Field Work Friday

It’s #FieldWorkFriday

This week kicked off with a shoreline cleanup of McNeil Lake. A group of five students and two leaders helped us collect 3.8 kgs of trash from around the lake shore. Trash included cigarette butts, fabrics, plastics and dog poop bags! An enormous thank you to the students, parents and teachers that participated as well as to EcoAction Canada for supporting us with this work.

For our juvenile salmon surveys, we found coho and chinook salmon present. We knew it would be soon! The Chinook had been seen preying on the little larval herring in Gerrans Bay. It is presumed that these are the same herring that hatched on our herring curtains this winter. We are still observing chum salmon, pink salmon, shiner perch and larval forage fish in our sets.

We continued to see an increase in the number of Dungeness megalopae in our light traps. There are also other crab species such as grooved mussel crabs, pea crabs and even adorable little hermit crabs.

For our European green crab (EGC) survey this week, we set traps near Coho Marina. We identified graceful, hairy helmet, red rock and yellow shore crabs. Thankfully, there have been no EGC! Did you know that we have crabs that are green in colour here, but only the EGC have fivespines on its back shell? Our native yellow shore crab that is pictured has only three spines. Can you see them?

With summer quickly approaching, we will start adding additional programs such as seagrass mapping and rocky intertidal surveys.

Want to get involved? Check out our events calendar online at loonfoundation.org or email Jenn at jenn@loonfoundation.org