Pedder Bay sunrise – 27 November 2014

Another stunning sunrise – this time with three river otters playing on the Pearson College dock.

Ocean acidification presentation by Dwight Owens (ONC)

On Friday 21 November, Dwight Owens (also known at Pearson College as ‘Tessa’s dad’) came from Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) to tell first year Marine Science students about the significant problem of ocean acidification.

It was a wonderful presentation full of depressing facts and inspiring possibilities. Thanks very much Dwight!!

Pedder Bay sunrise – 26 November 2014

Pedder Bay sunrise – 20 November 2014

Goldstream salmon run 2014

It was time for the annual migration of Pearson College Marine Science students to Goldstream again – the 3 first year classes went on Monday 3 November, Tuesday 4 November and Wednesday 5 November. We went to observe the chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) spawning in the Goldstream River.

On Tuesday we watched a young aboriginal man scoop newly arrived chum salmon out of the river and pile them into a big grey bin.

My second year Biology students were so keen to see the spawning salmon that I also took them to Goldstream on Friday 14 November, when there were many more dead salmon. Sorry to say that I only have photos of the dead salmon, not of the Biology class!

Salmon watchers are particularly interested in this cohort of chum salmon as many of them would have been hatching from their eggs in April 2011 when there was a significant fuel spill into the Goldstream River.

Pedder Bay sunrise – 14 November 2014

A multitude of Melibe drift to the Pearson College dock

Courtney, our seafront coordinator, came upstairs from the dock just before lunch today (Wednesday 12 November) to say there were many hooded sea slugs (Melibe leonina) clustered around the boat lift. It has been extremely windy over the past 24 hours and it seems as though the nudibranchs have been blown into Pedder Bay by the strong wind.

At 3 pm today the slugs were still there, hanging out on the surface tension of the seawater. They’re not dead or floating, but crawling on the thin skin of the water’s surface.

When the surface tension breaks, Melibe must swim which is demonstrated in the video above.

How many Melibe can you find in the photo above?

Bull kelp pickles

On Friday evening, Yam served and shared the bull kelp pickles that she and Noemi had prepared about 4 weeks earlier using bull kelp that we collected on one of the kelp forest field trips. The recipe they used can be found here.

It was burgers for dinner and the delicious bull kelp pickles really complimented the meal.

Thank you Yam!!