The time we spent at the Bennetts Point field station in the ACE basin this Spring Break was definitely an interesting experience.
Most of the time was spent on the boat setting out and pulling up crab traps.
Abby and I also slaved during a gnat storm to put plastic Vexar mesh around new crab pots to prevent the smaller crabs from escaping. Sometimes research materials require a little DIY.
Once the crabs were caught, we had to process them in the lab. On the day that the middle of the Ashepoo was sampled, we had to measure, weigh, extract hemolymph, and photograph over a hundred crabs.
Frank, Adam, and I also worked with SC DNR on the SCORE project. We bagged up a trailer of oyster shells, and added them to an oyster reef not too far from the field station. The folks from DNR said that since the first bags were put in place, they could definitely tell a difference in the number of live oysters that had been recruited to the site, and the reduced erosion of the marsh grasses behind the reef.
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