21 C
Byron Shire
March 29, 2024

Join the BioBlitz and discover aquatic mysteries

Latest News

Blue skies for Bluesfest day 1

If yesterday at Bluesfest was anything to go by, it's going to be an incredible event and with the weather holding, (so far) the Easter weekend's future is looking bright.

Other News

Breakfeast, Bluesfest weekend

Victoria Cosford Oh to be a cow with a four-chambered stomach system! Farmers’ market, Bluesfest long weekend, a spot of...

Splendour 2024 cancelled

It's official, Splendour in the Grass 2024 has been cancelled.

Lismore Labor MP called out over native forest logging

More than five hundred people marched in the rain through Lismore to the local state member’s office in protest against government sanctioned native forest logging on Sunday.

Resilient Lismore’s ‘Repair to Return’ funding

On the eve of the second anniversary of the second devastating flood in 2022, Resilient Lismore has welcomed the finalisation of its funding deed with the NSW Reconstruction Authority, which will enable the continuation of its ‘Repair to Return’ program.

A health check as Medicare turns 40

If you’ll forgive the earnest tone, I’d like to propose a toast. To a friend who’s almost always there when you need them most. To a system that aims to treat people fairly and respectfully. 

Coveted Wollumbin Art Award open for young and old

Are you an artist in the Northern Rivers? Now is the time to get your art ready and submitted to the Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre’s coveted biennial Wollumbin Art Award.

Photo Mary Gardner.

Mary Gardner

On May 12 (low tide 11.36 am), take a few minutes and help track down the elusive mysterious highly prized wild shellfish reefs and beds somewhere near you.  Whether you are on the coast from the Brunswick to the Richmond, or along any waterway large or small going inland, use the free phone app to photograph any oysters, mussels, pipi, clams and burrowing clams you find. It’s our region’s First Wild Shellfish BioBlitz.

This Shellfish BioBlitz is an aquatic variation of the 24-hour wildlife censuses all done by volunteers. The first census was 1996 in the United States. Now, BioBlitzes are popular all around the world because citizens and specialists are equally thrilled with the discoveries made.

In this region, the Wild Shellfish BioBlitz might solve some longstanding critical mysteries. The first is the Curious Case of the Last Refuges. Once the coast and waterways of this region held millions of wild shellfish: three species of oysters, six species of freshwater mussels and one marine, at least several freshwater clam species plus five marine. Since the 1800s, these shellfish experienced large prolonged harvests, drastically changed conditions on land and in the water as well as pollution of every sort. Today, where are the survivors? There must be at least a few somewhere.

Another is the Mystery of the Missing Oyster Species. So many stories float around this region about the flat oyster also known as the mud oyster Ostrea angasi. These are similar to the highly prized European Ostrea edulis now also grown in the United States. There is only single known wild flat oyster reef in Tasmania. The species is of special interest to the global gourmet market. Is there any truth to the anecdotes about flat oysters in our region?

What about The Adventure of the Leaf Oysters? They were seen attached to mangrove trees, aerial roots and spreading across the muddy surfaces. That’s how these Isognomos ephippium are also called tree oysters. Where are they?

Of great cultural and historical significance is The Adventure of the Burrowing Clams. These Teredinidae should be found in submerged deadwood in coastal wetlands and intermittenly closed and open lakes and lagoons (ICOLLs). Aboriginal people of the east coast cultivated their favourite species. They carried the long thin animals from one place to the next, inoculating submerged logs of dead Causarina (she-oaks).

As a courtesy, Aboriginal people in this region offered burrowing clams as delicacies to visitors. They sent them as gifts to as far south as the land of Eora (now Sydney). British colonialists disparaged them as ‘mangrove worms’ and refused to eat them. But other settlers around the world prize them as ‘long oysters’. So where are any burrowing clams? 

The Problem of the Pipi is one repeated all along the east Australian coast since the 1800s. For millennia, Aboriginal people prized these surf clams Donax deltoides as food. They collected the shells in middens metres high and kilometres long, using these as caches for tools and special items as well as burial sites.

Here from 1880s to 1970s, pipi endured the tailings of gold mining and the brute force of sand mining. They were crushed by vehicles driven across beaches. Rock walls eroded the soft sands they needed. Finally, they were subjected to heavy harvesting, an activity without quotas until 2007. In 2018, where are any pipi?

The last mystery About The Rare Word is one a little outside of our region. The Aboriginal word Yamba means abalone. Does anyone know of the whereabouts or anecdotes about this prized shellfish from around the Clarence or anywhere further north?

So these are just six mysteries of the aquatic world around us. Collect your family and friends and join the BioBlitz. Together, we might find a few more clues.

♦ Sign up for Wild Shellfish BioBlitz by emailing: [email protected] for links to download the FAIMS app.


Support The Echo

Keeping the community together and the community voice loud and clear is what The Echo is about. More than ever we need your help to keep this voice alive and thriving in the community.

Like all businesses we are struggling to keep food on the table of all our local and hard working journalists, artists, sales, delivery and drudges who keep the news coming out to you both in the newspaper and online. If you can spare a few dollars a week – or maybe more – we would appreciate all the support you are able to give to keep the voice of independent, local journalism alive.

1 COMMENT

  1. UPDATE Here is an abbreviated direct link to YourShore module to cut the search time out:
    https://goo.gl/Fmxr9f

    Here is the full link
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details…

    If you have an iphone, take a pix and send to [email protected]
    here’s the phone app info you can fill out and take photos. Please send to:: [email protected] with as much as you can answer from the checklist ( which is what the android app sorts for you)

    Trip Data
    1. Name 2. Date 3. Time 4. Subregion 5. GPS location

    Shoreline attributes
    1. Natural (Mudflat, Sandy beach, Saltmarsh, Rocky shore, Mangrove)
    Artificial (Concrete, Sea wall, Large rocks, Gravel, Wood pier)
    2. Habitat photos
    3. Animals present (Attached shellfish- oysters/mussels; other shellfish- clams/ pippis; seabirds; shorebirds- waders; fish; crabs; worms)
    4. Road/asphalt nearby
    5. Water outflows (>1; 1; 0)
    6. Shoreline slope (45deg)

    Aggregate
    1.. Shellfish Type & Species (Sydney Rock, Pacific, Flat, Blue Mussell)
    2. Species photo
    3. Primary substrate (eg saltmarsh)
    4. Surrounding substrate (eg sandy beach)
    5. Shellfish status (mostly alive or mostly dead)
    6. Distance to water (under water; 1m; 1-5m; >5m)
    7. Size of aggregation (Small 50)
    8. Aggregate photo

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Retired local professor launches book on grief

A leading international thinker and researcher in the development of innovative sport coaching and physical education teaching has returned home to Byron Bay and is launching his first non-academic book, 'Grief and Growth', on April 4 at The Book Room in Byron. 

Resilient Lismore’s ‘Repair to Return’ funding

On the eve of the second anniversary of the second devastating flood in 2022, Resilient Lismore has welcomed the finalisation of its funding deed with the NSW Reconstruction Authority, which will enable the continuation of its ‘Repair to Return’ program.

Editorial – Joyous propaganda! 

The NSW Labor government marked its one year in office this week with a jubilant statement of achievements issued from Macquarie Street HQ.

Man charged over domestic violence and pursuit offences – Tweed Heads

A man has been charged following a pursuit near Tweed Heads on Monday.