Seining and Snorkeling Fred Howard Park

9/18/14 at 2:20 PM
Location:      Fred Howard Park
Conditions:  87 degrees Fahrenheit; winds <10mph
                     Mostly sunny with 20% cloud cover

Area where the seine net was used.  Photo taken facing east toward mainland Florida from the northeast area of the park.  Howard Park Causeway can be seen on the right side of the photo.

Fish of the Belonidae family caught in the seine net.

The class huddled around the seine net.

The above video shows the movement and speed of the Belonidae fish caught in the net.

A starfish found in the shallows.  Phylum Echinodermata.

A hermit crab found in the shallows. Phylum Arthropoda.

     Fred Howard Park is a man-made beach approximate 1.5 kilometers off the coast of Tarpon Springs.  We visited the park to practice using a seine net as seen below:  

"Seine (PSF)" by Pearson Scott Foresman - Pearson Scott Foresman, donated to the Wikimedia Foundation. Licensed under      Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
     http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seine_(PSF).png#mediaviewer/File:Seine_(PSF).png

The net has buoys on top to keep it afloat and weights on the bottom to keep the net open underwater.  With one person holding each end post standing parallel to the shore, one person rotates in place while the other walks in a semicircle away from the shore and around the stationary person until he or she is standing on the opposite side of the stationary person.  The end posts are then brought together to form a circle of net near the shore.
     This area was chosen to observe three of the Florida seagrasses:  manatee grass (Syringodium filiforme), a narrow, cylindrical saltwater grass, shoalweed (Halodule wrightii), a narrow, flat saltwater grass, and turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum), a broad, flat saltwater grass.  We saw all three of these species growing in patches in the shallow (.5-1.5 meter), sandy areas east of the park.
   
Species List:
Birds:
     great blue heron (1)
     snowy plover (many)
     royal tern (many)
     black skimmer (3)
     laughing gull (many)

Plants:
     cabbage palm
     sea grape
     dune sunflower
     red mangrove and propagules
     black mangrove propagules
     turtle grass
     manatee grass
     shoalweed

Fishes:
     mullet
     mahara
     pinfish
     needlefish
   
Miscellaneous
     blue crab (Arthropoda)
     hermit crab (Arthropoda)
     unknown sponge (Porifera)
     Gracilaria (Rhodophyta)