves of the sea, the bluefin tuna, are being fished to the vanishing point. While a thousand other insults are being inflicted on Mother Ocean, where is our outrage?

New oil wells are being considered along our coast while nuclear power plants hum along our shorelines vulnerable to Tsunami and earthquakes. Recent die-offs of sardines in southern California; emaciated and sickly sea lions along the coast, vanishing salmon and stranded leopard sharks in the San Francisco Bay are bellwethers reminding us that the ocean is sick.

The ocean needs our help.

After a week of celebrating the Earth, it's time to celebrate our ocean with World Oceans Day. This day had been unofficially celebrated every June 8 since its original proposal in 1992 by Canada at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was officially recognized by the United Nations in 2008. Since then, WOD has been coordinated internationally by The Ocean Project and the World Ocean Network with greater success and global participation each year. World Oceans Day is an opportunity every year to honor the world's ocean, to celebrate the all marine life.

It's time to motivate change and let our leaders know that marine life and ecosystem are worth protecting, and they need our protection now. This summer, celebrate World Oceans Day and tell our representatives we need a sea change. With our partners from The Ocean Project, Sea Stewards will be coordinating a World Ocean Day Celebration at Crissy Field in San Francisco on June 11. We will be celebrating all marine life, especially sharks, and motivate people to protect the ocean and ocean life we love.

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What is it about sharks that inspire such controversy? Sharks make good press. The very words, "shark attack" sends a chill up the spine and puts a gleam in the editor’s eye. Sharks are all over the news when there is a shark attack or when the Discovery Channel is re-enacting shark attacks on "Shark Week". But this spring, sharks are in the news for another reason.

Sharks swim in our psyche. There is something mysterious, enigmatic and even deeply atavistic about sharks. The unmistakable shape of a shark, the open jaws lined with serrated teeth, and the shark fin is imprinted throughout human history up to modern times.

From petroglyphs in European caves, carvings in Pacific Island volcanic rocks to shark masks in a West African dance, the image of the ocean's apex predator inspires power, fear and even virility. Cultures the world over have created myths and cults around sharks, deifying them and demonizing them. The Greek goddess Lamia was a daughter of the god Poseidon, a devourer of children and the mother of the sea-monsters Skylla and Akheilos. The Australian Aborigines have an oral history of Bangudja, the tiger-shark, which attacked the dolphin man in the Gulf of Carpenteria, leaving behind a large red spot on the rocks of Chasm Island. The Pacific Island peoples who live in close connection to sharks have elevated sharks to a God-like status. The Hawaiian amuakua symbolizes an ancestor in the form of a shark. Countless Hawaiian myths refer to the shark god Kamohoali’i serving as protector of fishermen and guider of lost canoes. The indigenous people of Solomon believe that the bodies of sharks are inhabited by the souls of the dead people.

In modern cultures, we continue to symbolize sharks: the ruthless lawyer; a cool calculating professional golfer; a quick and menacing professional hockey team. Until recent times shark encounters did not extend beyond local beach or fishing communities. With modern media and the immeasurable psychological impact of a Hollywood film, sharks rose from the subliminal depths into the forefront of our collective fear.

Jaws was a good film. It struck a chord, but it was not good for sharks. Peter Benchley spent the last decades of his life trying to undo what the film sparked. The wave of horror initiated by Jaws continues today: news stories of a single shark attack spread beyond proportion, when the true story should be man bites shark.
The fact is we are removing all large predatory fish from the world ocean at an unsustainable rate. As the consummate oceanic predator, sharks are especially vulnerable to overfishing and are increasingly being wiped out as bycatch and for products like shark fin soup. Global demand for shark fin soup has pushed several shark populations to the brink of collapse. Shark finning is the cruel and wasteful practice of hacking off fins from live sharks, tossing the dead or dying animal overboard. Man bites shark at the rate of millions to one every year. In this respect man is winning, but in reality we are all losing. It has been demonstrated that sharks are essential members for a healthy ecosystem and removing them is causing an imbalance, even a collapse of complex marine communities.

But sharks are in the news for other reasons. States and countries are rising up and protecting sharks. Last year Hawaii banned shark fin soup and commercial shark fishing. The Marianas Islands, Guam and Palau have all banned shark fin sales and provide sanctuary for sharks. The Washington State Assembly just passed a bill to ban the sale of shark fin, and California has its own bill, AB 376 started right here in San Francisco to ban shark fin in our state. Other states and island nations are considering similar passage. The news is that sharks are important and we care enough to override cultural concerns about a delicacy. The news is that cultures can evolve so that the ocean can survive.

