Free Family Event: Seine The Bay Day on Saturday, June 7th

Join members of the all-volunteer Bayshore Watershed Council on Saturday, June 7, 2014 as we seine and monitor water quality along the edge of Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook Bay of Monmouth County. You are invited to help us. Bring a friend or bring your family.

This free event, entitled, “Seine the Bay Day,” is an annual springtime event when volunteers help to drag a long net (called a seine net) through the water to find out what might live in the shallow part of the bay. The catch is never the same; we may catch juvenile fish, shrimp, or even baby puffers or seahorses in the net.  It should be a fun day.
 
We usually find a good assortment of local crabs and fish that people are able to see up close and touch. The event is rain or shine, though heavy rain or wind will cancel.

We will conduct this start-of-the-summer seining survey at four (4) sites along Raritan Bay & Sandy Hook Bay. Below are locations & times:

10:00am: Aberdeen Township/Cliffwood Beach - meet in the gravel parking lot near beach entrance along Ocean Blvd. (Dead low tide)

12 noon: Union Beach/Conaskonck Point - meet in the gravel parking lot where Front and Dock streets meet. (Incoming tide)

2:00pm: Middletown Township/Port Monmouth - meet in the gravely parking lot across from the Monmouth Cove Marina on Old Port Monmouth Road. We will seine neat to the mouth of Pews Creek. (Incoming tide)

3:30pm: Atlantic Highlands/Mouth of Many Mind Creek - meet at the end of Avenue A, near the beach entrance to the bay. On-street parking only. (High tide)

Seining team members will be citizen scientists. A 50-foot seine net will be dragged though the water to estimate the seasonal abundance and distribution of fish, crabs, and other estuarine species that use the near shore waters of the bay as feeding and/or nursery areas. All fishes, crabs, and other aquatic creatures will be identified, measured, and cataloged; and returned to the water.

In addition, watershed members will collect water temperature and turbidity information; and document the tidal stage, and note the aquatic vegetation in the area.

Everyone is invited to see what fish, crabs, and other critters live along the bay as we begin another summer along the Jersey Shore