The sun was shining on Sunday, August 27, and the sea breeze whispered secrets of adventure as 31 eager anglers gathered on board the Mi-Jo 2 for the American Littoral Society's Annual Fluke Tagging Trip. The day delivered some unforgettable memories and contributed to the sustainable fishing efforts of our fish tagging program.
Each angler played a vital role in this mission but some of them stood out with remarkable tagging achievements:
While tagging was the primary goal of the trip, we couldn't help but be thrilled by the quality of the fish we encountered. In total, 12 fluke over 17 inches were reeled in. Among these, the largest fluke caught measured an impressive 22.5 inches.
0 Comments
The turn of the season is a good opportunity to recap some of the summer work from the Littoral Society's Delaware Bayshore office including the accomplishments of the dedicated R-Corps interns and the unveiling of a new rain garden at an elementary school in Vineland, NJ.
R-Corps: A Summer of Conservation Nine passionate and driven young people joined the Delaware Bay R-Corps team this summer. Their collective efforts spanned a diverse range of projects, each contributing to the larger mission:
Recently the "Shuck It, Don't Chuck It!" program, the American Littoral Society's shell recycling initiative, collected its millionth shell. That shell also brought our overall total of shells recycled to nearly 37,000 pounds this year and 65 tons since the program launched in 2015.
This incredible milestone wouldn't have been possible without the dedication and support of our amazing supporters. Funded by grants and driven in large part by volunteer oyster wranglers and community helpers - such as participating restaurants - each shell collected represents a step towards the long-term goal of re-oystering New Jersey's bays and estuaries. The shells we collect take a full-circle journey, from briny waters to your plate, then to our bins, and eventually back to our shorelines where they can help spawn more oysters. By recycling these shells, we're not only reducing waste that ends up in landfills but also providing essential material for the Littoral Society's shoreline restoration projects such as the reefs we've built to protect locations along Delaware and Barnegat Bay. These reefs also play a role in improving water quality and providing habitat for marine life. On Saturday, September 16, the Northeast Chapter of the American Littoral Society kicked off the 38th Annual New York State Beach Cleanup (NYSBC) season by hosting a beach cleanup just north of Broad Channel, NY. On the same day, NYSBC volunteers gathered at dozens beaches around the state, from Long Island to New York's Great Lakes.
These cleanups were timed to coincide with International Coastal Cleanup Day and World Cleanup Day (both recognized on the third Saturday of September). International Coastal Cleanup Day began in 1986 through the Ocean Conservancy and quickly grew into an global effort to rid beaches of garbage while also raising awareness about preserving and protecting the world’s oceans and waterways. World Cleanup Day is coordinated by the global organization Let's Do It! World, which is headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia. The Jamaica Bay cleanup was sponsored by Resorts World NYC, New York City’s first and only casino-hotel, and Eureka (founded in 1909 as one of the first US vacuum cleaner brands) through the company's #EurekaWavesOfFuture campaign. The #EurekaWavesOfFuture initiative highlights the pressing concern of marine pollution. by Toni Rose Tablante, American Littoral Society Habitat Restoration Technician The Delaware Bay is home to the largest population of spawning horseshoe crabs [Limulus polyphemus] in the world. The crabs are a keystone species because they and their eggs are crucial to an entire ecosystem that includes migrating shorebirds, various fish, numerous aquatic invertebrates, and other marine life.
The American Littoral Society has been restoring horseshoe crab habitats along the New Jersey side of the Delaware Bay since Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012. The work also includes biological assessments at some beaches to help document how the work is affecting the restoration site and aquatic creatures. The 2023 reef biodiversity monitoring season recently began. Read on to learn more about the monitoring process. As the 2023 Summer season came to a close, conflict arose again over public access to beaches at two locations in New Jersey.
This is an issue on which the American Littoral Society has repeatedly taken a stand, through lawsuits against entities attempting to limit public access and by helping to develop state laws that define what constitutes meaningful access. On August 10, 2023, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association – a Methodist organization that owns the land occupied by Ocean Gove, NJ – was warned in writing by the NJ Department of Environmental Resources that its practice of putting up chain-and-pad-lock at beach access on Sunday mornings was a violation of state law. Then, in early September, almost all beach entrances in Point Pleasant Beach were abruptly closed by Jenkinson’s, a private company that owns the boardwalk and dry-sand area of the beach, as well as an aquarium and other attractions in the town. "The beach is a public resource for all of us, not only swimmers and bathers, but also fisherman, surfers, birders and many other users, whose use is not confined to the summer season or normal business hours," said Tim Dillingham, Executive Director of the American Littoral Society. "Blocking public access to our beaches for any reason—whether it be to promote a private or financial interest, religion or exclusivity—is contrary to the inherent right of the public to access the shore." This year's horseshoe crab tagging season was one to remember. Coming on the heels of a successful campaign to protect Delaware Bay horseshoe crabs from harvesting, it not only saw hundreds of volunteers turn out to tag thousands of crabs, but also brought the Littoral Society a new partnership that will help us take our work for these living fossils to another level.
