From Snails to Whales: Charleen

Showing posts with label Charleen. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

My first whale watch was fun, but interesting the boat ride was long and on the way I found out what it was like to get sea sick. I noticed that the water got greener the further we got out to sea or out side Boston harbor, into the Mass bay. The young ladies aboard the boat explained the water was green because of the algae in the water. The young ladies said the we would be stopping where the whale usually feed around this time of the year. She went on explaining what kind of whales are usually spotted in and around this area. Humpback, Finback, Minke and Pilot whales she explained about the sex of the whales,that their was no way to identify the sex of the whales, just that if they see a baby, it was a sure thing that there was a female around since they care for the babies.
The whales we saw Friday where both males, one was called Northstar and Hippocampus.

photo courtesy credit CPE

And they where both humpback whales. She explained that humpback whales are baleen, which mean they fitter their food through baleen plates. Whales eat crustaceans, like krill, anchovies, mackerel.The larger humpback whale had a huge scare on it's back, I believe she said it was from a boating accident that was healing well. I found out that we could spot where a whales was by looking for a cloud of mist coming from the water,being blown from the hole in the whales head, which is called the blowhole. I asked the tour guide when she came around asking if we had any questioning, what where the white spots on the whales skin and tail she told me they where barnacles. Which I thought only grew on clams, rocks,and other things that didn't move fast. I got too see and hold a whale vertebrae abroad on the trip also. Overall the experience was life changing, I felt again I had learn something new and was glad to share my experience with my family.

photo courtesy credit CPE

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

pictures of my drawing

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Thursday, July 17, 2014

What I thought I Saw! Charlene Choice

·      Sea Lettuce-

o   Vibrant dark green sea vegetable

o   Common in temperate and colder salt water

o   Ranges in size from 6-12 feet

·      Blue Mussel-

o   Found on rocky shores, most often in bays and estuaries

o   Anchor to hard surfaces

Feeds on “phytoplankton

o

o   Important water quality indicators in Boston Harbor due to the fact that they are filter feeders

§ Filter particles out of water

§ Suspension feeders

o   MWRA (Massachusetts Water Resources Authority)

§ Tests mussels for PAHs (polyaromatic hydrocarbons)

·      Tests show a decrease in harmful chemicals

·      Tunicates (Sea Squirt) (RED, WHITE, GREEN)

o   Colonial tunicate consisting of zooids

o   Also feeds on phytoplankton

o   Also feed on zooplankton, oyster and mussel larvae

o   Similar to mussel discharges filtered water

o   Unlike mussel, the discharge occurs into a common area used by zooids in cluster and filtered out of a pore

o   All zooids within a colony are the same color

o   Colonies can have up to 20 zooids

o   Broods larvae internally, fertilization of eggs occurs from males in nearby colonies

·      Lacy Crust Bryozoan

o   First identified on east coast in Isles of Shoals, Maine in 1987

o   Spread through ballast water and ocean currents

o   Zooids that are box like structures that sit next to each other

o   The entire colony looks “circular and white”

·      Atlantic Lobster

o   Live in water of less than 50 meters

o   Young lobsters do not migrate to open water

o   Usually olive green or dark brown

·      Atlantic Rock Crab

o   Trapped in lobster pots

o   Rock, sand or gravel bottom dwellers

o   Estuaries or shallow shores

o   Front border rounded

Sunday, July 13, 2014

How do you began to explain an experience,that takes your breathe way? The harbor experience as I will call it was wonderful, beautiful, yet new but not so much. Found myself exploring new thing right in my back yard, using that old saying or wise tale when your in the house you can't see what is on the outside of the house. Meaning living in the city, we get stuck within not really venturing out side of the city much understanding our surrounding, and today was my day I almost forgot that we as a city have so much to offer from some of the best colleges, the worlds best sport teams, and today I found some of the worlds best views and unique island get always for a small fee.
We have 12 beaches and island to rest and relax too the terrain for hiking and exploring like Thompson island which we all know too spectacle island which was a knew one for me . The ride on the boat today was also new I have never seen the harbor in this way or been on the public transportation systems, I found out today that it was fairly new about 20 years old. One of Boston's famous island is deer island which for a small island has a lot going within its little crust from chemical plants to housing Boston's homeless. Hewitt's cove which is a beautiful stop of many little towns held for me some interesting sites like the their a eight levies and a beautiful wood pier Leading to some new seaside houses or condos being built right long the seaside and my favorite thing to eat lobster. The view of the blue hill mountains from the seaside view was breath taking since I have only seen it from the street level ,which is also called blue hill avenue.

