Jenn Blancard – “Pender Harbour Coastal Waters Monitoring Program”

Surveys have been completed using volunteer’s boats and surveying the coastline from Halfmoon Bay to just south of Powell River.
– J. Blancard

Here we have a pup with its mama. As you can see, they do not hold still for long!
– J. Blancard

For our winter survey, we went out on Jim’s fishing boat. We completed a survey from the Harbour to just south of Powell River.
– J. Blancard

This is Ruben on the gas dock at John Henry’s marina. He has a go pro that is at the end of a selfie stick and he walking slowly along the dock capturing images.
– J. Blancard

The European Green Crab (Carcinus maenasis) is considered to be in the top 10 of the top 100 most invasive species in the world
– J. Blancard

Sometimes the going can be really tough as shown here with Lee Ann.
– J. Blancard

Sometimes…we have to run for our lives! Just kidding. I love this picture so much. There was this little glide here and I wanted to get a pic of the salmon running through. Ruben was waiting patiently but of course when I was ready with the camera, there were no fish. So Ruben decided to cross and of course that is when a fish went. He was trying so hard to get out of the pic but that fish was out to get him!
– J. Blancard

Note-taking is of extreme importance,
– J. Blancard

And sometimes you just get stumped…like when we found this tiny squid!
– J, Blancard

A nice flock of Common Mergansers
– J. Blancard

and Loons are ALWAYS just “special”
– J. Blancard

Jenn Blancard – “Pender Harbour Coastal Waters Monitoring Program”
by Andrew Bryant, 16 Feb 2023.

Jenn Blancard  came and spoke to us about the Pender Harbour Coastal Waters Monitoring Program.  This is truly a massive “citizen-science” effort, involving dozens of volunteers, boat captains, divers, birders and more.

The idea is simple.  What else lives here?  What trends can we learn from monitoring their population dynamics over time?  And can we ascribe those dynamics to particular ecological conditions?

That’s easy to say…and really, really hard to do in practice!

Kudos to you and your team Jenn.  This is an extraordinary effort that will pay off in spades – but yes it will take a few years!