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I’m very happy to share the first results and impressions from our recent scientific survey work in the stunningly dense and beautiful eelgrass beds around Owls Head Provincial Park!
Marine Biologist Kristina Boerder
We spent about 4 hours in the water to measure and survey eelgrass along 100m of transect and found the eelgrass off Little Harbour in very good condition. The beds were very dense (in some spots actually too dense for us to do some of our measurements!), overgrowth of the blades was within healthy levels and some blades we measured were more than 60 inches long!
Between the eelgrass we recorded lots of animals making it their home – plenty of rock and green crab, hermit crabs, snails and shrimp feeding off algae and other critters growing on the eelgrass and juvenile fishes and flatfishes hiding between the shoots as well as lobster of all sizes patrolling the area.
Next steps will include some SCUBA dives in the wider area, identification of coastal marine habitats using satellite imagery, as well as taking of sediment cores for our work to estimate coastal blue carbon storage at OHPP.
We will continue to share results and footage of our work here – many thanks to Nicolas Winkler for his photographs and the awesome eelgrass team Caitlin Grady, Haley Guest, Katie Studholme, and Stephen Glazier for their hard work and patience!
An extra big thank you also goes to all the great supporters of our science fundraiser whose generous donations enabled this work and to Beverley Isaacs for granting us access to her property and shoreline!
