Field Work Friday

It’s #FieldWorkFriday

This week kicked off with our larval crab and juvenile salmon surveys. We still saw a few Coho smolts at Irvines Landing and caught one inside the harbour on Monday. We will be moving into the juvenile threespined sticklebacks and the juvenile shiner perch soon!

We observed baby kelp pipefish in our larval crab survey. They are so small they look like hair in the water. Did you know that pipefish are a cousin of the seahorse and that the males brood the eggs?

Our European green crab (EGC) surveys did not reveal any EGC but we did find a couple of very cool species; a brittle star and a plainfin midshipmen. Look at the arms on the brittle star!

We conducted our monthly water quality survey in Anderson creek. The creek has very low flow with no water in the lower reaches. We are very happy to hear there is some rain in the forecast.

There have been a few reports of anchovies within the harbour. We finally got a glimpse of them in Joe Bay. They are easily identified when they are feeding by their big gill plates. When they open their mouths to feed, the gill plates flash like silver dollars in the water. Have you seen them?

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