Does anyone take it upon themselves to do any volunteer work in the outdoors? Tree planting, guerrilla gardening, removing invasive species, making birdhouses, anything?
Here is my project, over the past few years some friends of mine have made a Kelp forest. It covers a few acres and is made utilizing granite boulders as substrate for kelp attachment.
Here is a pile of granite showing the effects of a hard surface in a shallow marine environment dominated by kelp
I try to eradicate invaisive species of fish
Without substrate the place I normally dive is dominated by sand flats, as seen here with jellyfish
This photo shows how kelp acts as a nursery habitat for young fish...those are young of the year rockfish. Several species of slow growing, longlived fish that have been overfished in the past are who are closed to all fishing.
This boulder was a fun project. We found it buried under several feet of sand. We had no way to move it at first until I found a rock climbing hand drill and some 1/2 inch anchor bolts. We used a 12,000 lb lift bag to pull it from the sand and place it on top of a rock pile. It took only months to go from a perfectly clean granite boulder to being covered in life.
>>740981
>tfw all this bullshit gets caught in the prop of my boat
Goddamnit OP
This photo shows how a rock "wall" we made grows bull kelp. A canopy forming kelp that grows about 6 inches in the spring. Also good for nutrient mitigation and fish habitat.
>>740987
*6 inches day.....
You would be amazed how many juvenile fish can seek refuge in a pile of rocks. We take out between 30 and 50 tons a year. With a simple lift drum and cargo net system and human propulsion.
The kelp is annual, and dies in the early winter. Here are some rockfish, very good eating, but not quick to bounce back from being over fished.
On a personal note, swimming through these kelp forest is incredible peaceful.
Any seeing all these animals living in an area that I help to create brings a lot of satisfaction.
OP here.
My second project is planting saplings in a 6 acre wooded area near where I live. Its moderately used by people, and the forest floor is covered in invasive English ivy which suppresses normal seedling development. So I like to raise young trees and outplant them when the get big enough.
A seedling with some native ground cover (oxalis) after I ripped out the English Ivy.
To remove all the invasive ground cover from 6 acres should take quite a few years, but I have the time.
To date I think I've planted about 260 conifer seedlings of various species.
>>740975
Shit anon you are cool. Where are you doing this? I'm in the tropics so no kelp. I have no monies for land or equipement yet and all I've scuba dived was for a couple hours on a tropical reef some miles off coast.
>>740984
This is cool stuff OP, I'd love to get involved with something like this, but I'm no where near kelp.
Did you get any permits or are you working with a group, or doing on your own? I ask because moving rocks and stuff could technically be illegal even though you are benefiting the ecosystem.
I always pick up as much trash as I can when I'm /out/, but I haven't contributed to any larger projects in a couple years.
>>740975
That's freakin' amazing, OP. What sort of wildlife has shown up in the kelp since you started working with it?
>>741142
Lots. At least 3 species of Rockfish, adults and juveniles, 3 species of in the greenling family including lingcod, especially juvenile lingcod as its shallow. Several species of sculpin, dozens of species of "bait fish" like herring, sandlance, perch, tubesnouts. The bottom is COVERED in several species of shrimp that love the rock piles and who are eaten by everything else. More invertebrates that you could count. I've been visited several times by harbor seals and sea lions that love to prowl the kelp forest for food. Diving birds and sea birds hang out of the surface for an easy meal. And in 2011 I saw a young gray whale while diving for a brief moment in the same area.
Hi OP! I do a lot of volunteering outdoors, but I've never thought about planting kelp forests; that's amazing! Do you need a permit or to work with any government agency to accomplish this?
I plant trees along neighborhood streets with a nonprofit (and inventory them with a city agency), and plant pollinators in my home garden and in guerrilla gardening seed bombs.
>>741266
The land we work on is leased from DNR and our city as a no-take MPA. But we do not work directly with the government. We are volunteers that meet on weekends and who only need to report to our city once a year and what we have accomplished.
If you're not a diver you never notice what we do, so in a sense we "fly under the radar"
Congrats on the tree planting. I feel like my area is being logged of all large trees.
I'm gathering squash seeds to make nendo dango (seed balls) next spring.
