NMFS administers the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) programs which support the domestic and international conservation and management of living marine resources. The NMFS, along with the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Marine Mammal Commission, conservation groups, commercial fishers, researchers, animal protection groups, and the Alaska Native community, is responsible for implementing the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

As part of the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's mission is to conserve, protect, and enhance fish and wildlife and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. Their major responsibilities include: migratory birds, endangered species, fresh and anadromous fish, the National Wildlife Refuge System, wetlands, conserving habitat, and environmental contaminants.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act, authorized in 1972, aims to conserve and protect marine mammals through the establishment of the Marine Mammal Commission, the prohibition of certain tuna harvesting practices, and the development of a marine mammal stranding network. The Act was reauthorized by the Marine Mammal Protection Act Amendments of 1994.

A unique private oceanographic center, the non-profit Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), was established in 1987 by David Packard (1912-1996) with the goal of developing state-of-the-art equipment, instrumentation, systems, and methods of scientific research in the deep waters of the ocean.

Año Nuevo is a marine mammal rookery where elephant seals, sea lions, and other pinnipeds come ashore to rest, mate, and give birth in the sand dunes or on the beaches and offshore islands.

The Channel Islands National Park consists of 249,353 acres, half of which are under the ocean, and include the islands of San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa, and Santa Barbara. Over 2,000 terrestrial plants and animals can be found within the park. One hundred and forty-five of these are unique to the islands and found nowhere else in the world.

The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary is our nations's eleventh Marine Sanctuary and the largest. Its protected resources include our nation's most expansive kelp forests, one of North America's largest underwater canyons and the closest-to-shore deep ocean environment in the continental United States.

Just north of San Francisco, this National Marine Sanctuary is 1,235 square miles of nearshore and offshore waters ranging from wetlands and intertidal to pelagic and deep-sea communities. Multiple uses abound, from fishing and sailing to surfing and whale watching. In fact, some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world pass through the Sanctuary into the San Francisco Bay.

In 1980, a 1,252-square-nautical-mile portion of the Santa Barbara Channel was given a special protected status with the designation of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. It encompasses the waters that surround Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel and Santa Barbara Islands, extending from mean high tide to six nautical miles offshore around each of the five islands. The sanctuary's primary goal is the protection of the natural and cultural resources contained within its boundaries.

The mission of the Florida Keys Sanctuary is to manage, protect and preserve the ecologically diverse marine communities and submerged cultural resources of the Florida Keys.