Today exploration was filled with small jelly fish, I learned today if they where not pulsating , they where dead which their where a lot of dead ones but I did get a chance to see alive jelly fish. I also learned about the hidden secret using bread to bring up the biggest stripper bass I have ever seen. I found out that the length must be about 28 inches and only 2 fish a day are the rules.the fish swam in a narrow nook around the pier, surrounded around algae, which looked grassy. On the other side of the long wharf there where other forms different colors bright green ,reds seaweed and orange mushroom colored seaweed even kelp. I learned about tidal pools with rocks that had barnacles white or ivory growing on them and rock weed.
I seen a black duck drive for fish,which is called American Black duck which are known to Boston Harbor, the duck drove under water for about 30-60 sec

Overall today's experience was one of my best being an Boston residents. I can't wait to show what I have learned and to pass along my experiences and lessons
Learned to my friends and family.
Charleen Choice

Sent from my iPad

From Snails to Whales

Welcome to Snails to Whales, Bruce Berman's blog focused on both the little and the big things that make Boston Harbor such an interesting and extraordinary place to live, work and play.

With 50 miles of protected water, four sheltered bays, seven river systems, 34 islands and a nine-foot average tide, Boston Harbor is one of the most diverse urban ecosystems in America.

This blog focuses on the flora and fauna of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay - on the beach, the shore, and the harbor islands, and in the cleaner waters of Boston Harbor and Mass Bay - including this ecosystems most important species - people.

During the summer, it is also a place for my Boston University Students and my colleagues at Save the Harbor / Save the Bay to share their work and experiences.

Where I am coming from...

Love that clean(er) water
Learning about the Boston Harbor Cleanup from the waterway’s eyes, ears, and mouthpiece

By Brian Fitzgerald, BU Bridge

On Georges Island, Bruce Berman talks with his students about the history of the Boston Harbor Cleanup,
which is largely complete. Photo by Vernon Doucette

Bruce Berman, aboard a ferry from Boston’s Long Wharf to Georges Island, poses a question to his students: “How clean is clean enough?”

He’s talking about the water below.

It’s a brilliant July day, with the smell of salt spray in the air. The sky is clear, and so is the ocean. But there was a time when Boston Harbor wasn’t so clean, when the stench of sewage assaulted the nostrils of anyone who went near it.

Berman is the communications director for Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, a public-interest environmental advocacy organization whose mission is to help restore and protect the harbor and Massachusetts Bay. He also teaches a Metropolitan College summer course called Politics, Public Relations, and Public Policy: The Boston Harbor Cleanup.

“The Boston Harbor Cleanup is an amazing success story, and I just love to share it with students,” says Berman, noting that the harbor’s “bad old days” weren’t that long ago. Those were the days when untreated human waste, syringes, condoms, and tampon applicators routinely washed ashore. The antiquated sewage treatment plants on Deer Island and Nut Island were so poorly designed and maintained that they flooded during even mild rainstorms, sending millions of gallons of untreated waste directly into the harbor.

Since then, bacteria counts in the water have decreased by more than two-thirds. Now the harbor teems with plants and animals, and people can legally dig for clams on Carson Beach in South Boston, which was unheard of in the 1980s.

“It was one of the filthiest harbors in America, and now it’s one of the cleanest,” says Berman. “What I’m trying to impress upon students is how this incredible comeback occurred, and how business, advocacy groups, environmentalists, and government can affect the outcome of large projects such as the Boston Harbor Cleanup through negotiation.”

