George's Sea Stars

One of my biggest goals this summer is to find a living sea star out on the Boston Harbor Islands. I had heard rumors of sightings from other colleagues who had gone out and seen some on George’s Islands. The weeks we have been out on George’s I’ve searched feverishly for the five-armed echinoderms, but have come up with no luck. You can imagine how envious I was when I found out the group at the Courageous pulled some up with their crab traps.

A large group of kids were exploring the water line on Thursday and I joined them in one of my favorite activates. As they looked for sea glass and crab claws, eagerly showing off their findings to their camp mates, and myself I was keeping my eye out for a star. While I was talking to one girl another girl came running but to me “Look what we found! What is it?” In her hand was a sea star! On closer inspection I saw that the sea star was not alive but was the endoskeleton of a sea star that was bleach white. Even though it wasn’t a live sea star it was the first evidence I have personally found of sea stars in Boston Harbor. The founders of the white sea stars promptly decided that the sea star skeleton was less interesting than the shiny, colorful sea glass and tossed it back into the sea.

The hunt will have to continue for the elusive sea stars in two weeks when we return to George’s for the last time this summer. Hopefully this time the search will be more fruitful!

-Nora D.

See What's Under The River

In Save the Harbor / Save the Bay we were at Community Boating. the group and me caught an black eel with two small perch, which we put in the touch tank to use it as bait. At Charles river you are able to go on small boats. Also go down and fish on the deck. Also the fish that we've caught is different from the fish that my other group caught in the Children Museum.

Next the group and me start heading to Courageous were there we caught a lot of green crabs with three cool sea star. As I put the sea star onto my skin you can feel the sea star tiny legs attaching to your skin. At the site that I was at today the children seemed like they were enjoying fishing and touching the animals.

As bait we were using corn, bread and fish to try and catch anything that's in the harbor ocean. The children seem more interested in the  eel and the sea star and a baby green crab that we had in the touch tank.

bait time

                                                                                                              -Edward Calderon

Hold on to your limbs!

Hey everyone, Sej here. This week I’ve been working at Community Boating Inc and Courageous Sailing Center with my awesome team of Luke, Preston, Nhu and Filmawit. We’ve been exploring the harbor and the river with really enthusiastic young people!

Some explorers looking at sea stars and fish 

On Tuesday at Courageous we found plenty of interesting critters in our lobster traps out there. One of which was a sea star that was about 10 inches from the point of one arm to the point of another. One of its five arms had sustained some kind of injury; It looked like something had taken a bite near the end and the area was greyish green. We put the sea star in our touch tank with two rock gunnels and two sculpin.

After showing the fish and sea star to our harbor explorers, we let the animals rest while we were fishing off the pier. A short time later when we were getting ready to release the animals, we saw that the sea star had detached its arm! The arm with the injury was separated from the rest of the sea star and slowly walking away on its little tube feet. It was fascinating to see and teach the kids about.

On Thursday, we found another sea star in one of our traps. This one looked like it had been a detached arm and was beginning to regenerate other limbs to become a whole new sea star.

Sea star regenerating some limbs 

I can’t wait to see what other kinds of biological phenomenon we will see this summer!

Sej

Excitement at McDonough Sailing Center!

Hi everybody!

Today at McDonough sailing center was incredible! We had a blast fishing with all of the kids who hang out at the Center day after day. Even though there are a TON of campers there- we have already gotten to know a bunch who are interested in learning how to fish, experimenting with the crab trap, and exploring the dock and beach for other critters!

Jazeel showing the campers a Green Crab

Today, we caught close to 30 green crabs- not only with our crab trap, but also with the fishing rods. Using herring as bait the kids have found the perfect spot on the dock to cast off. The crabs don't get hooked, but they attach themselves to the bait and don't let go until we pry them away. The kids love this process, it's always exciting to see something besides a lure on the end of your line! After the brave campers pull them off the bait, we stick them in our floating crate on the side of the dock- this way other campers have the chance to check out what we've caught!

Esmeralda and I also had a chance to take a couple of kids out to the lobster traps we have set in Pleasure Bay. We checked the old one first- it was empty, unfortunately (someone must have taken them for dinner!) We also baited, and set a new one. We're hoping for some lobsters tomorrow, I've heard they often catch 5lb-ers!

