2011 tank stand builders and dry team.

Hi folks! Being involved with the construction of the new Ucluelet Aquarium is very exciting and unique. From now until the end of January 2012 Seamus Little (middle of photo), John Harkin (left of photo), Jeffrey Geddes (right of photo) and Bailey the dog will be working as 'the dry team'. These types of jobs include building tank supports out of wood, collecting a variety of local shells, bone, rocks and substrate from the surrounding waters, designing the interior layout of tanks and displays, helping with the tank plumbing, lighting etc. and helping out around the aquarium job site. We are working as part of a Job Creation Partnership grant from the Ministry of Housing and Social Services.

Here are some of the exciting projects we have been getting up to so far:

Collecting whale bones for future display in the new aquarium. Special thanks to Jane Hunt from Westerly Winds Farm for donating 4 whale vertebrae. The vertebrae came from the same whale as this awesome skull that Johnny is standing beside.


Built a mock up floor and tank stand to the same dimensions as the future aquarium. We did this to help figure out our feed and return lines from the floor to the tanks.


Cut, sanded and primed sea creature shapes out of thin plywood with Elgin Ambrose from Art Access. These cool sea creatures were then painted by local kids and adults and put up on the construction fence to bring some life to the future aquarium worksite.

Here Seamus is seen cutting and wiring the cutouts.

Working at the aquarium job site stripping concrete forms, stacking wood, moving rocks and working with geotextile.

We are all learning lots having a blast with this project so far! Looking forward to Ukee Days this weekend and checking out the Aquarium Octopus float that will be in the parade. Come and have some fun at Ukee Days!

Some new specie, and new building construction...

Welcome summer 2011!

After a long winter, we are finally getting some sunny days.

Construction of our new building is coming along. We are now almost out of the intertidal zone!

A new little red octopus is in our midst, along with some deep sea Tanner crabs and Fragile Pink urchins. The Tanner crabs and Fragile Pink Urchins are truly deep sea species, and can live as far down as 2km. While a deep sea fish might react badly to pressure changes, the crabs can release gasses (which expand as you head towards shallower waters) through its flexible joints.

Unlike our very large Giant Pacific Octopus, the little red will reach a maximum weight of around 3lbs (GPOs often reach 150lbs). It resides now in the back of the aquarium, where it has a small den in the centre of its new home, and hunts the tasty shore crabs scurrying around its tank.

Ukee Days approaches! come out for the Saturday parade! We have a new (and very large) float to surprise everyone with...

Garbage, Construction and Box Crabs

Happy Spring from the Ucluelet Aquarium! We've had some exciting changes take place so far this year. Our new building is finally underway. After 4 years of fundraising, we now have a soundtrack of machinery and construction playing

throughout the aquarium. The little aquarium will still run for this season, closing again in october. When we re-open next year in our new building (projected opening date is set for May Long-Weekend of 2012) we will run year-round.

Our winter JCP crew wrapped up with a display of all the garbage they collected. Weighing 6710KG, plus about 25% which was previously recycled,and stretching out over 100 cubic yards, the massive haul of garbage was too large to be photographed from the ground. Many thanks to our volunteers for all the help, and to the Ministry of Social Development, which made the whole project possible.

We have a brand new box crab which we're very excited about. (Thank you to the crew of the North Islander). There are so many amazing species that we have on the coast, but the Brown Box Crab is truly remarkable. The holes on either side of its claws provide it with fresh water while closed up for protection. It moves with the grace of a tank but is more dextrous than it appears and has avery strong (and painful)grip.

May provided us with some of the lowest tides of the year. Perfect weather and ideal times (early morning right before work) meant many of us ran frolicking down to the intertidal zone to peer at all the creatures not normally accessible to us during low tides.

Greetings from the Ucluelet Aquarium,
We hope you are having a great February and looking forward to our March 19th re-opening. Recently, we have completed the Harbour clean-up and are now turning our attention towards removing invasive plant species from selected areas of the harbour. The top priority is the removal of Scotch Broom. An invasive plant on Vancouver Island since 1850. This perennial has been used in the past as a bank stabilizer by the highway department because of its deep root structure and rapid growth. However, it has flourished and become a nusance to many native plants on the Island as it hinders the available light, mositure and nutrients. It is also fast growing and considered a 'prolific seed producer' with up to 18,000 seeds per plant. It is also difficult to ward off and stop its invasive reproduction.
If you are planning on removing broom the general rule of thumb is if the stock is smaller than your pinky finger it can be pulled out of the ground. Otherwise, cut the stock of the plant as low to the ground as possible.
Our efforts have been focused in the Millstream area where we have removed approximately 20,000 of these invasive plants. After the broom has been pulled or chopped we burn the broom as to not spread the broom seeds any further.
We will be monitoring the areas that we have removed the broom from to see how the land rehabilitates.

