Five-Year Monitoring Project

 

PCRS is currently finishing up a five-year eelgrass assessment and monitoring project on the Puget Creek Beach section of the watershed. Throughout the life of this project, we have partnered with Point Defiance Aquarium, Lighthouse Diving, City of Tacoma, Ram International, Inc., Puyallup Tribal Fisheries, Citizens for a Healthy Bay, and local colleges.

 

The main portions of this project include:

 

1. Stem counts: Quadrates, measuring one meter square, mark sections of the eelgrass beds. Our volunteer divers do a monthly dive during which they count and document the eelgrass stems that are sticking up through the sediment in the quadrates. In this way, we can get an idea of how fast the eelgrass is growing or receding in the area.

Originally, we marked the quadrates using rebar and rope; however, we found that ulva (green algae) clung to the rope and we took the rope down. With the ropes gone, we soon decided to replace the rebar by placing one-inch PVC pipe filled with sand to form one square meter, directly on the substrate.

 

Six transect lines intersect the eelgrass beds and each line contains four quadrates, except one of the lines has only two quadrates. A viable bed requires 40 stems per one-half-meter squared.

 

2. Photography: While counting stems, the divers photograph each quadrate to provide a visual documentation of the beds. This makes it easier for us to document any other wildlife the divers encounter in the nearshore area.

 

3. Final report: PCRS will develop a final report of our findings when the 2006 monitoring ends in October or November.

 

The five-year eelgrass monitoring project has been funded by grants. Some of our funders include PSWQAT, The Tremaine Foundation, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

 

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