The Morro Bay Estuary serves as a popular place for residents and visitors to spot wild animals.
“Just up the bay here, we saw a bunch of sea otters. They looked like logs; they’re just chilling out for the day, but the bird life here is fantastic,” said Vernon Johnson, visiting from Oakhurst.
“The coolest thing we saw were feral pigs down the road. We weren’t sure what they were, and I bet they catch things like raccoons and mountain lions and things like that,” said Anne Graham, Los Osos resident.
Now, a camera placed near Chorro Creek by the Morro Bay National Estuary Program (MBNEP) during a water assessment last spring is giving researchers a glimpse of even more animals.
“We thought we might as well throw out a wildlife camera and see what we could find," said Makenzie O'Connor, Monitoring Projects Manager. "So, it was kind of more exploratory rather than having consistent data collected there over time.”
O’Connor said that the camera has captured images of bobcats, deer, mountain lions, and even a tagged bear. They notified the California Fish and Wildlife Department about the bear because they had never seen a tag like it.
“The bear initially had been tagged on east Cuesta so the other side of the 101 and somehow managed to get his GPS collar off, but the ear tag had stayed on,” O'Connor said.
She said that specific bear was believed to be around three years old and had crossed Highway 101 about three different times.
“That information from that tagged bear was able to go into their management efforts, so they do some population modeling and a marker capture study so that point location was able to be utilized,” O'Connor said.
She said that since the last time they've been up Chorro Creek, they re-stationed the camera pointing towards the creek to see what they find, and that they’ll soon post a blog on their website with more information about the camera.
