World Ocean Day - Oregon Coast Aquarium

One Ocean, One Climate, One Future - Together

Thanks for joining us!

Thanks for joining us June 8th online and on site in celebrating World Ocean Day! See below for what went on, as well as other info and resources. Curious about 2025 celebrations? Follow us on social, or check back on this page closer to 6/8/25.

Sea Otter Feed
10:30 - 10:45am, Sea Otter Habitat
Sea Lion Feed
11:00 - 11:15am, Pinniped Habitat
Pelican Presentation
11:30 - 11:45am, Pelican Stage
Animal Ambassador Presentation
12:00 - 12:20pm, Amphitheater
Sea Otter Feed & Enrichment
1:00 - 1:15pm, Otter Habitat

Tabling Partners

Thanks to our wonderful tabling partners for the 2024 event!

In early 2024, the Ocean Foundation launched a new multi-year campaign: Catalyzing Action for Our Ocean & Climate. The aim is to keep pressure on global leaders to follow through on their commitments to 30×30 and its full implementation by 2030. You can learn more about benchmarks and wins the past years’ petition and support have brought.

A healthy ocean is a critical part of the solution to the climate crisis. With your help and that of hundreds of other organizations worldwide, the goal is to continue to promote and protect at least 30% of our blue planet by 2030!

World Ocean Day’s 2024 focus is on a 12 months of action program. Each month features a different focus, from learning about ocean climate, to environmental justice. All together, the goal is to treat ocean conservation as a single-day celebration, and something instead you can carry with you and act on throughout the year.

Resource and Activities

Take Action & Get Involved

Want to take action? Learn ways you can take action locally in your community:

Kids Activities

Looking for activities, lessons, coloring sheets and more? Check out WorldOceanDay’s resources for kids page!

Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s)

As of 2020, approximately 15% of land and 7% of oceans are protected. If you have ever visited a National Park, then you have visited a protected land area. But how do you protect areas in the ocean? Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), like marine reserves and sanctuaries, are areas in the ocean where human activities are more strictly regulated than in surrounding waters—similar to the outdoor parks that we have on land. In the United States alone, there are about 1,700 MPAs—nearly 41 percent of the nation’s marine waters. Marine Protected Areas are important in safeguarding marine ecosystems in a specified area.

To learn more about MPAs, enjoy watching this segment of Dr. Sylvia Earle’s address at the 2019 ‘Future of our Oceans’ conference.

If you would like to explore the work being done on Marine Protected Areas by Dr. Earle’s organization, Mission Blue, you can visit their website here.

Do we have Marine Protected Areas in Oregon?

Yes! The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife oversees the management and scientific monitoring of 5 areas along the Oregon Coast, called marine reserves.

Oregon’s marine reserves are areas in the ocean that are dedicated to conservation and scientific research. Within the marine reserves, ocean development and the removal of marine life is prohibited. Oregon created these marine reserves to conserve marine habitats and biodiversity. They also serve as living laboratories where we can learn about Oregon’s nearshore ocean environment and the effects that protections have over time on the marine habitat.

To find out more about the reserves and the science being conducted by the ODFW Marine Reserves Program and their partners you can visit their website here.

What role does the Oregon Coast Aquarium play in ocean conservation?

The Aquarium partners with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to SCUBA dive for the Marine Reserves program. The Aquarium dive team trains all of the Marine Reserve dive volunteers who collect data at each site. The aquarium has trained 29 divers and conducted over 600 research dives in the first eight years of the program. The OCAq dive team even created their own ID guides and showcase the animals at the aquarium during training.

Check out a short video about diving in the reserves.

Click here to take a deeper dive into the ins and outs of diving in the reserves.

The Aquarium also works hard to help rehabilitate wild Oregon Coast animals including birds, sea turtles, octopuses and marine mammals.

Animal Rehab Conservation