Russ Vetter, Leg III SHARK CRUISE. The surface waters of the open ocean are referred to as the “pelagic zone”, and it is hard for people who have never been out at sea to appreciate the vastness of what is truly the great majority of the Earth’s surface. Oceanic predators must search huge areas of ocean "desert" to find small pockets of high-density food resources at fronts and eddies. Over the last two days, we have checked our satellite maps and decided to move out to the edges of the California Current in search of cold water, oceanic fronts, and perhaps differences in the size and composition of our shark catch.

Southwest of San Miguel Island, krill are visible on the surface of the ocean, whales (mostly fin whales), Rizzo’s dolphin and common dolphin are abundant. Blue sharks dominate the catch with large males in abundance. However, our hypothesis that we would leave the nearshore pupping grounds and that small blue sharks would be absent or rare does not seem to be the case. We are getting a mix of animals.

One treat of going offshore is the chance to encounter true oceanic birds such as the black-footed albatross. These birds, with their tremendous wingspans and amazing capacity to conserve energy by riding air currents, spend the majority of their lives patrolling the open seas in search of food. While common off San Diego, you almost never see them from land. The birds are long-lived and slow to increase their populations, so they're susceptible to population crashes and even extinction if their nesting sites are disturbed or if they are killed in numbers greater than their birth rate can replace. Carl Safina, the noted author who was on Leg 1 of the Shark Cruise, studies these birds. One way to track albatross is by banding birds at their nesting sites. The second photo below shows one of the birds with a band on each leg. Our “teacher at sea” Elizabeth Eubanks took these photos. Albatross can come into contact with fishing gear such as longlines by diving on baits, getting hooked, and drowning. Improvements, such as redesigning fishing gear to scare off birds or get the baits in the water quickly, have greatly lowered the birds' mortality, but more needs to be done. Fortunately, we have never had conflicts with bird s during our scientific longline study. ABOARD THE DAVID STARR JORDAN, along the edge of the California Current.