Sharks are a symbol of what is going wrong with the oceans and what can be right. Sharks are symbols of ocean health. It's time to dismiss the man-eater myths, push back the soup bowl and start protecting sharks for a healthy ocean and healthy humans. Living sharks are valuable to the ocean ecology and to human cultures across the Pacific. It's time think like a sea steward for all ocean life, including the shark. This is why sharks are the Sea Stewards symbol and the motivation behind the Shark Sanctuary Initiative. It is why we are supporting AB 376 and will be celebrating sharks on World Oceans Day in June 2011. Let sharks live!

Find out more about what legislators are doing for shark protections and the passage of the Shark Fin Bill.

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Producer Chris Bauer filming over the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in NOAA's Twin Sea Otter plane.

Much of the ocean waters off the coast of California, from Bodega Head to Cambria, have been set aside as national marine sanctuaries. The primary objective of the sanctuaries is to protect our delicate ocean resources while allowing people to use the areas in a sustainable way. While most recreation, commercial fishing, and shipping are still allowed within sanctuary waters, some activities are now strictly regulated or prohibited.

But how do you manage such an enormous area? And how do you keep tabs on what is going on out there? QUEST producers Lauren Sommer, Jenny Oh and I hitched a ride to find out.

On the windswept tarmac of the Sonoma County Airport, a team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration takes to the skies to patrol large portions of the Cordell Bank, Gulf of the Farallones and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries.

The mission of our Twin Otter flight crew, pilots Bradley Fritzler and Jason Mansour from NOAA Corps, along with sanctuary observers Sage Tezak and Michael Carver, is to conduct abundance surveys of users in the sanctuaries, counting boats and recording what they are doing and where.

We start out crossing Bodega Bay, flying multiple transects, back and forth, across the rolling seas of Cordell Bank. The engine noise is deafening in the unpressurized cabin. We scan the whitecaps from a mere 1000 feet, going only about 90 knots. The rugged aircraft bucks in the turbulent wind coming off the water. Flying this low and slow would give some pilots the jitters but for the Twin Otter flight crew it’s just a walk in the park. As we reach the Farallon Islands, I pop the back window to get a better camera angle of the “Devil’s Teeth,” and in the process pray our camera doesn’t get sucked out into the abyss. From the Farallones we bank south and head to Ana Nuevo Island. From there we’ll circle back up the coast, past Half Moon Bay and San Francisco, over Pt Reyes National Seashore and return to Sonoma County. Total flight time: 3 hours. In addition to surveying boat use in the sanctuaries, the observers and flight crew will document any other sightings, such as whales and keep a look out for maritime violations.

California has recently established new marine protected areas along the coast. These MPAs will have strict restrictions and some will essentially be closed off to all major use, including fishing. While the State is in charge of enforcing the new regulations, coordination between government agencies may provide additional help with an eye in the sky.

As much as the folks at NOAA might chafe at this description, it’s easy to think of these Twin Otter Survey Flights over the marine sanctuaries as a kind of “cop on the beat.” They’re not out there actively tracking down bad guys as much as they are a presence, keeping an eye on things and making sure everybody is on the up and up. And in that role, they don’t need to be flying everyday combing the ocean, monitoring everyone and every thing, every minute of every day. They may only survey the sanctuaries once every couple weeks. But knowing that today might be the day they are flying over, may help keep users of the marine sanctuaries in line. “Nothing to see here, move along.”

We’ve crossed these waters many times before for QUEST, but always traveling out into the deep blue on small, sea-sick inducing boats. I can tell you for certain, flying over the rough seas and into the wild blue, is a lot more pleasant and efficient. And seeing the Farallones from the birds eye view was clearly inspiring.

Watch the Marine Sanctuary Patrol Flight television story online.

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But even though it's in our own backyard, this place remains mostly unknown… probably due to its chilly temperatures. Let's face it, most of us are not donning our masks and snorkels and swimming in the hypothermic Pacific Ocean off our coast.

Lucky for us, some intrepid scientists and students are diving into this amazing place. Their job is to monitor how the ecosystems are responding to the new restrictions and protections taking place in the Marine Protected Areas. They gave us an amazing opportunity to see the natural world beneath the surface. And the world they shared with QUEST is truly inspiring. Playful harbor seals tease the divers while they weave through the gently swaying kelp forests. Fish dart through the rays of sunshine that cascades down to where starfish slowly go about their day. Through the eyes of these scientists, we witness the undersea life in bloom. They clearly have one of the best offices to go to work to each day.

Watch the Underwater Wilderness: Creating Marine Protected Areas television story report online.

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