Newsletter 24

For the fourth consecutive summer the Souris & Area Branch will help the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in CAMP activities around the Souris River and Basin Head. Samples of sea life are collected, identified, counted and recorded monthly from June to September in six locations throughout both sites.

CAMP is an important program in monitoring and maintaining the health of our estuaries. With proper assessments the preservation of fish species and water quality can be maintained. Water temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity and nutrients concentrations are all measured to assess the water quality using a YSI meter. Aquatic vegetation and substrate are also recorded.

Species collection is done using a beach seine which captures the various species which inhabit the estuary and provides an assessment of the species population. This information is then entered into DFO's database. Sand shrimp have been the prominent species in both sites. Other fish species caught have included Silversides, Flounder, Sticklebacks, and Gaspreau. Unfortunately green crabs have also been abundant finds in the beach seine. These species serve as important indicators of the health status of both sites in our watershed management area.

Barry Wilson, Brian Lundrigan, and Max
MacDonald hauling a beach seine net in the
Souris River.

Silversides caught in the Souris River
during a beach seine.

Tree Planting - Greening Spaces Program

Once again, the staff took part in the PEI Greening Spaces Program. Greening Spaces is a tree planting initiative in which an assortment of local hardwood and softwood trees are planted throughout the local area. These trees are very important in maintaining the riparian zones in our area.The trees were obtained from the Frank J. Gaudet Tree Nursery and 850 were planted in the riparian zones of various local streams. Sites where trees were planted include the Souris Industrial Park, Priest Pond, Arthur Mooney and Sons in St. Catherine's, Gowan Brae, Pensioner's Road and Merlin Clements lot in Souris River.

David Pike (SAB staff member)
planting a tree in St. Catherine's.

Under the supervision of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in partnership with the Bedford Marine Institute, water quality assessments will take place again at Basin Head. Samples will be taken once per week at 11 various sites. Ulva (sea lettuce) will also be monitored once per week. Photos will be taken at three of the eleven sites throughout the next few months to monitor the changes in Ulva distribution. This will be an important indicator of the health of the water. An overabundance of Ulva in an area can lead to anoxic events as it decomposes and removes all the available oxygen from the water.

Ulva (Sea Lettuce) mats at Basin
Head from Bothwell Beach Rd.

Win a Hunting Trip

The PEI Wildlife Federation is selling tickets for a hunting trip in Saskatchewan for two people. This hunting trip will include the opportunity to hunt waterfowl, bear or deer, with air fare, lodging, meals, licenses, transportation, etc. The draw will take place in Charlottetown in September with only 150 tickets to be sold. Tickets are only $50 each and are available from Souris & Area Wildlife Branch. Call the office at 687-4115 or contact Fred Cheverie at 687-3436. These tickets will move very quickly.

Staff also took part in shore clean-ups in various locations in our watershed management area. Sites included North Lake, Priest Pond, Big Pond, Souris River, Pats Brook and Bothwell Beach. With the cooperation of landowners at Bothwell Beach, three full truckloads of buoys were removed from two separate sites along the beach. The large amounts of buoys were washed ashore during the winter months. Again, this debris was properly disposed of with the cooperation of the Island Waste Management Corporation.

Buoys littered the area beforel
the Bothwell beach clean-up.

For first two weeks of the 2011 season, the staff of the Souris & Area Branch worked diligently, removing refuse from the following sites in our watershed management area: North Lake, Big Pond, and New Harmony Demo Woodlot. These sites were an unsightly mess of food containers, mattresses, and burned tires. It is extremely disheartening to discover such a lack of environmental consciousness.
Littering our Island roads and forests is a senseless act; Islander's pay yearly to have Island Waste Management pick up our trash at the end of our gates every week.Garbage clean-up is a very time consuming task. This year we were fortunate to have extra staff available to devote to the clean-up. However, the number of staff the SAB normally has at its disposal is considerably smaller and a task as big as this would really eat into our time in the streams.
We are urging people to become more aware of the problem and take proper action to correctly dispose of waste material and report those observed dumping garbage.Eight truckloads of garbage were removed from these sites and then properly disposed of by the staff with the cooperation of Island Waste Management Corporation.

SAB staff members clean some debris
at the New Harmony Demo Woodlot.

Martha Mallett (SAB staff
member) taking part in the
clean-up at North Lake.

On May 20th, Daryl Guignon's UPEI Integrated Watershed Management class travelled to Souris to view and learn about the digger logs, brush matting and stream enhancement in the Souris River. Fred Cheverie and Tim Brothers spent the afternoon giving tours and explaining the importance of maintaining the health of the water quality in Souris River for the fish species and wildlife the area houses.

Tim Brothers (SAB staff member)
explaining the installation of and
purpose of brush mats in the Souris River.

The SAB has partnered with the Town of Souris and the Communities in Bloom project to create a tree nursery for the town of Souris. SAB also conducted a tree inventory including species identification and mapping using GPS technology of all trees planted on municipal property.

Tree Nursery planted in Souris by SAB Staff.

On July 6, 2011 approximately 15 staff took part in marram grass planting at Little Harbour Beach. There were 2000 plants put into the dune system in 5 different areas. Marram grass will become an increasingly important part of sand dune integrity and will become particularly important with global climate change.

The Souris & Area Branch of the PEI Wildlife Federation is very pleased to have partnered with Skills PEI Division of the Department of Innovation and Advanced Learning in providing work for displaced workers from the Ocean Choice Fish Plant.

