Fitzgerald Marine Reserve - Friends of FMR

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The official page of Friends of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. We want to share the wonder of the marine world with all...

ABOUT THE RESERVE:
Fitzgerald Marine Reserve and its tidepools are part of a San Mateo County Park located in Moss Beach, CA, about 40 minutes south of San Francisco. The Fitzgerald Marine Reserve tidepools are one of the most beautiful and easily accessible natural wonders of the Northern California coast. Recently designated a Marine Protected Area, the rocky shore of the reserve becomes an outdoor classroom at low tide, allowing explorers of all ages to marvel at the diversity of marine life and learn more about protecting the ocean and its inhabitants. On any given day visitors may see sea urchins, sea stars, harbor seals, various mollusks, and even the elusive red octopus. ABOUT FRIENDS OF FITZGERALD MARINE RESERVE:
Our mission is the protection and preservation of the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve as a unique intertidal and coastal environment through the promotion of educational and experiential activities for students, visitors, and researchers. Every year, our volunteer naturalists take about 5000 school children on guided tours of the intertidal environment, and introduce thousands of other visitors to the wonders of our rocky coastline. We also organize beach cleanups and hold other events that combine family fun with learning about and protecting our environment.

09/23/2026

Exploring Plankton and Friends at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve Visitor Center

On Saturday, October 3 from 11AM to 1PM at the FMR Visitor Center, Nevada Ave, Moss Beach, Friends of Fitzgerald Volunteer Naturalists will be exploring plankton collected in Pillar Point Harbor, and dock organisms collected on pier pilings there. See microscopic plankton and learn about their role in the health of marine ecosystems, and the importance of plankton to life on earth! View limpets and candy-striped worms and skeleton shrimp up close! See colonial bryozoans and tunicates up close! Connect plankton to the great whales that roam the oceans! Join us for some hands-on fun!

08/20/2026

Can you identify all of these intertidal creatures? Give us your best identifications in the comment and we’ll let you if you got them right! 🪸

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer with the Friends of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve send us a DM and we would love to give you more info! 📲

08/15/2026

This morning a group or naturalists met up for group roving. Led by FFMR president Karen K for an early morning low tide. The goal was to focus on the “interpretation” of what we see, how we introduce and engage visitors with the organisms and the ecosystem, and sharing our knowledge and our techniques with each other.

Comment an ocean creature emoji 🦀🐙🪸🐚 if you want to see what the group observed this morning!

08/13/2026

One of these pairs is not like the other! Can you guess which one...

Its actually hard to find isolated pairs of creatures at FMR, because there is just so much life everywhere, but in this case, that last panel-not a pair! Its an Aggregating Anenome, caught in the act of splitting itself in two...technically a single individual. Its a very special way of being!

Read more here, from UC Davis
https://theethogram.com/2024/09/17/creature-feature-aggregating-anemone/

08/06/2026

🌿🌊 A day among the seaweeds!

Last month, our third Marine Algae Workshop took volunteers down to the tide pools at Pillar Point to collect, identify, and press the amazing seaweeds of central California. Some of these beautiful pressings are joining our growing collection at the Visitor Center, come see them on your next visit!

A big thank you to all our wonderful volunteers, guides, and expert Joc Avila for getting their feet wet and helping us celebrate the diversity of our shore. 💙

07/24/2026

Happy world Whale & Dolphin Day from your friends at the Friends of Fitzgerlad Marine Reserve!

To celebrate our volunteers received an article from Tom Ciotti, FFMR Volunteer naturalist, past Board President, and current Monterey field scout, on s***m whale communication. Click this link to read it for yourself: https://www.popsci.com/environment/s***m-whales-change-communication-ships/

07/21/2026

On Thursday July 16th, volunteer naturalists of FFMR took advantage of the early morning low tide to complete our 20th iteration of our long-term monitoring survey of the intertidal. We are observing designated species in two defined research areas, once per quarter year. Look for our research results published in Between the Tides periodically. Here are some of the gems we observed during the survey, including a Stiff-footed Sea Cucumber (Eupentacta quinquesemita), Opalescent Nudibranch (Hermissenda opalescens), and an ambitious sunburst anemone with a half-ingested red crab!

If researching the intertidal sounds like something you might be interested in, we are always looking for new volunteers! Please reach out through our website at https://fitzgeraldreserve.org/

06/22/2026

The epically low tides we experienced last week made for some great spotting down in the tidepools. Here are a few of the things we found:

* The little orange chap is Lissothuria nutriens, commonly known as the dwarf or scarlet sea cucumber
* The Sunburst anemone (Anthopleura sola) is showing it’s acrorhagi (tentacles used to deter other anemones from getting too close!)
* The scientific name for the six-rayed star is Leptasterias hexactis
* And we found a deceased mola mola, missing a few fins

Did you make any interesting finds recently? Let us know in the comments!

06/15/2026

Thanks to all our volunteers who made the Plankton event this past weekend such a success. It was great to spend time with visitors. Below are a few of the wonderful things we saw: Pleurosigma, Melosira, Licmophora. There will be another even in July at the FMR Visitor Center. Details soon!

06/12/2026

The tour season is coming to an end-and over 2500 people were served! On Wed, the 5th graders from Mark Day School spent their last full day of school at Fitzgerald (great choice ;)...

Even with a not-very-low tide there was a lot to see. And thanks to a pair of sharp eyes, one thing we saw was a Sea Meatloaf*-stranded on the sand and far from the water. We got it back into a refreshing tidepool, and it made a difference for that one

Have a great summer everyone and check this space for upcoming events

*indeed, it has another name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumboot_chiton

Address

Moss Beach, CA
94038

Telephone

+16507283584

Website

https://fitzgeraldreserve.org/

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