Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program e-update : a monthly summary of selected activities of the APNEP staff, committees and our partners ...

              APNEP Soundings 1
Summer greetings!
As the heat grows more intense, so does the schedule for APNEP staff. The spring season has seen our Comprehensive Conserva-tion and Management Plan develop from outline form to a draft document. This draft has undergone review by APNEP’s advi-sory committees and will be released for public comment by late summer. I have been pleased with the thorough review and posi-tive feedback received from our representative advisory commit-tees, and we look forward to receiving new insights from the broader community. Please watch for the public release of the document, then take the time to review it and provide com-ments. The CCMP will guide our program and partners for the next decade, and your contributions will ensure that we are pro-ceeding with broad-based community input and support .
Sincerely,
Bill Crowell, APNEP Director
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
CATCHING OYSTERS WITH CRAB POTS
In December, APNEP’s Citizens’ Advisory Committee approved a pilot project that aims to show how abandoned crab pots can be converted into oyster habitat. A few snips here, a cement-dip there, and voila! Instant oysters.
That’s the hope, anyhow. Dr. Joel Fodrie, of UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences, saw abandoned crab traps covered in oysters, which gave him the idea to further experiment with the concept.
As the crab pots are deployed, it is likely this demonstration project will provide immediate water quality benefits in the sounds as oysters begin to attach and grow. A commonly cited statistic suggests that a single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day.
The pots are being placed in the sounds with extreme care to ensure that a wealth of ecological knowledge is gained from the (Continued on page 3)
Summer 2011
Director’s Note
1
Catching Oysters with Crab Pots
1
Goodbye Shad!
2
Nature’s Classroom
2
N.C. Outdoor Classroom Symposium
3
Linking in with APNEP
4
Shoreline Restoration at Bogue Banks
4
The Doctor is In
4
Inside this issue:
The Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program Newsletter
Soundings
Clockwise from left: (1) Middle marsh, which is ringed with oyster habitat; (2) D-day, when the first group of pots were secured to a shallow sand bank in Bogue Sound. Pictured left to right are David “Clammerhead” Cessna, Niels Lindquist, Joel Fodrie, and Adam Tyler (3)oyster spat growing on mature oyster substrate.
On the calendar:
Sound Learning Teacher Institute 7/10-15 | STAC meeting 7/26 |
Coastal Explorations Workshop 8/23 | Policy Board meeting 9/27 APNEP Soundings 2
This spring, hundreds of children in the Roanoke and Neuse River Basins participated in the Shad in the Classroom program. APNEP worked with the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences and the U..S. Fish and Wildlife Service to host the program at 20 North Carolina schools.
Each spring, shad eggs are transported from the Edenton Na-tional Fish Hatchery to elementary and middle school class-rooms in the region. The eggs often receive a king’s welcome, as students have been learning about the shad and anticipating their arrival. Once the classroom aquarium is prepared, students and teachers care for the eggs for one week until they hatch into releasable fry.
Raising shad provides students with opportunities to learn about their river basin, shad life history, and the relationship between the rivers, estuaries and oceans where shad live. Students were also able to make connections between water quality and fish health by measuring and studying pH, water temperature, and dissolved oxygen concentrations in the aquarium. The week culminates with students visiting local rivers to release the shad so teachers can supplement classroom instruction with field-based learning.
New for the Shad in the Classroom program this year are a series of videos produced by the museum. These videos give an over-view of the program, show fisheries biologists in action, and in-struct teachers on the proper methods to care for shad. Most no-tably, the program helps capture students’ awe and wonder as
they learn about their natural world.
The shad releases APNEP attended this year were great fun for adults and students. APNEP will continue to support this inno-vative education partnership in 2012 so we can prepare a new generation to tackle our toughest environmental challenges.
Top: An East Wake Middle School student watches and records a shad electrofish-ing demonstration by a NC Wildlife Resources Commission representative. Right: Students from Exploris Middle School say goodbye to the shad they raised. The shad were released into the Neuse River at Milburnie Dam. Photo credit: Melissa Dowland, N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences.
GOODBYE SHAD!
NATURE’S CLASSROOM
The Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program Newsletter
Summer 2011
In mid-May, APNEP staff attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for the opening of the Wyatt Middle School outdoor classroom and nature trail. Initial funding for the project was awarded by APNEP’s Citizens’ Advisory Committee, but the support of sev-eral other agencies, organizations, local businesses and commu-nity volunteers resulted in a final project far grander than ex-pected.
The outdoor classroom consists of a pavilion and a 900-foot ex-ploratory trail with signs that detail the connections between the schoolyard, the Meherrin and Chowan Rivers, and the Albe-marle Sound. A number of features have been included in the project to help minimize stormwater runoff, including rain bar-rels for the pavilion roof and a dry river bed on the exploratory trail.
