Pups in the Ponds: Protecting San Francisco Bay's Hidden Shark and Ray Nurseries

Join us to support Shark Research in San Francisco Bay

Pups in the Ponds: Protecting San Francisco Bay's Hidden Shark and Ray Nurseries

San Francisco Bay and its overlooked network of tide-gated neighborhood ponds may be one of the most important, yet least understood, reproductive habitats for elasmobranchs (sharks, rays, and skates) on the West Coast. Earlier this year, this significance gained international recognition: my work supported the designation of the Bay as an Important Shark and Ray Area (ISRA) for reproduction by the IUCN Shark Specialist Group. But without concrete data demonstrating the presence of pregnant females and newborn pups, it's difficult to show exactly how elasmobranchs use this Bay.

I'm Dr. Meghan Holst, a UC Davis researcher studying elasmobranchs in San Francisco Bay. This project expands beyond a single species to demonstrate the full scope of the Bay's role in elasmobranch reproduction: documenting pregnant females and newborn pups across the Bay's shallow margins and the residential ponds that unexpectedly connect to it, some of which are trapping pups with no one watching.

Gifts to our campaign support the Pups in Ponds Project within the Aquatic Research Collective at the University of California, Davis. Select "The ARC Students' Conservation Research Fund" to support this campaign.

The campaign will support our current priorities of:

• Purchasing an ultrasound to confirm pregnancy in live-captured females
• Conducting Rod-and-reel and seine net sampling across Bay and pond habitats to document pupping activity
• Supporting a field operations manager to lead this expanded fieldwork

Together, this will generate the first dataset linking pupping presence to specific sites across the Bay, data urgently needed to support this poorly understood but internationally recognized habitat.

The best part: this work is powered by community outreach and volunteers. Every individual trained to support this project comes to it through Ocean Science Expedition Academy (OSEA), the 501(c)(3) nonprofit I founded and lead to build equitable pathways into marine science. Through this partnership between OSEA and UC Davis, we're building a community program that extends our science into Bay Area neighborhoods.