San Diego Management & Monitoring Program

Mission Bay Park has for decades been one of San Diego's principal tourism and leisure destinations, providing seven square miles of water and land for recreation and attracting millions of visitors from across the nation and abroad. On a peak summer day well over 100,000 people will use the Park, engaging in a diverse range of activities from group picnicking, sailing, and visiting Sea World, to swimming, fishing, jogging and bicycling. As more people settle in the region, new recreation demands will be placed upon the Park responding to new interests, perceptions and values about how to engage the outdoor environment for relaxation and play. The fundamental goal of the Master Plan Update is to identify these new demands and chart a course for the continuing development of the Park which will sustain the diversity and quality of recreation and protect and enhance the Bay's environment for future generations to come.

Mission Bay Park has for decades been one of San Diego's principal tourism and leisure destinations, providing seven square miles of water and land for recreation and attracting millions of visitors from across the nation and abroad. On a peak summer day well over 100,000 people will use the Park, engaging in a diverse range of activities from group picnicking, sailing, and visiting Sea World, to swimming, fishing, jogging and bicycling. As more people settle in the region, new recreation demands will be placed upon the Park responding to new interests, perceptions and values about how to engage the outdoor environment for relaxation and play. The fundamental goal of the Master Plan Update is to identify these new demands and chart a course for the continuing development of the Park which will sustain the diversity and quality ofrecreation and protect and enhance the Bay's environment for future generations to come.

The Natural Resource Management Plan recognizes the presence of natural resources in Mission Bay Park and provides guidelines and programs for the protection, enhancement, and management of these resources. The intent is that no net reduction of wildlife habitat will be allowed and that the over all quality of habitat will be improved. The Plan provides a framework to allow the continued improvement and maintenance of Mission Bay Park and still ensure viable productivity and protection of the Park's natural resources. Use of the Plan can help bridge what can sometimes be a gap between the requirement of human activities and the need to protect and manage natural resources. The Mission Bay Park Natural Resource Management Plan helps to clarify expectations for the protection of natural resources in the Park and to facilitate the granting of federal, state, and local permits for projects in the Park.

San Diego Audubon’s Coastal Dune Vegetation Enhancement Project addressed the region’s Management Strategic Plan (MSP) goal to maintain and expand extant populations of Nuttall’s Lotus, an MSP SO species, within Mission Bay Park, while enhancing associated coastal dune areas that have the potential to support this species in the future. The strategy was two-fold: leveraging volunteer effort to carry out targeted hand removal of nonnative invasive plants, supported by well-timed spot-spraying of herbicides (a relatively novel approach) vs. eliminating nonnative invasive species via mechanized scraping and broadcast herbicide applications (the more traditional method of management at these sites). The use of two different management regimes (scraping vs. hand pulling) allowed for comparisons in efficacy for the enhancement of coastal dune habitat to support native plants such as Nuttall’s Lotus. Vegetation monitoring revealed dramatic shifts in native versus non-native plant cover during this time, with hand management resulting in much higher native plant cover and richness than mechanized scraping.