Even before the classroom opened, the project provided extraor-dinary opportunities for quality, field-based education. Students learned about water conservation as they constructed the rain barrels by hand, and the construction of the dry river bed pro-voked discussions about water quality. Students were involved in all phases of the construction, and though the eighth graders who worked on the project will soon move on, their work will be enjoyed by Wyatt Middle’s students and the community for years to come. APNEP Soundings 3
experiment. The experiment design includes a number of vari-ables across the eight project sites. The pots were secured at dif-ferent depths to observe how water depth affects colonization. Some pots have PVC coatings while others are bare wire. Also, because Virginia and North Carolina fishermen use different types of pots, this avenue was explored. Finally, some pots origi-nating from both states were dipped in cement to see if oysters were more likely to colonize this surface type.
On May 12, the first round of pots were deployed by Dr. Fodrie and Dr. Niels Lindquist of IMS, commercial fishermen David “Clammerhead” Cessna and Adam Tyler, and Jim Hawhee from APNEP. A total of 36 pots were deployed that day, which re-quired placing the pots according to the experimental design, then securing them to the sandy bottom of the sounds using re-bar bent for this specific purpose.
Want to see more pictures? Check out our albums on Facebook and Flickr!
(Oysters, continued from page 1)
The Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program Newsletter
Summer 2011
N.C. OUTDOOR CLASSROOM SYMPOSIUM
In April, APNEP teamed up with the N.C. Office of Environ-mental Education and others to host the N.C. Outdoor Class-room Symposium at the N.C. Botanical Gardens. The sympo-sium was well attended, with 200 participants hailing from all corners of the state.
The symposium featured presentations that help teachers create outdoor classrooms and integrate these spaces into their curricu-lum. Sessions were offered on creating natural areas and using the outdoors to connect students to scientific research and food production. The presentations were supplemented by work-shops and outdoor classroom visits for educators starting or bol-stering their environmental education offerings.
An important aspect of APNEP’s mission is achieved through the development and support of outdoor education opportuni-ties. APNEP’s multifaceted support for environmental educa-tion provides teachers with the resources to offer unforgettable lessons about the sounds. A complex and delicate relationship exists between the Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine ecosystem and its inhabitants, and by shedding light on these relationships, we hope to promote long term stewardship of our sounds and the rivers, creeks, and marine environments that sustain them.
From top: (1) Wyatt Middle students watch the ribbon-cutting ceremony from within the outdoor classroom. (2) Mike Dunn of the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences works with two teachers to identify aquatic flora and fauna. (3) A group of teachers visits the outdoor classroom at Yates Mill Elementary School . This area was designed to filter water flowing into Swift Creek and the Neuse River while also supporting the school’s environmental education curriculum. APNEP Soundings 4
In our spring edition of Soundings, we in-cluded an overview of the media platforms we use to tell our story. One of those plat-forms is LinkedIn, a professional network-ing site. During the past few months, many of our advisory committee members, staff members and other environmental profes-sionals have joined our group and sub-groups to comment on environmental devel-opments that relate to our region. They have also started networking with each other, strengthening the professional bonds neces-sary to implement management initiatives on an ecosystem scale. The site has many interesting features, including detailed pro-fessional profiles, status updates, discussion forums and controls that allow you to keep up with the conversation as often as you choose. At the staff level, we enjoy the fact that conversations can occur across advisory committees and between members of our broader community. For those of you with a professional interest in our region, we invite you to connect with our group on LinkedIn.
LINKING IN WITH APNEP
Our mission: To identify, protect and restore the significant resources of the Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine system..
SHORELINE RESTORATION AT BOGUE BANKS
Correction:
In our spring edition, the photo below was captioned “A trumpeter swan grazing in a North Carolina wetland habitat. “ However, the bird shown below is actually a tundra swan. Thanks to Ricky Davis of Rocky Mount, NC for the correction.
In April, APNEP staff rolled up their sleeves and assisted with two shoreline restoration projects in Carteret County. Both projects received financial support from APNEP and were spearheaded by the N.C. Coastal Federation. The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries and Car-teret Community College also sup-ported these projects, which were lo-cated on their respective campuses.
Restoration efforts like these provide important water quality benefits for the adjoining sound, as runoff from the large parking lots are filtered through the new marsh habitat (Spartina sp.). The marsh also helps prevent shoreline erosion by stabilizing the soil. Finally, the effort has created unique learning opportunities. Dozens of Croatan High School students learned about water quality issues by assisting with the pro-ject, and the greater community will continue to learn about the significance of these efforts though on-site educa-tional materials.
The Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program Newsletter
Summer 2011
THE DOCTOR IS IN
Congratulations to APNEP director Bill Crowell, who recently earned his Ph.D. in Sustainability Education from Prescott Col-lege. Bill’s dissertation examined how N.C.’s certified environmental educators understand and communicate concepts of sustainability. Bill will be presenting this research again locally at the North Ameri-can Association for Environmental Educa-tion conference, which will be held in Ra-leigh this October.
Above left: APNEP funded demonstration projects include signage that relate project work to the greater mission of protecting the sounds. This “Living Shore-lines sign will educate visitors to the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries facility in Morehead City. Above: Lexia Weaver of the N.C. Coastal Federation and AP-NEP staffer Scott Gentry undertake marsh restoration at Carteret Community College. Below left: Students from Croatan High School assisted at both restoration sites. Here, they are shown finishing work at the ma-rine fisheries campus.