Crowdsourcing Project for the Health of the Oceans

July 14, 2017 By IdeaConnection

Capelin are small fish found in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and Arctic oceans. They are forage fish, which means they are an important part of the marine ecosystem as a food source of other species such as seals and puffins.  They also play a role in keeping the oceans healthy.

And the more we know about these fish the greater the insights into the health of our oceans and the animals that live there.  But therein lies the problem, because knowledge of capelin is lacking.  And so scientists are calling on the crowd to help.

WWF Canada has partnered with the St. Lawrence Global Observatory to launch Ecapelin.ca, a citizen science tool.

To help, members of the public have to upload photos and locations of the fish where they come to shore to spawn along the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Atlantic provinces. This process is called capelin rolling for obvious reasons when you watch the video below.

The information collected by the public will help researchers discover where and when the fish are spawning, which in turn will provide them with an indication of how the populations are doing.

Scientists can’t be at all the spawning sites to record events, and so the public’s help should prove to be invaluable.

The work is also important because it will help to guide capelin habitat conservation efforts.

How to Take Part

For more information and to take part in this citizen scientist initiative, click on the Ecapelin website.

 


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Reader Comments


This is a great idea - but as anyone who lives close to a beach will know - the damage has already been done and the mess we've made already will sadly take many decades to put right...
I just heard yesterday that we've produced more than 8 trillion tonnes of plastic since the 1950s - enough to entirely cover a country the size of Argentina.

This is a valiant effort, but sadly nowhere near enough and way too late.
That said, naturally I wish it every possible success.
Posted by Henry Morgan on July 20, 2017

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