In May, we began working with the Cape May Point Science Center and Cellular Tracking Technologies to add cellular tracking devices to our horseshoe crab tagging program. The cellular tags help remotely monitor and track the crabs as they come ashore and provide a better understanding on how often female crabs emerge, general horseshoe crab movement, and what informs their movement decisions. To gather this data, PowerTags which transmit radio telemetry data are glued to the horseshoe crab’s shell. Whenever the crabs come ashore, their location is tracked and recorded. These new PowerTags are in addition to the tags the Society has been using for years that provide some basic insight on crab movement when tagged crabs are recaptured. This addition to the horseshoe crab tagging program was made possible thanks to our gracious donors, Rob and Wendy Wilson. Learn more about the new tags and how they are being used to track horseshoe crabs on the Cellular Tracking Technologies blog. More than 400 people turned out on Saturday, August 19 to celebrate the diversity of New York City’s shorebirds at the 18th Annual Shorebird Festival at the Jamaica Bay Refuge. They were greeted by representatives from groups including NYC Audubon, the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy, NYC Parks, the Queens Bird Club, the NYC Plover Project, and the National Park Service.
The goal of the event was to raise awareness of the many different shorebird species that spend time in and around the bay, while also providing some understanding of the migration patterns that bring them to this area. Many of the avian visitors currently passing through Jamaica Bay are already on their way from nesting grounds in Canada to winter habitats in South America. The event itinerary began began with a welcome spread of coffee, bagel and doughnut offered by American Littoral Society, followed by hikes led by naturalists Don Riepe and Kevin Karlson to the bay's East and West ponds. The day also included a 50-year refuge history slide program by Riepe and a shorebird presentation by Karlson. International Coastal Cleanup Day (ICC) is Saturday, September 16. The ICC is a global annual event that began in 1986, thanks to the efforts of Linda Maraniss and her Ocean Conservancy colleague Kathy O’Hara. The day aims to raise awareness about the problems that plastic pollution poses to our shorelines, our health, and our wildlife.
Also in 1986, the American Littoral Society’s first Beach Cleanup Coordinator was appointed to assist in coordinating cleanup events and data collection in New York state. Since then, ICC Day has grown to an international effort that remains strongly rooted in volunteerism. During the 2022 New York State Beach Cleanup (NYSBC), 4,800 volunteers removed and documented nearly 32,000 pounds of trash and debris collected from over 184 miles of New York shoreline. But more needs to be done and we need your help to do it! Anyone can host or volunteer to be a part of the effort from August through December. This year, we have moved the registration process online. Fill out the linked form in order to become part of the NYSBC effort. By Shane Godshall, Habitat Restoration Project Manager, American Littoral Society; and
Randi Rothmel, The Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions (ANJEC) Project Director Shared from ANJEC REPORT – Summer 2023 (Begins on Page 4) The need to restore tidal salt marshes has been brought into sharp focus as we grapple with the realities of climate change. Their ability to sequester carbon and mitigate some impacts from storms and rising seas has prompted federal and State agencies, local municipalities, and various nonprofits to put a concerted effort into the restoration of New Jersey’s salt marshes. Tidal salt marshes cover over 200,000 acres of New Jersey’s coastal landscape, providing vital habitat for wildlife, maintaining water quality and helping protect people from storm surge and flooding. A 2017 study concluded that NJ’s salt marshes prevented over $400 million in damages from Superstorm Sandy. Inland flooding can also be reduced by coastal ecosystems that provide resistance to the flow of water during a surge. Over the last century, however, parts of New Jersey, such as Barnegat Bay, have lost more than 25 percent of their salt marshes due to infilling and development. The NJ Coastal Wetland Law, while limiting this loss, has not sufficiently protected the coastline. New NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) coastal flood hazard area rules are anticipated as part of the Resilient Environment and Landscapes (REAL) initiative, under the NJ Protecting Against Climate Threats (NJPACT) program, to further protect the coastline. Recognizing that a healthy ecosystem plays an important role in sustaining coastal communities, both people and wildlife, a NJ guidance document, “Building Ecological Solutions to Coastal Community Hazards,” was developed in 2017 by the National Wildlife Federation in collaboration with a consortium of nonprofit organizations. This guide challenges and empowers coastal communities to consider ecological solutions through approaches that work with nature towards coastal resiliency. |
Archives
September 2023
Categories
All
|