Thursday, May 19, 2011

A Walk On the Beach Part 2

On May 9th, Eric and I hit the beach again. It had been days since our first trip out. This time we covered the beach from Long Beach harbor to Pass Christian Harbor. We knew that the beaches changed from day to day but our goal was to cover all beaches from Waveland to Gulfport. We wanted to see the conditions of all the beaches and see if we could see a difference in any of them. Although we were in Mississippi for 2 weeks, the amount of time were able to go out was limited, so we wanted to make the most of our time. This was a very long walk. The surf was very rough this day.

As we started out it was clear that clean up crews had been out that morning. But it was clear they were not cleaning up dead animals! On this stretch of the beach the tar balls were smaller and there were fewer of them. But there was not a shortage of dead animals. There were tons of fresh washed up fish along the beach. Everything from fish heads to whole fish. We came to the conclusion that some of the fish washing up were fish that had been caught. The fish heads we found had clearly been severed and thrown into the water. We also found catfish that appeared to have been caught filleted and the remains tossed into the water. We found a whole fish with a hook and line in its mouth as well. It is clear that some of these fish are victims of fishing, however it was also clear that most were not. There were lots of dead whole fish, rays, birds, and our first turtle. It was clear the turtle had been there for a long time. We saw lots of Sea birds, but still no pelicans. Where are the pelicans? I have never been to this area and not seen pelicans.


Tar Balls mixed in the sand


Fresh Tar Balls


Tar balls along the beach


Ray



Very  large  Fish head


Bag of Tar balls left in the sand




Brown sea foam


This fish had no visible wounds, but appeared to have internal injuries

Large Catfish


We saw about 40 live Rays off the beach


This poor guy had a broken wing. I was said to find out there was no rescue groups for injured gulls.


Small Tar balls down the beach



Normal? We saw 3 in the area.


Dead bird


Someone place a cross on the beach.



Fish with a hook and line in its mouth


RIP Turtle


HUGE fish!





If you missed Part 1 of this series you can find it here. 

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