Monterey Bay Aquarium rides a wave of significant and surprising conservation to another continent.

The monkeyface eel does not look impressed.

Not that it ever looks enthusiastic. But now, lurking in its underwater cave, it wears its frown more graphically than normal.

It appears annoyed at an unscheduled human floating in front of its face, poking around its home in the Great Tide Pool next to Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Maybe it should be more welcoming. The snorkeler does offer some of the eel’s favorite ulva algae, or sea lettuce. The human is also removing litter that has fallen from the decks above, and will even help retrieve a cane dropped by an old ocean lover.

The other tasks taking place – rock arranging to provide fish habitat and feeding giant green anemones squirts of pink krill “shake” so they’ll asexually reproduce more rapidly – improve the eel’s neighborhood and prepare it for upcoming Days of Discovery that introduce special-needs students to the freedom and wow of underwater exploration.

Eel approval aside, the effort is on message with the Aquarium’s aim to inspire conservation of the ocean. It also clicks with an earlier mission MBA chief Julie Packard learned from her dad. She shared that with journalists and restaurant, farm and industry leaders gathered for the Sustainable Foods Institute earlier that same day last week: “Do something useful, then forget about it and go on to the next thing. Don’t gloat about it.”

Aquarium leaders applied that ethic on the occasion of its 30th anniversary last year, when they went short on celebration and long on action, unleashing 12 months of unprecedented activity.

The hypnotic wonderpus and friends of “Tentacles: The Astounding Lives of Octopuses, Squid and Cuttlefishes” helped draw 2,066,177 visitors, tops among aquariums. Fundraising for a new Ocean Education and Leadership Center on Cannery Row – which will double the numbers of students participating in Aquarium education programs, science teachers trained and teens in leadership programs – surpassed $22 million.

TripAdvisor tabbed MBA “Best Aquarium in the World” in its Travelers’ Choice awards. The eco-conscious dining program Seafood Watch not only educated record numbers of eaters, but set purchasing guidelines for more than 100,000 businesses across North America – a good 86 percent of the top 25 retailers – including major U.S. food-service and retail outlets like Safeway and Target. Those advances helped inspire ocean-minded philanthropists Wendy and Eric Schmidt (who happens to chair Google) to donate $10 million to Seafood Watch.

Those are just a few highlights. But there are more than enough problems to justify going on to the next thing, and swiftly. Carbon emissions are increasing. Ocean acidification intensifies. Coral reefs are dying. Fish stocks are crashing. Apex predators hang in the balance. The need for conservation has never been greater.

So the Aquarium’s most dramatic television appearance ever (see story, p. 24), evolving Cooking for Solutions programming (p. 22), Sustainable Foods Institute lessons (p. 20) and new Science and Conservation initiatives couldn’t come fast enough.

“It’s a matter of urgency, given the accelerating pace of global change,” Packard said. “The ocean faces no shortage of challenges. We can turn the tide, but only if we keep stepping up.”

Aquarium leaders push the application of science to affect consumer behavior, business decisions and government policy. They just created a new conservation and science department and website to empower that push. The department includes Seafood Watch; research of imperiled marine creatures like sea otters, white sharks and bluefin tuna; and lobbying at local, state and national levels.

Margaret Spring has come on to direct the department after tenures at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and The Nature Conservancy. She points out these efforts and experts existed before the Aquarium launched her department. The difference now: MBA can leverage all its top experts to attack complex, cross-disciplinary issues like illegal fishing, collaborating from a variety of angles.

“Sometimes you become cylinders of excellence,” she says. “This brings together parts of the Aquarium doing great work and deepens the impact. We’re connecting more dots, making sure data we’re finding informs our policy work: to take more conservation action, because time’s a-wastin’.”

In other words, no time for gloating. Just progress, done with enough heart, insight and energy to make Mr. Monkeyface smile. Almost.

For more on Monterey Bay Aquarium’s research, policy work and science-driven programs, visit www.montereybayaquarium.org/conservation-and-science.