I have to find a nice spot yet.
OP you're doing an amazing job. Keep it up!
>>741280
The work you're doing to facilitate biodiversity and fish stock rejuvination is worth much more than how beautiful it is. You're doing the world a service.
where are you doing this OP? just so you know it's not a good idea to introduce kelp outside its native ranges, as they deplete nutrients in the water and increase DBO. they're very invasive
>>741302
plus they wreck boat props >:[
>>741302
OP here, nothing is introduced, the bull kelp was been in the region since the glaciers retreated and created the Puget Sound
>>741306
bull kelp has the consistency of harden jello, most boat props would cut right through it, besides it sits on the surface and is easily avoided and its service to increasing biodiversity FAR outweighs the headache to a few irresponsible boaters.
>>741326
i guess so
>>741302
I'll explain further. The kelp spreads via spores and can only attach and be held in place with a hard substrate like the rocks we add. We don't "plant" anything. Any our area is not nutrient limited, if anything its eutrophic and needs nutrient mitigation. After all, the Puget Sound has a greater metropolitan population of 3 million people all contributing to nutrient runoff and such.
How did you find out about this/ first get involved in it?
>>741249
Maybe when i graduate and make mad dosh and buy bitches and islands. Sinking useless ships to make reefs and shit. Mangroove restoration is important too. They are fuckhuge nurseries and very important.
>>741393
Basically a well know dive location in my hometown.
some more young fish
1. Would a modest underwater habitat facilitate work of this type, and
2. What would be the legal issues involved in establishing such a structure in the puget sound?
>>742621
1. not really...this is shallow work since the kelp is photosynthetic. Therefore decompression is not an issue. I have twin 100 tanks that I use sometimes and my longest dives have been over 3 hours.
We have though about making a diving bell that we could surface into and talk to each other and view wildlife and such, but it was a pretty big issue.
2. I have no idea.
>>742626
I meant to say that making the diving bell was a big project. Since you need to add a lot of ballast to the base to keep it from floating up when you ad air to the chamber
>>742627
Oh trust me, I understand that issue. But did you consider using buckets, and filling them with sand from the bottom? That way you don't have to take any weight with you. Then when you're done you fill the diving bell (ideally a big plastic bag of some sort) with air from a spare scuba tank.
>>742629
yeah, we could do that. But it would be an amusing novelty. I don't see how it would ad anything to our efforts. We're pretty good at communicating underwater, and if we need to say anything, we just go up to the surface.
I forgot to ad that the increase in fish diversity and abundance is not just anecdotal. Since the early 90's there has been another group of volunteer divers that spends the winter counting and tagging all fish nest. The number have gone up remarkable every year. Adding habitat really works, which isn't that surprising.
>>742621
that habitat was dumb. if he had done any research he should have known the he needed orders of magnitude more plant life
>>740978
killing animals with the fantasy of saving other animals form your killings is hypocritical
>>740978
Was it tasty? I've heard they're good eating.
>>743032
Killing an apex predator in a small lake and then feeding it to the birds or other fish. And I'm not the only one who does it, saw pic related at a lake today.
It's illegal to release them if caught.
>>743034
I heard they are good too but I don't eat em.
>>741306
Liveaboard here. What kind of faggot prop do you have that it gets wrecked by kelp? Is it made out of sugar? Dont you have a diver that scrapes your hull and replaces your zincs? I sure hope so otherwise youre in a world of hurt and dont even know it.
>>741249
Where in WA are you anon? I'm a commercial dive student in Seattle and this is Fucking awesome.
>>743049
Doing God's work annon. keep it up
>>743049
I, for one, support whatever removal of snakeheads, Asian carp, round gobies, and whatever other invasive crap you want to pull out of the water.
>>743671
>>743598
I catch so many of these Mayan cichlids as well and they are invaisive but I don't get rid of them because they aren't really harmful. They are kinda replacing bluegill in a lot of the lakes but don't fuck up the ecosystem besides that. I guess Oscars were actually taking over the bluegill's spots first, but then they had a cold winter a few years back and the oscars died off for the most part but the Mayans tolerated the cold a little better.
