The Inland Bays Shorezone Fish & Blue Crab Survey, initiated in 2011, is one of the long-term volunteer/scientist collaborations.
Initially an annual survey, the effort to characterize the shorezone fish community in the Bays is one of two surveys that repeat on a longer interval (no less frequently than every five years). The shorezone fish community is typically smaller fish (usually less than 8 inches), either the young of commercial and recreational fish species like summer flounder, or naturally small fish like mummichog and bay anchovy. These smaller fish serve as a crucial food source for larger fish and shorebirds.
This fish community may respond to changes in water temperature, water quality (especially dissolved oxygen or fertilizer pollution known as eutrophication), and shoreline conditions. Some of the more unusual species that we might find include pipe fish, cusk eel and oyster toad fish!
The goals of the survey program are to help determine long-term species trends, temporal variations, and environmental changes, along with an understanding of community composition and the importance of nearshore habitats within the Inland Bays.
Surveys are led by trained volunteers at fixed locations. With more than 100 species of fish known to use the Bays, teams never know what they will find. Seine samples are collected at each of the 16 sites bi-monthly from May through October, plus one sample in late April, for a total of 208 sampling events.