After travelling from the East of England we
have finally made it to Greater
Haig Fras MCZ, which lies to the west of Cornwall. Since arriving at
the site, the boat has been a flurry of activity. We have busied ourselves
collecting multibeam sonar data for seabed mapping as well as beginning our
camera and grab sampling.
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| Matt having a look at some night time multibeam collection. © JNCC/ Cefas |
As the weather here has been favourable so
far, we have been able to take good quality images of the
seabed. Excitingly, we have already seen plenty of burrows in the imagery
collected, indicating the presence of sea-pens and burrowing megafauna
which we mentioned in an earlier post.
The team here are also happy to have begun
collecting and sieving grab samples, which allows us to find specimens of the
animals that live at the site which we preserve and store for later
identification. This is a muddy job, but continuing consumption of biscuits and
cups of tea helps! Even with a dash of seasickness, everyone remains in
high spirits.
Keep up to date with all the latest from survey by following
this blog, and using #CEND0719 on our Twitter and Facebook profiles!
Survey Fun Fact:
The Sea-pen and burrowing megafauna habitat in the deeper mud areas of the site, is listed as OSPAR threatened and/or declining. This means that the site has been highlighted for protection in order to maintain and/or restore a favourable habitat. With this habitat supporting species such as Nephrops norvegicus, sea pens and mud shrimps, you can see why it is an important place to understand.
