Runnin’ to greet the grunion

Lindsay Sandham

Ray Halowski never thought he would be so excited about the spawning

rituals of fish.

That is, until he became a grunion greeter last year and

discovered the natural wonder that occurs on Southern California

beaches every year.

Halowski, a Corona del Mar resident, is vice chairman of the

Newport Beach chapter of Surfrider Foundation, which is how he became

involved in Pepperdine University’s Grunion Greeter project.

Along with numerous marine and wildlife organizations, Pepperdine

is conducting a study that relies on hundreds of volunteers to

observe the habits of the silvery fish, which are found only along

the coast of Southern California and Northern Baja California. The

studies began in 2002, when concern arose that beach grooming was

harming grunion eggs during spawning season.

“That led to a lot of changes in beach grooming practices,” said

Karen Martin, the biology professor at Pepperdine who is heading up

the study.

The main goal of the study is to see if grunion can be used as an

environmental indicator of beach health, she added.

Grunion are one of the only types of fish known to spawn

completely out of water. The female lays her eggs, and the male then

wraps himself around her. The eggs stay in the sand for their

incubation period, which can be anywhere from 10 days to 35 days,

Martin said.

“It’s a really interesting thing from a biological standpoint --

the eggs don’t hatch until they’re triggered by the agitation in the

seawater, which happens during high tide,” she said.

Grunion undertake their spawning excursions ashore late at night,

only twice a month after high tides associated with a full or new

moon.

“The spawning months are one possible indicator [of beach health],

and we’re also going to be watching the eggs,” Martin said. “That’s

why the greeters are so important; they give us a good indication of

where to find the eggs.”

Volunteers, or Grunion Greeters, are assigned specific nights to

scout the beaches during the peak spawning season of April to June,

and if they do see grunion, they report where and how many were seen

by logging onto an interactive website or a hotline.

Halowski was assigned to observe beaches in Newport two weekends

last year. The first weekend, he said, he saw nothing. But on the

second night of the second weekend, it happened.

“I was waiting, waiting, then all of a sudden I saw little

sparkles in the water,” he said. “I went closer, and I saw there were

actually little fish. Within 20 minutes, right along the waterline

was this ribbon of silver dancing in the moonlight; because they’re

all moving, it looks like they’re dancing. It was magical. I couldn’t

believe there were so many ... there must have been millions of

them.”

Nancy Hastings, the Southern California field coordinator for

Surfrider Foundation, said the grunion are elusive creatures, and

people normally see them only during their runs when they come

ashore.

“As far as their population status, little is known about how many

of them there are, and where they go,” she said.

Halowski said this year he will be taking some of his friends’

children with him.

“I think it’s very educational,” he said. “It’s one of those

natural wonders that you would normally never see.”

Many of the beaches are closed to the public during the late-night

hours when the grunion come ashore, Martin said, but the greeters

have special clearance to stroll the beaches during the spawning

season.

There is a peaked interest in Orange County, Martin said, because

people here love their beaches and are starting to realize that they

are also ecosystems.

“Surfrider hopes to expand the public’s understanding of beach

ecology,” Hastings said of their involvement in the Pepperdine study.

“It’s important to get our volunteers down there to see that the

beach isn’t just a vast stretch of sand -- it’s an ecosystem that

supports a multitude of species, both marine and land based.”

Several workshops are being held throughout Southern California

for those who are interested in becoming Grunion Greeter volunteers.

For information on upcoming workshops, visit https://www.grunion.org.