St Kilda Mangrove and Saltmarsh survey

On the Thursday the 27th of January a group of concerned community members met to undertake the first St Kilda Mangrove and Saltmarsh survey.
The event attracted around 40 enthusiastic citizen scientist ready to help collect some data on the condition of the saltmarsh and wetland and the adjacent saltmarsh. This area has been concerning many and received much media attention due to the effects it has suffered from the apparent leaking of the adjacent salt ponds. Starting with our engagement event on World Wetlands Day 2020 at the Onkaparinga River Estuary, the team at Ferox australis made a commitment to conduct an engagement event each year on or near February 2nd. An investigation at the St Kilda Mangrove and Saltmarsh seemed to be the perfect opportunity. The group met at the entrance to the Mangrove walk and were joined by several local ranges from the Department for Environment and Water, the Department was very cooperative in organising the correct permits and were interested in engaging with the public. We were also fortunate to be joined by Peri Coleman (AKA @Peri3) a wetland ecologist from
Delta Environmental Consulting, Dr Alice Jones from Adelaide University in addition to many members of the public and students from UniSA, Flinders University and the University of Adelaide. Following a quick introduction and description of the task at hand, the group set off for the Marsh.

The area of saltmarsh adjacent mangrove walk appeared highly impacted with the Beaded Samphire Salicornia quinqueflora either dead outright or poor condition, the pictures below illustrate this clearly (photos by @seamus-doherty )

Following our observations adjacent the Mangrove walk we investigated the condition of the Beaded Samphire Salicornia quinqueflora community just north of the St Kilda township. The difference was stark, with a vigorous carpet of Salicornia with several active invertebrates.

If you did not make the event and want to do something to help the project, the good news is you can Ths project "St. Kilda Mangroves & Saltmarsh" is open for everyone to contribute. You just need to add your photos to iNaturalist and they will add invaluable biodiversity data. You can also join the City Nature challenge which runs from April 30-May 3rd 2021 and encourages the recording of urban biodiversity across the globe.