The world according to me....

What are these people doing on a beautiful afternoon in November?

They are looking for discarded refuse on the beach. As part of an ongoing monitoring program coordinated by the Ocean Conservancy, every month there is a garbage survey on Shackleford Banks in North Carolina. The objective is to inventory all waste and garbage that occurs in a 500 meter transect of beach. Garbage researcher Zoë Meletis is currently the Marine Debris Survey Site Director for Shackleford Banks, and she says that there are 2-3 trash bags worth of garbage that are collected during the monthly surveys. Here is a partial list of what was found during the last few months:
-aluminum cans (over 60 in last week's survey alone)
-Styrofoam cups
-pieces of plastic and metal
-fishing line
-fishing floats/lures
-clothing
-paper
-food wrappers/packaging
-balloons
-straws
-pieces of boats
-pieces of furniture
-different kinds of foam

If anyone in the Down-East area of North Carolina is interested in participating in these surveys, please contact Zoë Meletis either by email (zam@duke.edu) or phone (252-504-7644).

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Beautiful autumn weather continues in this part of the world. This week, I was able to take part in an aerial survey of commercial fishing activities in the inshore waters of North Carolina. We were looking for boats putting out or hauling in gillnets and crab pots, amongst other things. My spot on the airplane meant that for some of the transects that we covered, there was little or no water to see. At these times, I could take in the landscape with my eyes or camera. It is amazing how much different the water and sound bottom look from up in the air.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those of you who are lucky enough to participate in a sea turtle stranding network, you probably know what particular bones these are. The bones in the photo are from 3 different species of sea turtle and from different age classes. They are being used for a specific line of research. Anyone care to guess the name of these bones, and what they will be used for? For more help, you might try looking here. Answer to follow next week….

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I was lucky enough to be invited to participate with a poundnet trip as part of a larger mark-recapture study. The sky was deep blue and the air was sharply cool as we headed out across Core Sound to the poundnets. The first net had some flounder but no turtles, the same with the second and third. We fished 6 nets but none had a turtle swimming in it. The last time I came out, there were turtles swimming about in every net. Could it be that the recent drop in temperatures has signaled a departure of most of the turtles from inshore waters in North Carolina? Some of the turtles being tracked by satellite transmitters have started heading south in the offshore waters of North Carolina. Now, we are waiting to see if there will be any turtles that don’t make it out of North Carolina waters before it gets too cold (below 10 °C). If there are, they will likely become cold-stunned. In that case, assuming they are found in time, the cold-stunned turtles will be taken to rehabilitation centers for treatment and eventual release.

Posted by Matthew Godfrey at 07:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)