They are a blast to catch though. They get a bit bigger than bluegill, closer to crappie size. And pound for pound they fight harder than anything I have ever caught.
There's also peacock bass which somewhat cut down on largemouth in certain areas and just live along side them. The one invaisive fish with a catch limit and size limits.
We also have those damn plecos aka sailfin catfish but you can't really catch them on rod and reel. I need to start spearing them.
>>740975
what if there are a bunch of birds who frequent the tree in my front yard
would putting up poison bird feeders and then composting the dead bird bodies be an effective use of my time
What if I want to park my car under the tree, does that change the answer?
I live innadesert so all's I can do is clean up trash or stash water for whomever wants it
>tfw live in one of the least /out/-friendly biomes
I ruthlessly hunt and eat American signal crawfish on English waters. I also kill every grey squirrell I can.
>>741256
Where at in wa op I got a dive card I'm near tacoma
>>743683
Sounds fun! I think you must be a good deal further south than I am. Some of these things sound awfully exotic to my ears.
>>740975
doing gods work. Reminds me of a project my uncle was part of to bring Walleye back to a few lakes in northern ontario.
>>740975
I shoot rats with air rifle does that help?
>>745064
not really
i pick up trash often when out fishing, will ring a garbage bag and fuill it then stash it in a spot, next time im at the same point il fill another, after i fill a few il haul them all out at once and trash them, i also help keep ponds populations in check, if theres an excess of small bluegills and panfish, il take it upon myself to remove a few hundred of them depending on the excess and pond size, within a year or two theres almost always more large predators, and the panfish in the ponds/lakes overall size tends to increase by 2-4 inches
I pull and eat Garlic Mustard among other edible invasives all day long.
I've also convinced a few park rangers and hippies to eat invasives.
I manually masturbate endangered species for artificial insemination later.
>>746492
i-i'm feeling a bit endangered today anon ?:]
bumpin because I am an environmental science grad with a scuba license and I'm moving out west this year.
OP, I wanna be you. How did you find a volunteer organization that let you do habitat restoration while freaking diving? That's like my dream.
what can one do to improve conditions along a river/foresty/marshy area? any plants that would be good to promote?
the water in some small inlets and shallow ponds looks rather scummy
lots of frogs, a few turtles
>>743862
hey id visit you and we can go hunting
>>748899
Plant riparian vegetation, and create large wood debris
>>748899
marshes are buffer areas/ecotones. if they're relatively intact you shouldn't mess with them. lots of birds and reptiles depend on it on a seasonal basis
>>740975
You are asking for trouble.
>>740975
You are my hero, OP.
I live in Southern California and want to get into this sort of stuff. Where does one even begin?
Aside from the obvious. I mean I grow some plants in my room...but that's about it.
>>743032
>go to Google
>type "galapagos tortoise extinction"
>read
>bite fist
>realize what a moron you are
Also fuck off
>>750944
I'll say the area has not been taken care of as well as it should have over the years (especially with regards to manufacturing within previous decades)....it will probably get better on it's own, but if there are ways to help it out, I'd certainly like to see it be a healthier place for wildlife to return to
>>743032
I live in NZ where we have a very serious Possum problem. Ive shot Possums that are mid way through raiding pigeon nests and ive seen the damage they do. Killing them stops them killing our birds
>>740975
i usually help out Arches national park by removing all cairns that i see and painting less intrusive arrows on the ground in natural blaze orange. they should pay me for this work.
>>751505
do you unironically not notice how hypocritical that is? maybe the "we good, they bad" trope so engrained by the media is too deep seated in you
>>754008
idk thats pretty bush league. do you know how to shit in the river?
>>740975
I go apeshit mental on Himalayan Balsam whenever I see it - a huge problem here in the UK.
If you really want to help you should join conservation corps desu oniifam
>>754008
>destory cairns which are made from natures rocks (dont get me wrong cairns are shit)
>take an unnatural chemical and spray it on the ground instead to make another eyesore
>LOL IM HELPING GUYS
you are cancer. leave no trace faggot
>>755370
it's b8 m8.
>>741256
i love you OP
>>748899
lots of purple loosestrife and japanese knotweed
