2024 Annual Report
A large black bus with a black accordion center sits parked along the Santa Cruz coastline. The bus features large images of animals, including a transparent squid, a red jelly, a white rope-like siphonophore, a brown fish, a transparent jelly, an orange flapjack octopus, a red vampire squid, and a red comb jelly. The bus also has large white text reading “Protecting Our Deep Sea One Ride At A Time.” This photo from a drone shows the bus parked on wet black asphalt with green plants, brown cliffs, blue ocean, white waves, blue sky, and gray clouds in the background.

A Santa Cruz METRO bus wrapped in MBARI’s images of deep-sea animals will help raise awareness about protecting local marine wildlife by riding public transit. Image: Andrew O’Keefe/Amotion.video © Santa Cruz METRO

Bringing the deep sea to land, one ride at a time

MBARI’s advanced underwater robots are revealing life in the depths of Monterey Bay. Cameras on our vehicles have captured stunning images and video of giant jellies, towering corals, and other deep-sea denizens. A new collaboration with the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District (METRO) is introducing bus riders to the amazing animals of the deep.

In 2024, METRO’s acclaimed environmental awareness campaign, One Ride at a Time, added a bus wrapped in larger-than-life images of deep-sea animals taken by MBARI’s robotic submersibles.

One Ride at a Time seeks to showcase the environmental benefits of transit, encourage bus ridership, and protect Santa Cruz County’s extraordinary natural resources. MBARI’s unique deep-sea imagery inspires riders to consider their connection to the ocean and its inhabitants.

Sound provides new insight into the secret lives of oceanic giants

MBARI’s acoustic monitoring can detect the vocalizations of whales, revealing new information about the ecology of gigantic, yet elusive, marine mammals.