Littoral​ Society

  • Home
  • What We Do
    • Education
    • Conservation
    • Restoration
    • Advocacy
    • Fish Tagging
    • Presentations
  • Where We Work
    • Sandy Hook
    • Barnegat Bay
    • Delaware Bay
    • Jamaica Bay
    • Sarasota Bay
    • National Policy
  • Who We Are
    • History
    • Staff
    • Officers & Trustees
    • Financial Accountability
    • Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice
    • Contact
  • Newsroom
    • Littoral News
    • Press Releases
    • Videos
    • Publications
    • Reports
  • Blog
  • Join Us
    • Donate
    • Membership
    • Sponsor
    • Sign Up for Littoral Updates
    • Littorally Local
    • Lobster Run
    • Upcoming Events
    • Field Trips
    • Volunteer
    • Jobs
  • Store
  • Home
  • What We Do
    • Education
    • Conservation
    • Restoration
    • Advocacy
    • Fish Tagging
    • Presentations
  • Where We Work
    • Sandy Hook
    • Barnegat Bay
    • Delaware Bay
    • Jamaica Bay
    • Sarasota Bay
    • National Policy
  • Who We Are
    • History
    • Staff
    • Officers & Trustees
    • Financial Accountability
    • Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice
    • Contact
  • Newsroom
    • Littoral News
    • Press Releases
    • Videos
    • Publications
    • Reports
  • Blog
  • Join Us
    • Donate
    • Membership
    • Sponsor
    • Sign Up for Littoral Updates
    • Littorally Local
    • Lobster Run
    • Upcoming Events
    • Field Trips
    • Volunteer
    • Jobs
  • Store

The Society Blog

Our Brazilian Expedition – Going to the heart of the Mangroves

2/23/2017

 
It took us long into the night to reach our next port. We went from the relatively populated area of Braganza to the dark heart of this coastal region of Viseu. In three trucks, we caravanned through a maze of remnant tropical rainforests, cattle pasture an impenetrable second-growth woodland. Along the rain-slicked red clay road, small and desperate looking towns popped out of nowhere always looking like the past was a better day. The road cut through countless mangrove forests that define this region. We reached Viseu too late to do anything but find a place to stay the night.
Picture
A bridge across the many rivers from Braganca to Visiu, Brazil. Photo by Christophe Buiden
By noon the next day, we boarded a Lancha boat named Garota Viseu, (Viseu Girl). Local shipwrights craft these two-decker boats of about 50 feet in length, primarily to carry cargo and people from port to port. Today it will carry us into one of the most remote estuaries in the 250-mile coastline of this enormous mangrove and beach landscape. Our captain, 78-year-old Benedicto with one crew navigated the coffee- colored Gurupi, a long river that cuts deep into the tropical coastline.
Picture
A nearly completed boat in a ship yard in Viseu
Bene took his craft down the Gurupi within sight of the wind-tossed Atlantic Ocean. The trade winds blow constantly here, almost always at near gale levels. But then he turned into a small channel directly into the steamy mangrove forest. At first the path was wide, lined with a dense tangle of mangrove on either side.  Whimbrels, scarlet ibis, semipalmated sandpipers clung to tangles of roots as the high tide flooded the soft mud.
Picture
Captain Benedicto piloting his Lacho boat, the Garota Viseu
Then he took the boat in a channel so narrow, the crew had to duck the whipsaw of mangrove branches. We slowly snaked our way through a tunnel of green until we reached another wide channel.  Within a few minutes, we entered another narrow channel ultimately reaching the next bay. Here we felt the full force of the stiff winds and deep rolling swell of the Atlantic. An hour later we weighed anchor at the small community of Apiu Salvadore.
Picture
The Garota Viseu weaves its way through the narrow mangrove passage. Stephanie Feigin, Danille
Paluto, Christophe Buiden and Yann Rochepault watch from the top deck of the boat
Few people from the outside world come to this community of about 50 ramshackle huts and cabins and about a 150 people. As the boat neared the shore with most of the team standing on the roof of the boat,  scattered groups of the town’s people stood on the sandy bluffs overlooking the harbor as though we just landed from space. Ultimately we found them welcoming but wary.  Little good comes from the outside to these communities.
Over the next two days, we plied our craft of field biology. We needed to find small boats to take teams to the various shorebird habitats previously determined on our maps. Local craftsmen build these boats, called xxx in Portuguese. Running about 20 feet in length, they use 10-20  horse power engines meant for something like a lawn tractor, but instead of driving a blade, they power a long shaft that ends in a 8-inch propeller. The skipper can lift the engine and propeller according to the water’s depth.  They suited our needs perfectly.
Picture
We fielded 5 teams, three in boats while Mandy, David Santos, Carmem and I surveyed Lombo Branco Island, about 2 miles from the Apiu Salvador. The sea shapes this island into a crescent shape, the inside protected from the restless waves. Nestled within, one could see in miniature, the whole ecological system that creates resources for shorebirds.

