Seabirds

photo of sea lions
Black-footed albatross Photo: NOAA

Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary protects an area of 1,286 square miles in one of the most productive offshore regions in North America! The sanctuary is located about 43 nautical miles northwest of San Francisco, California, and is entirely offshore, with the eastern boundary five miles from shore. The undersea oasis of Cordell Bank and the surrounding waters teem with life and provide food for hundreds of thousands of seabirds that travel from the Farallon Islands and the Point Reyes peninsula or that have migrated thousands of miles from Alaska, Hawai’i, Australia, New Zealand, and South America! Cordell Bank is also known as the albatross capital of the Northern Hemisphere because five different species have been documented there. At least 75 species of seabirds have been observed throughout the sanctuary.

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