Paradise regained

Berman points to the left as the boat cruises by the cleanup’s centerpiece: the gargantuan white egglike tanks of the Deer Island waste treatment plant, which in 1995 replaced the antiquated facility. The plant treats an average of 350 million gallons of sewage a day.

“And what comes out of the Deer Island treatment plant?” he asks. Berman, his booming baritone competing with the roar of planes taking off from Logan Airport, has a habit of putting students on the spot to see if they’re paying attention.

“The outfall pipe,” say several simultaneously. “Treated water,” chime in a few more.

“That’s right,” he says with a smile. “The plant separates the solid and liquid waste, and it pumps the treated water through the 9.5-mile outfall pipe, which empties into Massachusetts Bay. The resulting sludge is converted to high-grade fertilizer.”

Now Berman returns to his original question: “How clean is clean enough?” There’s no quick and clear answer to this one. “It’s a question that at the end of the day the federal courts had to decide.”

In 1985, a landmark federal court case required that the harbor’s beaches be made swimmable and fishable by 2000. Save the Harbor/Save the Bay was formed the next year to raise public awareness of the $4.5 billion Boston Harbor Cleanup. Sewer ratepayers in the 43 cities and towns financing the project cried foul over the prospect of astronomically rising bills, but because of the determination of environmental advocacy groups such as Berman’s, the cleanup was largely completed on schedule.

Berman says it isn’t finished, however. There are still frequent beach closures because the counts of Enterococcus bacteria exceed the federal and state standard for swimming. The culprit: filthy storm water and sewage, much of it from leaky pipes and illegal hookups emptying into storm sewers, and then into the harbor.

“So is the harbor clean enough,” the Springfield native asks his students, “when you can’t swim in it one out of five days in the summer?”

Work to be done

Berman and his class look out from Georges Island to Gallops Island (left) and the white tanks of the waste treatment plant on Deer Island (right). Photo by Vernon Doucette

This summer the state approved one of the last parts of the cleanup: the construction, by 2011, of a 2.1-mile tunnel near the Dorchester and South Boston shorelines that will hold sewage and storm water during bad weather. It then will be pumped to Deer Island for treatment.

Berman is ecstatic over this development, the result of “tireless negotiation and consensus-building,” he says. “After 2011, we’re looking at beach closings once every five years, when there is a major storm, instead of once every five days.”

But he is not about to let his guard down. To say that he is a man obsessed with the harbor cleanup would be an understatement. Berman is also Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s “Baywatcher,” and he lives on his 40-foot trawler Verandah. Polluters beware: if you’re discharging oil or sewage into Boston Harbor, the Baywatcher just might be watching.

He is quick to point out that his zealotry is not just on behalf of the harbor’s flora and fauna. “The harbor is for everyone,” he says. “If you’re from a working class or poor family in Boston, and you can’t afford a Cape Cod getaway in the summer, a clean harbor is important. The same is true if you’re a tourist vacationing in Boston or you happen to live in a pricey waterfront condo.”

Accordingly, Berman, who was a political consultant and contributing editor to the Phoenix newspaper before joining Save the Harbor/Save the Bay nearly 10 years ago, also teaches his students about the harbor’s role in the city’s economy. He points out that in the early 1990s, just a few ferries cruised the harbor’s waters. Today, more than 100,000 people visit its islands each summer, discovering their ecological and historic treasures.

“The best way to protect the harbor cleanup,” Berman tells his students, “is to make sure that the public has access to the resources and can see a return on its investment.”

Trevor Kosmolsick (MET’05) has lived in Boston for seven years, but until taking Berman’s course, he had never been to the waterfront. “I’ve also wanted to go camping in the area, but I never knew that you could camp on a few of the islands,” he says. “Bruce Berman is not only a great professor, but the ultimate tour guide.”

He also backs up his words with actions. Sometimes he takes off his shirt and dives in the water to demonstrate to passing boaters that it’s safe to swim. To show people on ferries that fishing is safe, he’s been known to grab one of the bluefish or striped bass he’s caught and (very carefully) plant a wet kiss on it.

“What I want everyone to understand is that investment in the environment really does pay off,” says Berman. “We’re willing to pay for a clean Boston Harbor, so we should enjoy it.”