Author Archives: Garry Fletcher

Policy and Planning for Coastal Ecosystems in British Columbia through a Blue Carbon Lens. WCEL

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Subject: 
Climate Adaptation, Blue Carbon, Nature-Based Climate Solutions, Coastal Ecosystems
Author: 
Deborah Carlson – Staff Lawyer
Summary: 

Healthy coastal ecosystems are essential for maintaining biodiversity and liveable coastal communities, providing critical habitat, water quality protection, food and medicinal plants for harvesting, lessening of coastal erosion, resilience to climate change, and flood regulation.

Perhaps less well known is that coastal ecosystems also play an important role in long-term carbon storage and sequestration. This paper looks at emerging policy opportunities and needs in Canada, and specifically British Columbia, for “blue carbon” – the carbon stored in vegetated coastal ecosystems – and how protecting blue carbon as a climate action measure aligns with coastal biodiversity protection and resilience more broadly.

Publication Date: 
November 18, 2020
Publication Pages: 
44
Publication Format: 
PDF

Euphasids,( Northern Krill) in the Strand Line on Taylor beach

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Today  an event that I had never seen before occurred on Taylor Beach.  Millions of tiny Euphasids or Krill ended up on a 600 metre section of the beach North of Taylor Road . Many of the krill were still alive , but the majority were dead and they were accumulating as the tide came in. I have no idea what the cause of this is, but it was reported to have happened to the north on Witty’s Beach as well today.

 

Northern krill (Meganyctiphanes norvegica)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Superorder: Eucarida
Order: Euphausiacea
Dana, 1852

 

Educational Experiences in Pedder Bay- Pearson College

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Since Lester B. Pearson College is situated on the north shore of Pedder Bay, we have an ideal opportunity to be able to study the structure and function of this ecosystem. We have established this web page to be a cumulative resource for information we gather from our field lab work in biology and environmental systems. This resource should eventually have enough information to serve as a case study of a marine ecosystem which may be used by future students at Pearson College as well as a model for others studying ecology . We welcome any suggestions or links to other sites with similar ecological case studies.

Link to the Pedder bay entries in the Log of Laura Verhegge, Current Marine Science   teacher at Lester B. Pearson College

 

Below are  a few examples of student work in Pedder Bay from this website:

Plankton Sampling in Pedder Bay

Pedder Bay Sunrise

Mudflat Monday

Digging into the mudflats

Plankton Swarm at PC Docks in Pedder Bay

Biodiiversity in Pedder Bay 

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ARCHIVE of Some of the past labs done by students of Pearson College in Pedder bay.

The First Nations midden lab

The Mussel mariculture lab

The Fouling System at Pearson College Docks

Estuary Lab- Adaptation of Organisms to brackish water conditions

Abiotic Factors Lab

The Plankton Field lab and Assignment

The Biomass  and Succession labs

 

PEDDER BAY GROUP FOUR SCIENCE PROJECT IDEAS

Pedder Bay Sunrise in February- from Pearson College Campus- GLF

 

Fires on our Beaches are Banned Permanently

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Why cant people read the sign and stop having open wood-burning fires on Taylor Beach ? Another example of this entitlement disease?

 

This is what we see every few days down on Taylor Beach .

See this link for 6 reasons we shouldn’t have beach fires here: 

The Green Bags of Taylor Beach

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Almost every day on my stroll along Taylor Beach I encounter the trash of those who freely use this beautiful beach and yet are so thoughtless that they continue to leave bags of dog poop. These are just from today…

Who do they expect is going to clean up after them ?? Throwing the deposits directly in the ocean would be better than leaving these plastic bags on logs or suspended in the bushes.

 

Guide to Coastal and Ocean Protection Law in British Columbia

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This is an important new publication by  West Coast Environmental Law

Guide to Coastal & Ocean Protection Law in BC (PDF)

Ocean Law Guide - Cover Image (aerial of ocean wildlife/herring spawn)

Subject: Marine Protection, Coastal and Ocean LawsAuthor: Stephanie Hewson, Linda Nowlan, Georgia Lloyd-Smith, Deborah Carlson & Michael Bissonnette

Summary: 

Are you concerned about the health of your local shoreline, and wondering what your government(s) can do to help? Curious about the complex web of laws, policies and regulations governing the BC coast and ocean? Interested in learning how different authorities and jurisdictions can work together?

Our Guide to Coastal and Ocean Protection Law in BC is a comprehensive resource that covers the wide array of legal tools available to Indigenous, federal, provincial and local governments to protect the coast and ocean in BC.

In addition to being a resource on marine spatial protection law, this Guide is a record of what has been accomplished on the Pacific coast over the last several decades – providing examples that demonstrate how different legal tools have been employed to preserve the health of coastal and marine ecosystems. 

This Guide was developed with the generous support of the Sitka Foundation and the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation. Publication Date: December 3, 2020Publication Pages: 324Publisher: West Coast Environmental LawPublication Format: PDF

The Red waters of Pedder Bay

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At certain times of the year the water of the inner part of Pedder bay turns a deep maroon color . This is an algal bloom of the ciliate  Mesodinium rubrum or Myrionecta rubra and its “Incomplete Symbionts”

The Docks at Lester Pearson College with a planlton bloom..

A quote from Laura Verhegge marine science teacher at Pearson College : Because there has been lots of light lately with longer days and sunny days, there has been a significant increase in the populations of various phytoplankton species. The most numerous species is a type of ciliate called Myrionecta rubra. They are little (10 – 100 μm), reddish in colour and very motile. With all the sun, warming sea surface temperatures and adequate nutrients, this species has been photosynthesizing and multiplying like crazy so that now there are so many of these little phytoplankters that the water has turned red. This is called a red tide but it is not a harmful algal bloom (M. rubra does not produce any toxins that we know of). This is a seasonal occurrence and is part of the spring bloom.”

iNaturalist contributions

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Recently I opened an account on iNaturalist.com . I have been able to add many pictures of species taken around the Metchosin coast, as well as other locations. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/garryfletcher

It is a great idea to contribute to the Metchosin Biodiversity program, and opening a free account on iNaturalist is a good way to do it. If you have images on iNaturalist of Coastal organisms around Metchosin I would be glad to link to them here.