Bodega Marine Laboratory is located off California Coast Highway 1 about three miles from the village of Bodega Bay, one of the north coast's busiest fishing ports and a popular tourist destination. The town gained lasting fame as the setting for Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film The Birds. Bodega Marine Laboratory is 28 miles from Santa Rosa, 65 miles north of San Francisco and 100 miles west of Davis. See Maps and Directions >

Location, in addition to a rare combination of natural and academic assets, makes BML a unique marine laboratory. The facility sits on wind-swept headlands in Sonoma County on California's north coast, where a 362-acre coastal reserve meets a state-protected marine reserve.

This stretch of ocean is also one of a handful of places in the world where "upwelling," caused by a combination of geography and physics, brings nutrient-rich deep waters to the surface and nurtures a vast array of sea life. This phenomenon makes this coastline among the most biologically productive in North America.

In addition to these remarkable "living laboratories" the Bodega Marine Laboratory is equipped with sophisticated technology, an instrument and sensor network and long term data set, the Cadet Hand Library, teaching classrooms and lecture hall, wetlabs, greenhouses, Dive Training facility, seawater system and vessel fleet. BML is administered by UC Davis, one of the nation's top public universities and a leader in both the marine and life sciences.

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