Posted by Michaela LeMay | 01.23.2024 | Sea Turtle Camp News

Seining in the Salt Marsh!

One of my favorite activities involves a ten-fifteen-foot net and getting muddy in the salt marsh! Have you ever been seining? If you have not, I highly recommend looking for somewhere that offers it as a summer activity. Our campers get the opportunity to go seining and explore the animals that live in the salt marsh.

A seine net can come in varied sizes, but we use ten- or fifteen-foot nets with minnow-size mesh. We connect each side of the net to a piece of PVC piping that allows for easy maneuvering in the muddy marsh. One side of the net has weights to help keep it on the bottom of the marsh floor and the other has floats to help keep it above the water. With one or two people per side of the net, we drag it through the salt marsh and then carefully but quickly pull it up and flat to see what critters we caught!

It is easy to get overwhelmed with joy as you hold a crab, fish, or other animal that you caught, but we try to make quick work of identifying the animals and releasing them! We want to make sure everything swims away, as healthy as when we caught it. Last year, our top catches were blue crabs, hermit crabs, and various juvenile species of fish!

Seining in the salt marsh offers unique opportunities for various marine science lessons. Depending on the catch that day numerous species can be talked about, have their lifestyle explained, and held. Additionally, those species live in the salt marsh for a specific reason and you can read an older blog about the salt marsh here! A day in the marsh seining is one of my favorite activities and I will never turn down the opportunity to go!