What's Under the Wharf at Narooma, 13-1-25, Bay Post

Bega District News

Nature Coast Marine Group hosts a What's Under the Wharf school holiday event at Narooma boat wharf

Transcript

00:00So I've got a purple and a red sea urchin here, they're both quite small, these ones

00:05will get up like a lot bigger, and they're native and they just sort of graze on the

00:10bottom and keep the bottom healthy, they can get to a little problem, we've got some big

00:16purple sea urchins that are creating urchin barrens, but they're not these species, and

00:23they're all native but they can become over abundant and then start to wipe out kelp forests

00:27and that, but yeah these ones are good, we have a fishery for these ones, so yeah you

00:32can collect them and eat the roe that's on the inside, and yeah, they're great for the

00:36reef, it's interesting.

00:48Hey Jake, big conker eel down under us, right here, conker eel, right here.

00:53Yeah well we're fighting all sorts, we've brought up an octopus, there's been unibranchs,

00:57there's sea hares, and there was a brittle star just before, yeah lots of little bits

01:04of, just there's so much, there's over 250 species under the water just here, just in

01:11this one little spot, just in this one little spot, yeah we've done a lot of citizen science

01:14here, and they have logged all of them, so that's including seagrass as well as all your

01:18little critters and your fish, and there's black rock cod under here which are like very

01:22endangered as well, there's little seahorses down the other end, which are really beautiful

01:27we don't touch them, because they're pretty, you know, delicate, exactly, so yeah, but

01:32we've just got to try and bring up what we can, and show people and teach them a little

01:36bit more about what lives under here.

01:38Fantastic, alright, that's great, thanks very much.

01:40So this is how they protect themselves, and then if we turn them upside down, they're

01:46closely related to starfish, so they've also got lots of plates.

01:50But yeah, usually they'll just move on eventually, go hmm, okay I've had enough.

01:55Where did you get that octopus from?

01:57Yeah the guys just brought it in for me, so.

01:59We found one the other day down on the back beach.

02:05That was a big one.

02:06Once or twice a year, what's under the wharf?

02:08So as part of today, we have divers in the water bringing up different creatures, large,

02:13great, wide and small, and we have the community coming out and we're doing a little bit of

02:17education for them, so we have nature coast marine group members here, we have DPI fisheries,

02:22we have local council, we have a wide range of people here to help educate young people

02:27especially, all the things we love, which is the marine environment.

02:30That's great.

02:31And tell me, nature coast marine group, what else do you get involved in around the marina?

02:35Yeah we get involved with local clean-ups of creeks and waterways as one of the activities

02:40we do.

02:41We do movie nights to raise money for the group.

02:44We also act politically as well, lobbying state governments around political issues

02:48relating to fisheries and the marine parks especially.

02:51That's great.

02:52And how would people learn a bit more and get involved?

02:55Please go onto our website, ncmg.org, and you can check out all our information on there.

03:00We also have a Facebook page, or sign up and become a member, or if nothing else, become

03:05a enlistee to our newsletter.

03:07Fantastic.

03:08Thanks, Dan.

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