At the heart of the island grows a grows a small and stunted mangrove forest and an apicum, or wetland that only floods during lunar tides or spring tides. These are the highest of the monthly cycle of tides but only occur on the full and new moon. Every day the tide moves in and out of this small system. Twice a month the tide floods the apicum for several days at a time.
Picture
We arrived on the day of a waxing moon, near full. The very high-high tides reached well within the small drainage flooding habitats not flooded in a few weeks. Shorebirds carpeted the wet mud, searching for all the invertebrate life that flourish in this habitat. But the productivity only starts there.   

​Here the tidal flow is gentle because the island shields it from the wind tossed Atlantic from all sides except the leeward quarter of the island. This gentle tidal flow flushes sediments from the mangrove swamp, the nutrients of the apicum and the normal productivity of a sediment-rich sandy substrate, forming the base layer of a productive food chain that nurtures small clams and other invertebrate – all prey for shorebirds.

We found whimbrels, semipalmated sandpipers, ruddy turnstones, short-billed dowitchers, black belly plovers, willets, semi-palmated plovers, sanderlings and collared plovers. In the lower reaches, we found 337 knots, a glorious find that will help our mapping model enormously.
Picture
Red knots, sanderlings, short billed dowitchers and other shorebird forage in the inter-tidal estuary of Morro Branco.
The following day we surveyed a second island, Coroa Criminosa. Why the sinister name we cannot say, but it supported a very similar esturary giving us another successful day. When the tide went out the small island of about 6 kilometers grew to over 20 kilometers. Intertidal sands flats spread out of sight in nearly all directions.
We left the island that night and arrived in Viseu just before dark. Once again we suffered the sway of the Atlantic. After weaving our way back through the mangrove and up the Gurupi River landed too late to go on. We were thankful for the modest rooms with showers, a good meal and beer!
Dr. Larry Niles is a biologist who works closely with the American Littoral Society and Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey on beach restoration efforts on the Delaware Bayshore. Dr. Niles has led efforts to protect red knots and horseshoe crabs for more than 30 years.

Comments are closed.
    BLOG HOME

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017

     Subscribe in a reader

    Categories

    All
    5k
    Action
    Advocacy
    Amazon
    Art
    Asbury Park
    Ballot Question
    Barnegat
    Bay
    Beach
    Benefit
    Biomedical
    Breakfree
    Camp
    Celebration
    Cleanup
    Climate
    Coast
    Conservation
    Crafts
    Delaware Bay
    Delbay
    Drilling
    Dune
    Dune Grass
    Earthday
    Earth Day
    Economy
    Eggs
    Election
    Estuary
    Event
    Family
    Fishing
    Fun
    Global Warming
    Horseshoe Crab
    Jamaicabay
    Legislation
    Litter
    Live Music
    Lobster
    Long Beach Island
    Marine Science
    NJ
    NY
    Oil
    Open Space
    Oyster
    Oystere
    Parade
    Party
    Plastic
    Policy
    Pollution
    Protect
    Race
    Rain Garden
    Red Knot
    Reef
    Restoration
    River
    Run
    Sandy Hook
    Shark Fin
    Shell-a-bration
    Shell Bagging
    Shore
    Shorebird
    Summer
    Superstorm Sandy
    Surfcasting
    Tag
    Tagging
    Tourism
    Volunteer
    Wetlands
    Wreck Pond

     Subscribe in a reader

Picture
18 Hartshorne Drive
​Highlands, NJ 07732

What We Do

Education
Conservation
Restoration
Advocacy
Fish Tagging

Where We Work

Sandy Hook
Barnegat Bay
Delaware Bay
Jamaica Bay
Sarasota Bay
National Policy

Who We Are

History
Staff
Officers & ​Trustees
Financials
Contact

Newsroom

Blog
Press Releases
Videos
Publications
Reports

Join Us

Memberships
Donate
Sponsor
Upcoming Events
Field Trips
Volunteer
Jobs
Donate
Membership
Mailing List
Volunteer
Privacy Policy
Copyright ​© 2017, American Littoral Society, All Rights Reserved
Photo used under Creative Commons from A. Strakey