March was a month full of equipment – troubleshooting, installation, and maintenance! And bugs….
Our team installed the equipment to house a phosphorous auto-analyzer in Bangs Bayou, which, once fully installed, will give us live phosphorous readings. Phosphorous fuels phytoplankton and if there’s too much, it can fuel the wrong kind or amount of phytoplankton. Bangs Lake has a history with Phosphorous – back in 2005 and 2012, wastewater from MS Phosphates (now a Super Fund Site) spilled into Bangs Lake, creating havoc with the water quality (very acidic water) and fish community (fish kills). Although the phosphorous has declined since then, it still gets resuspended from the sediments.
We also had a run-in with a derelict crab trap that got wrapped around our engine prop. Elizabeth had to jump in the water to dislodge it from the prop to get underway again. We rescued this angry little oyster toadfish (Opsanus tau) – what big teeth he has! Derelict crab traps are a huge problem in estuaries since they not only create hazards for boat traffic, but they continue ghost-fishing. The last time we removed derelict traps, during DMR’s Derelict Crab Trap Removal Program in 2024, we found live and dead crabs, live sheepshead and flounder, and dead terrapins. Let’s all take care of our estuaries and the fisheries they support by making sure fishing gear is well-maintained and properly disposed of when necessary.
And we were wondering what kept messing with our rain gauge on our weather (MET) station (CDMO RTA), so we put a game camera on the weather (MET) station to help us find out. When we collected the camera we saw some pretty amazing, and hilarious, footage of birds utilizing our ‘bird proofing’ on the rain gauge! An osprey especially had no worries about the wires poking up from below! So, back to the drawing board to figure out how to dissuade birds from using our rain gauge as a perfect perch.