While we have yet to catch a fish over at McDonough, one camper reeled in one of our rogue crab traps from last year- it was difficult to pull up, but proved to be a great catch! There were mussels attached to it, minnows, crabs, and slimy sea squirts! We cleared some of the mussels and mud off, then tossed it back in the water, tied it off, and will pull it up tomorrow to see what other sea creatures it attracted!

Towards the end of the day, Jazeel and I took 10 of the kids on the beach and out towards the causeway bridges where the water flows in and out of Pleasure Bay to hunt for sea stars and jellyfish. It was great to get the kids off of the dock, and to cool off in the water. On our walk we found clams, mussels, a few oysters, LOTS of barnacles, sea weed and sea squirts- and while we didn't find any sea stars this round, we're hopeful that we'll get lucky tomorrow.

All in all it was a fantastic day spent in the sun and breeze at beautiful McDonough Sailing Center.
See you on the beaches!

 -Kelly Randall-

Making the Most of a Rainy Day

At Community Boating on the Charles this morning, we met the kids and ran eagerly to the eel trap that had been left soaking all night with several smashed clams inside. Slowly the trap was pulled up, and just as the trap reached the surface it was clear that it teeming with living things bubbling around inside! Within a matter of minutes we had filled our bucket with a dozen american eels and we were the hit of Community Boating! A new game of "grab-an-eel" was played, and even the sailing instructors got in on the action as the squirmy eels were covered in a coat of mucus making it near impossible to catch. The kids described the bucket as "a bucket of moving spaghetti and only a few victors emerged from this new game.

Lively game of Grab-An-Eel

Finally a victor, our very own Andy!

Soon after the rain began to fall and we quickly made our way indoors, where we were able to talk about the anatomy of a fish, and even got to play a little hangman with our newly formed vocabulary words (lateral line was a favorite!). As the rain let up we headed on over to Courageous Sailing and were very happy to see the sun! The highlight of the day was pulling up the lobster traps that had been set out overnight to find them full to the brim with several types of crabs, a lobster, and tons of sea stars.

We even put some sea stars on and pretended to be Sheriffs of the Dock!

Helen demonstrating that many hands make light the work

At the end of the day our arms were exhausted from pulling up trap after trap when Helen got a bunch of kids together and thought it would be a good idea if we worked as a team to pull up the last of the traps. It worked like a charm and we all realized that the more people that helped the easier lifting the traps became! I can't wait to see what other lessons we will learn as the summer continues!

Blue, Orange and Green Crabs!

At the Boston Children's Museum, Save the Harbor's biggest attraction is the crabs that we catch and put in our touch tank. While several of the kids who visit our tank are familiar with crabs, several are not aware of the many cool facts about them. For instance, asking the kids whether or not they think legs and claws can grow back always results in wide eyes when you surprise them and say, "Actually ... crabs CAN re-grow their limbs!" Another fact that throws kids off is that not all green crabs are green. In fact, many of them are a dark reddish-orange color. Fortunately, by the time the crab discussion ends, kids walk away from it being able to at least tell how to identify a green crab, and how to tell whether a crab is male or female.

Crab expert Manny showing kids a green crab

Today, our touch tank had two special guests. The first creature was spotted laying on the dock at the Museum. Although it was not alive, the Asteriid Sea Star we found was a hit with the kids in our tank. In the biggest group of visitors, almost every kid wanted a turn holding the sea star as they were fascinated by its rough skin and purple coloring. The second guest came courtesy of Bruce, a nice cooked blue crab. Again, the kids did not seem to mind that our friend was no longer alive. In fact, they were fascinated by this new crab, and we even had a couple of the young girls remove the crab's legs so that they could check out what it looked like inside.

Our newest guests -- the blue crab and sea star

On top of all of this excitement, we also pulled up 33 green crabs and one spider crab for the day. Hopefully in the days to come, the kids are able to explore ever-changing creatures with us!

In awe of the sea star

-Ashley, Senior Harbor Educator at the Boston Children's Museum and Community Boating