Gorse

Happy New Year Aquarium lovers!

We are excited to get back to our JCP (Job Creation Program) Harbour Clean up project for 2011!

Despite the colder temperatures in the early mornings we have continued up the frozen harbour. To date we have removed garbage from 2/3 of the intertidal zone and shore line (25 fish totes worth) and we will be continuing our way north into the Millstream area. We can already see our positive affects on the harbour as we occasionally pass over areas that we have already cleaned on our way to new spots.

Of the items we have found, commercial batteries are the most concerning. We have found batteries on all the abandon boats in the Ukee harbour. So far we have found 13 large commercial batteries and many household batteries. These batteries leach cadmium, lead , mercury, copper, zinc, magnese, lithium and potassium which are all hazardous to the environment and human health. Many of these toxins do not break down in the environment and can accumulate in all animals particularly in fish and shell fish. Removing these toxic batteries will improve the health and future generations of the marine life in the Ucluelet harbour.

Most service stations will take and recycle your batteries free of charge! Petro-Canada and Noel Enterprises in Ucluelet will accept all batteries as well as Method Marine in Tofino. We hope that our days of throwing batteries in the ocean are behind us.

We would like to thank The Westerly newspaper for publishing a two page spread on the work we have been doing in the Harbour.(December 16th 2010 newspaper)The Harbour clean up also got a thumbs up in the Times Colonist(Victoria newspaper) for our good work.

Hey Folks,

Due to threatening letters from George Lucas (creator of Star Wars) we have changed our winter crew name from The Storm Troopers to the Ucluelet Aquarium Harbour keepers lol.

As for business, the days have gotten shorter and the weather a little chillier, making our job a little more challenging but fun nonetheless.

To date we have removed a distance of 7km of garbage from Hyphocus Island to Garbage dumphill; roughly a quarter of the harbour. We have found lots of garbage Everywhere! both in commercial and residential areas equally. As of Nov 19th we have collected 15 commercial fishing totes of a variety of garbage. Of this refuse, we are primarily pulling large chunks of Styrofoam, rope and single use plastic drink bottles. Interesting things we have found are an old glass insulator used formerly on hydro poles, a large brass propeller, a homemade fishing float toy and numerous shoes (who are these people walking around with one shoe!)

Here Seamus is found slacking off waiting for the hockey game to start.

Of the more interesting natural finds, we found a Giant Pacific Octopus beak. This beak may have come from an Octopus more than 20ft long.

In the coming weeks we will be continuing up the Eastern side of the harbour working our way north. Stayed tuned for further updates and progress on our mission to make Ucluelet harbour a cleaner and a more beautiful place to work and play. For more information log onto the Ucluelet
Aquarium Facebook page.

For your viewing pleasure here are some of our trashy photos!

Our first week as the Storm Troopers!

Hey folks,

Despite the harsh weather, we have been hitting the harbour pretty hard, finding a wide variety of discarded materials and mapping certain areas that are overrun with invasive plant species. A shout out to Josie Osborne of the Raincoast Education Society for putting on a very informative Invasive species work shop; much appreciated!

Biologist Josey Osborne of The Rain Coast Education Society

Last week we started in the Highphocus Inlet and slowly moved our way north using canoes thanks to Judy Gray and Bill Morrison. The canoes have allowed us to access virtually any area on the coast line due to their ability to maneuver in shallow waters. However due to the surprising amount of garbage we decided to make piles along the coastline just above the high tide line to later be collected with a power boat and small skiff. Thanks to Barkley Sound Black Seals Dive Company for the use of their power boat.

As you can imagine the garbage began to pile up quickly once we got it to home base. We then recruited the use of a dozen fish totes to seperate and organize the garbage for recycling or to be reused. Some of the items include car parts, doors, lightbulbs, bottles and cans, a wide variety of plastics and a surprising amount of styrofoam and rope, lighters and pens.

Stay tuned as we will be continuing to work our way up the harbour...

Dirty work but somebody has to do it