Eel Grass Restoration

Today, we went to meet two biologists working on the restoration of eel grass on the Virginia coast. There are only these two people who are working on this project. They get some help from the occasional intern and some students, like us, that come to learn about what they are doing. The process is fairly simple. The two of them go out with volunteers to collect the seeds from the eel grass already established on the coast. They bring the seeds back to these tanks, were they stay, until they spread the seeds back in the ocean in August. What is important about this restoration project, is that there are some many other species to come with the revitalized eel grass. A major example is scallops. Scallops attach themselves to the eel grass while juveniles as a way to escape predation by crabs.

While we learned about the restoration project, we helped out by getting in the tanks and stirring them up, to help oxygenate the tanks, and remove plant debris. It was very fun, and a very informative experience on an active restoration project.

On our way back to campus, we stopped off at the Seaview Preserve and little ways up the street, to see the unique habitat.