By Within Long Beach State’s 322 acre breath, what sorts of life calls The Beach home?
The lawns of upper campus house tension daily with squirrels tangled in their territorial disputes.
Employees at Beach Building Services speak of a legend where coyotes ran throughout the bottom corridors of Brotman Hall throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
For small mammals at CSULB, Biological Sciences Professor Ted Stankowich lists skunks, raccoons, possums, rats, domestic cats and house mice as common ones, noting the occasionally sighting of California ground squirrels near the welcome sign as a native species.
Fox squirrels, which Stankowich describes as the ones that students see everywhere throughout campus, are a non-native species introduced in the mid- 1900s.
Between digging in the dirt, a squirrel sits upright in the grass of upper campus on April 1. Photo credit: Julia Goldman
Though he predicts his request will fall on deaf ears, Stankowich encourages students to keep their distance and not feed any wildlife, especially the fox squirrels.
“As cute as they are, you shouldn’t be feeding them,” Stankowich said. “They are not supposed to be here. They will do just fine without you.”
As mentioned earlier, coyotes are a larger, mammal predator seen on campus. However, Stankowich said that the population has always lived here, and has likely not fluctuated at all.
“Coyotes in nature can be active any time of day, it’s not unusual.” he said. “They don’t attack adult humans – they will go after small mammals, small pets.”
If a student does encounter a coyote, Stankowich advises them to not be fearful nor run – instead, try to appear big and make a lot of noise.
A hummingbird rests on a branch in the CSULB School of Art courtyard on April 1 between feeding from flowers. Photo credit: Julia Goldman
According to Stankowich, over 40 years ago the campus used to house other native species, including weasels, badgers and deers.
However, as The Beach has grown, developed and become more urban, the species that can not handle urban areas have been pushed out.
In contrast, the reason why generalist mammals like raccoons and squirrels have thrived is because of their ability to eat lots of different foods and their tolerance to live in different environments.
As Stankowich calls them, they are the “main players” of urban areas.
“They can scavenge among garbage cans and roadkill,” he said. “They are bolder, they have different personalities and are more willing to be around people to endure that, to get to that food.”
Kelp bass curiously approach the edges of their enclosure on April 2. The marine lab houses one other kelp bass in a separate tank inside. According to Marine Lab Technician Yvette Ralph, it had to be separated because it was getting picked on by the other fish. Photo credit: Julia Goldman
Right within the Hall of Science, room 118, an array of California native marine species exist in captivity throughout the CSULB Marine Lab.
Upon entry, guests are encouraged to interact with a blue touch table that houses marine animals including anemones, snails, worms, muscles, abalones and sea cucumbers.
Beyond the invertebrate species, the lab also holds animals like one wolf eel, two California spiny lobsters, three juvenile sea bass, a yellow spotted moray eel, kelp bass, blacksmith fish and round stingrays.
As an educational tool, the Marine Lab often hosts tours to interested students and children touring with their schools, according to Marine Lab Technician and Manager, Yvette Ralph.
Each species, which are cared for and studied by Ralph, her five undergraduate assistants and two graduate assistants, are either donated by local aquariums like the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium or are directly collected by Ralph herself.
This senior resident yellow spotted moray eel has lived at the Marine Lab for over 16 years, similarly to Yvette Ralph, the marine lab’s technician and manager. In August, Ralph celebrates her 16th year at Long Beach State. Photo credit: Julia Goldman
With her special collecting permit from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Ralph will go on boat trips, scuba diving excursions and visit tide pools across the coast of California to collect a variety of marine wildlife.
These collection efforts are a key part of The Beach’s invertebrate zoology curriculum. As students progress through the semester, the faculty will ask her to collect additional invertebrate marine species for students to study.
Connected to and right besides the Marine lab, other aquatic predators find shelter through the Shark Lab, operated by Director and Professor of Marine Biology, Chris Lowe.
Like the Marine Lab, students, guests and children participate in educational tours to see resident horn, leopard and gray smooth hound sharks at the Shark Lab, with Lowe citing over 7,000 tours completed in the last year.
Most ectotherm research, performed by Lowe, his staff, his one graduate student and 12 graduate students, is done off-site locally.
Chris Lowe wags his finger before a young California horn shark on April 2. While out on collection at Flat Rock Point in Palos Verdes, Ralph found the horn shark egg case, which was later brought back to the facility before this one was born in the Shark Lab. Photo credit: Julia Goldman
One way the lab furthers ectotherm biology research is through taking the data collected during the field research, and later replicating a hypothesis in the lab’s controlled environment.
Lowe cites a project, where his students used a respirometer swim tunnel in the lab to measure how water temperature affected the metabolic rates of sharks.
They found a relationship between body size and metabolism; as an animal gets bigger, their metabolic rate gets lower.
Further expanding on that project, Lowe said, the next generation of students created mathematical models to predict how the horn shark’s rate of metabolism will increase with changing ocean temperatures.
The most-dramatic model, with projections of the climate warming over the next 50 years, indicated a 40% rise in horn shark metabolic rate.
“That means horn sharks will probably not be able to survive those temperatures – they would have to eat 40% more to just break even,” Lowe said. “That’s one of the cool projects that us keeping animals in the labs let us measure.”
If you are interested in scheduling a visit the Shark Lab and Marine Lab, please visit the Shark Lab’s contact page and send a request to Ralph at her email: Yvette.Ralph@csulb.edu.
