Hi everyone! The time has come to start working on my oral presentation for my project... uh oh! It's been a challenge trying to weave my ideas together in a cohesive way while also being able to effectively present the message of my project, but all is going well thus far. My goals for this 20 minute presentation are to establish my reasoning for embarking on my whelk research, explain the significance of my project, and highlight the key details that went into my research. Wish me luck in the weeks of practice to come!
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Hello all! It is officially spring and the waters are starting to warm up around MV, and that means its almost time to recapture our whelk! Shelley and I are working to find a day when we can throw on our wetsuits and snorkel to find our released and tagged whelk. Unfortunately, we've recently had two different individuals wash up dead on the shore :( One was a drilled whelk and the other was part of the control group, meaning that we can't draw any conclusions about whether or not their deaths occurred due to the drilled holes. Hopefully in the near future I will be able to report back with happy news about our healthy tagged whelk!
I'd like to officially introduce you to my mentor, Shelley Edmundson! Shelley and I have been working together on my project since October, and throughout this fall and winter she has become a major source of knowledge and inspiration in my life. Shelley has a PhD in zoology and marine biology and is the current executive director of the Martha's Vineyard Fishermen's Preservation Trust. She has taught me about her journey towards getting her degree and becoming an expert in both biology and sustainability, and has helped me with scholarship applications and educational plans that will hopefully help me to achieve similar accomplishments. Thank you Shelley for all of your guidance and for exposing me to fishery conservation and sustainability!
You can access her full bio on the MVFPT website here: https://www.mvfishermenspreservationtrust.org/our-board-of-directors Although my project might be paused right now, Shelley and I are nowhere close to finished with our whelk yet! We are hoping that our tagged females will be able to survive the winter with the holes in their shells, and we are curious to see how much their shells will have grown in around the holes, if at all. Right now we are planning to return to the project in April, when we will put on some wetsuits, grab a kayak, paddle out to our whelk release site, and snorkel to try to recapture our tagged whelks. Typically, channeled whelk do not move very long distances, so we are hoping that our tagged individuals will not have strayed too far away from the buoy we used to mark our site.
I will also be continuing my mentorship with Shelley into the summer of 2019 and we are already beginning to plan the next steps we can take for our project. We may decide to drill a few more whelk and observe their behavior in the tanks at the Shellfish Hatchery for a longer period of time, or spend time out on the water with local fishermen collecting data from their catches such as whelk sizes, sexes, etc. Overall, it has been a great experience working with Shelley and I am super excited to continue my research with her in the months to come. This was our whelk release day! We were very happy to send all sixteen of our original whelks back into their natural environment. They were all alive and well, but maybe a little bit hungry since none of them had eaten at all since they were placed in the tanks. Shelley and I piled all of our whelks into several buckets, drove to the lagoon in Vineyard Haven, and hopped on a small boat with a woman from the MV Shellfish Group and a photographer from the MV Film Festival who was getting footage of the project. We went through the lagoon, under the draw bridge and into VH Harbor. We managed to find a buoy in the outer harbor that was about 20 yards offshore. This would act as a marker for our whelk release site. It was a beautiful afternoon and the water was crystal clear, giving us a good view of the bottom and the depth of the water. Despite the bitter cold (we were on a boat in December, after all) Shelley and I were very happy to set the whelk free. We tossed them over the side of the boat and wished them all the best of luck for surviving the winter - it was a very nice send-off ceremony for our new favorite sea snails.
At this point Shelley and I were given notice that the Shellfish Hatchery was planning on shutting their water off soon, meaning that the tanks would be emptied and we were going to have to release our whelks back into the wild. Luckily, all sixteen on the tagged and untagged whelks were still alive, but the scallops remained uneaten on both sides of the tank. The water had dropped to 6.9 degrees Celsius (44.5 degrees Fahrenheit) by then, which most likely contributed to their disinterest in the food and progressively lethargic behavior. Another PSA: Sticking your hands in 45 degree salt water for extended periods of time will make your fingers very cold.
After almost two weeks Shelley and I finally managed to return to the hatchery to check on the whelk. They had all moved around their sides of the tank and remained alive, but none of the scallops had been eaten by either the tagged or untagged whelk. It is certainly unusual that none of them had eaten over the course of their stay in the tank, but it was not really alarming. According to Shelley, whelks tend to eat less at lower water temperatures and can survive for several months without food. Once again we measured the water temperature and it was 9 degrees Celsius (about 44 degrees Fahrenheit) on both sides of the tank. These lowering temperatures were the most plausible explanations for why the whelk were not eating.
Fun Fact: Along with being able to go a long time without eating, whelks can also hold large amounts of water in their shells and survive for many hours, if not days out of water - those are some tough snails! Four days later we returned to check on the whelks and once again they all remained alive. However, none of them had touched any of the food in the tank despite their change in menu options. At this point we measured the temperature of the water on both sides of the tank and it was 14 degrees Celsius (around 57 degrees Fahrenheit.) The continuous drops in water temperatures might have attributed to the whelk's disinterest in food. Shelley and I checked the time lapse footage we had collected since placing the scallops in the tank and found several clips showing some movement of the drilled whelks. There were also one or two instances where an individual was moving towards the scallops, showing some possible interest in the food. These movements were encouraging, but Shelley and I were still confused as to why none of the subjects were eating. We decided to turn the water flow down on both sides of the tank, hoping that the reduced current might make the water warmer and allow the whelk to pick up on the scent of the scallops, thus making it easier to locate them.
One week later Shelley and I returned to the shellfish hatchery and were happy to discover that all sixteen of the whelks remained alive in the tank. Strangely enough, neither the drilled or control whelks had eaten any of the quahogs on their sides of the tank, despite having crushed them the week before. We decided to replace the clams with three large bay scallops on either side of the tank under the theory that scallops might be easier for the whelks to open (since scallops have thinner, weaker shells than quahogs.) PSA: Crushed clams that have been left in a saltwater tank for a week are extremely smelly.
After one more week Shelley and I checked on our whelks once again. All sixteen remained alive and well, however none of them (tagged or untagged) had eaten any of the clams in the tank. We decided to take two of the clams (one from each side of the tank) and smash them partially open, hoping that this would intensify their scent, make them easier to open, and ultimately attract more attention from the whelk. We also checked our week's worth of time lapse footage. Unfortunately the camera could not capture any footage at night, which is when whelks are typically the most active, but we were still able to get several clips showing the drilled whelks moving around their side of the tank. This footage was very encouraging because it proved that the holes did not impede their ability to move.
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WelcomeHi all! My name is Victoria Scott and I'm a senior at Martha's Vineyard Regional High School. This is where I'll be posting status updates on my whelk tagging project! |