July 24, 2026
Welcome back to another Coastal Special! This week our coastal team tackled a couple things both in and out of the water, teaming up with our field crew to take on some larger challenges we had planned for the week.
Monday we hit the ground running as we tackled as much woody material management and brush matting as we could and scouted our sites for electrofishing that is taking place next week.
Nothing of note particularly happened Tuesday morning as we checked the health of our salt marsh cord grass, and continued with woody material management. In the afternoon however, we partnered with the South Shore Villa and created a pollinator garden for them! Our staff worked tirelessly to ensure the garden was looking its best before we called it a day.
Wednesday our monthly crabbing expedition began, as we set our traps for invasive green crabs in our DeSable, Westmorland, Tryon, Augustine Cove and Cape Traverse estuaries. Managing these crabs is incredibly important as they choke out other species like the rock crab, and prevent eelgrass from growing, which as mentioned before is a very important indicator for our estuary health.
The next day we prepared our team to encounter an onslaught of crabs—levels never before seen—only to be surprised and a little quizzical at the lack of green crabs compared to last year’s data. While less crabs is always good, it could also indicate that we haven’t reached peak season, or our trapping methods could be improved. Given we’ve been having a much cooler summer so far, we suspect the lack of warmer water could be contributing to the lack of green crabs we are seeing. As our coastal team theorized on the cause, our field team continued their woody material management and brush mats.
We finished off the week on Friday with a Senior Birding Day! This was our very first event made possible by the Southeast Environmental Association and their CSNTT (Connecting Seniors to Nature Through Technology and Teaching) project. We are happy to report we had a stellar turnout for this event and it was a lot of fun for our staff and the seniors!
While our traditional work week is over, you can still find us this Saturday at the Crapaud Exhibition from 9-5! Don’t be scared to come say hi and ask us questions!
Love, SSWA