The Souris Branch with the cooperation of the PEI Department of Environment, Energy & Forestry has trained five (5) chainsaw workers. The Souris branch now has 4 groups of 4 people each with a trained chain saw operator working in the streams in the management zone for 14 weeks. This training will be repeated at the end of 14 weeks for four more groups. We have 2 supervisors on site trained by the Souris & Area Branch staff. In addition, all staff has attended necessary first aid training courses. The chainsaw operators and supervisors also attended a two day "Watershed Management Course" hosted in Souris and organized by the PEI Watershed Alliance.

Each of the crews are extremely good workers and take pride in their work. We are making great time in the streams and have hopes of opening up streams that previously have never been touched. Abandoned beaver dams are being removed, alders are being trimmed back, and natural blockages are being removed. We hope to start installing brush mats in the near future. If a crew has not been in your area yet, you can expect to see them in the near future.

Supervisors- Barry Wilson, Michael Jacklyn, David Caines	Crew #1 - Catherine King, Georgina Gregory, Florence Herritt, Arlene Carter
Crew #2 - Joseph Rushton, Tony Meade, Sandra Meade, Lauren Savoie.	Crew # 3 - David Pike, Gail MacCaull, Martha Mallett, Trevor Jarvis
Crew # 4 - Chris Carter, Edward Hanlon Ryan Hennessey, Jason Arseneau	Student Crew - Max MacDonald, Brandon O'Keefe, Jonathan Gallant, Calvin MacAulay, Melissa Conway

Atlantic Salmon Conservation Foundation

The Atlantic Salmon Conservation Foundation is a registered charitable organization incorporated as a non-profit organization whose goal is to promote conservation of wild Atlantic Salmon and increase its habitat. This program is in place in the Atlantic provinces and Quebec.The SAB received $19,000 for four rivers in our watershed management area. These rivers are major salmon runs and include North Lake, Priest Pond, Cross River and Naufrage. The goal is to increase habitat, spawning grounds and foraging areas to maintain Atlantic Salmon populations.
To date, both North Lake and Naufrage have had extended enhancement areas completed with Cross River and Priest Pond to be done in the near future. Part of the stream enhancement work includes removal of alders, blockages, beaver dams along with trapping.Extensive beaver trapping done last winter is showing promising signs with respect to stream improvement. Removal of blockages and beaver dams is important for Atlantic Salmon. This removal promotes ideal water temperature and oxygen content for Atlantic Salmon to thrive in, as well as aiding in passage throughout the stream network.Funding sources such as this are important to the SAB in maintaining health of our wild Atlantic Salmon populations.

Beaver dam in Naufrage on June 13
before removal by SAB staff.

After removal by SAB staff.

The Souris and Area Branch of the PEI Wildlife Federation is spending time this summer writing management plans for North Lake Creek and Priest Pond watersheds. The SAB has found that plans written in the past (Souris River (2006) and Basin Head (2010)) have been instrumental in setting and meeting the goals and objectives of the group and also in having documentation to obtain funding. Tim Brothers has been hired this summer to take the lead role in composing these two watershed management plans with assistance from coordinator, Fred Cheverie, and former employee of the SAB, Garry Gregory.
There have been a series of meetings take place in the Eastern Kings area for concerned community members to relay their input to the authors of the plan. A steering committee has been formed and the members are as follows: Myles Rose, Ernest MacPhee, Sheila Eastman, Candy Handrahan, Richard MacGregor, Danny Rose, Garry MacDonald, Bobby Dixon, Francis Stewart, Robert Baker, Tim Brothers, and Fred Cheverie.
The writing process for these plans is ongoing and meetings between the SAB and the community will resume in the upcoming months. If there are any community members that wish to have their input heard by the composers of this plan they can forward their emails to Timothy.Brothers@unb.ca or call the SAB office at (902) 687-4115.

I am pleased with the start of our summer work season thus far. We started off the year with another successful Family Fishing Day at Rollo Bay Pond. The turnout of young and old alike was great. It was nice for young people, in particular, to get away from technological distractions such as video games, and get out in the fresh air and enjoy the sounds and smells of nature.

As well, with the addition of displaced Ocean Choice workers, we are completing work at a compelling rate. We are accomplishing tasks in streams that have been previously enhanced as well as streams which have not been touched in the past. This work aids in improving water quality in our watershed management area and creates ideal fish habitat promoting species diversity.

The partnership created with Skills PEI has been extremely beneficial to the SAB. With more workers we are seeing progress which has never been accomplished in our management area in such a short time period thus far. At this rate, the benefits resulting will be felt long term. I am looking forward to seeing the continued progress made by these crews throughout the remaining summer months.

The PEI Watershed Alliance (PEIWSA) is a non –profit organization of watershed groups across PEI. Souris & Area Wildlife Branch, like most other watershed groups, is a member and I'm presently serving as chair. The PEIWSA has become involved in a, "Pilot Sea Lettuce Harvest" in two estuaries (Mill River and Covehead). This pilot project involves using a piece of machinery that can navigate in shallow water, harvest the sea lettuce and take it to shore. Utilizing a conveyor, it is loaded onto dump trucks and hauled to fields where it can be spread or mixed with manure for composting. Ideally a market for this product would be the solution. Sea Lettuce is green alga that blooms in poorly flushed upper estuaries during the warm months. These alga blooms create several environmental problems including oxygen depletion (sometimes anoxia).

This pilot project has some merits and will be a short term solution but worthy of exploration. If our efforts to control nutrient inputs from our land uses have been effective, sea lettuce harvesting may improve the rate of recovery for some estuaries.

This project is monitored by Dept. of Environment, Energy and Forestry and Dept. Of Fisheries and Oceans with special emphasis on the by-catch involved. Souris & Area Wildlife will be following the results of this pilot project closely to ensure the science, logistics and economics reflected could be used in our management area in future years.

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They may not be copied without permission of the photographer and the Souris & Area Branch of the P.E.I. Wildlife Federation.