Video Teaches Tidepool Visitors to Tread Lightly
Staff photo by Courtenay Nearburg Marine Protection Officer Calla Allison regularly patrols the tidepools at Heisler Park marine reserve. She appears in an educational DVD released this week by the Laguna Ocean Foundation. After years of modeling appropriate "etiquette" to tidepool visitors by its docents, Laguna Ocean Foundation is stepping up its efforts at protection by producing an educational video for distribution to schools planning tidepool field trips and to vacationers staying in local hotels.
Framed by footage of aquatic recreation available to Laguna Beach visitors, "Tidepool Scene" features music by local musician Cheryl Procaccini, an informative segment by tidepool docent Jan Sattler, and an appearance by the city's marine protection officer, Calla Allison, who lays out the rules for shore visitors intrigued by coastal tidepools in Heisler Park. "Look, don't touch," is the dominant theme.
A first-time trek to tidepools, visible at low tide in several locations in addition to Heisler Park, is a special experience, Allison said. She described making kids her "deputies" to protect the tidepool creatures as a way of sharing the message of stewardship. Allison said the city recently hired three new part time tidepool educators to help with marine protection duties.
Staff photo by Courtenay Nearburg Local songwriter and tidepool docent Cheryl Procaccini wrote an original composition featured in a seven-minute DVD targeted for school kids and visitors due to arrive at local tidepools. "The best enforcement is education," Allison said. "That's really been the clear message with these students that come down, and with educating the people that visit and stay in our hotels."
Just as the video is being released, city officials say they anticipate receiving a $2.5 million grant from the State Water Quality Control Board for water quality improvements in Heisler Park, another effort at tidepool protection. According to city manager Ken Frank, the city is prepared to match state funds with $900,000, sufficient to complete planned Heisler Park renovations.
Allison hopes to see significantly more signage about the marine reserve rules and tidepool ecosystem in Heisler as a result of the grant. Construction
EVERYTHING could start in September of 2009 if funds are secured, Frank wrote last Friday.
Foundation chairman Fred Sattler approached the Convention and Visitors' Bureau late in 2007 with a proposal for an educational video to introduce visitors and children to the fragile marine ecosystem before they ever hit the sand, according to Judith Bijlani, bureau director.
Widely distributing a message of appropriate tidepool responsibility and maintenance has been a goal of the Laguna Ocean Foundation since its inception in 2003, said chairman Fred Sattler. "Our tidepools are fun, interesting, valuable resources that are worthy of protection," he said in announcing the video, joined by Mayor Jane Egly and Councilmember Elizabeth Pierson. "It has taken us nearly five years to finally achieve this goal, but I am sure that you will think, as I do, that it was worth the wait."
Del Mar-based Barnstormer Productions produced the video. Jeffrey Lehman, host of the PBS travel show "Weekend Explorer" and Barnstormer's owner-producer, contributed existing footage shot in Laguna and filmed additional scenes of Allison and Sattler at Heisler Park to create "Tidepool Scene". Local writer Chris Quilter was tapped for the script.
A self-described "lifelong tidepooler" who was born and raised in Del Mar, Lehman said he intends to distribute "Tidepool Scene" as widely as his syndicated program "Weekend Explorer." "Explorer" reaches 75,000 classrooms internationally through Global Classroom, is broadcast on Cox channel 3 in Orange County, and on mass transit systems nationally as travel shorts.
Lehman had just completed an "Explorer" episode featuring Laguna Beach when Bijlani asked him to get involved with the foundation video. "The most important thing was to make sure that the message was full and incorporated everything they wanted to say, but yet we wanted to do it in a fun and entertaining way, so that we ended up with something that is education disguised as fun," she said.
Procaccini's original "Tidepool Song" was inspired by the songwriter's experience as a Laguna Ocean Foundation docent. "The melody elicited in me the same feeling that the tidepools did, and that was a sense of awe and wonder, protection and care," she said.
While individuals volunteered their services to the making of the video, the foundation project received public funding through a community service grant.
Tidepool docent Jan Sattler described several encounters with marine life that made a lasting impression, including Humboldt squid washing up and sighting an octopus, both at Treasure Island Beach. "When you are docenting, you never know what you are going to encounter when you go down to the tidepools at low tide. Special things happen," she said. "We can still help our visitors have a wonderful experience in the tidepools and memories to take home."
See the foundation tidepool video online at www.lbindy.com.
