[Public-List] Antifouling skirts.

[Robert Kirk]

At 11:42 AM 5/12/2008, lhines at chustz.com wrote:
>I also heard that if you are in freshwater that a visit to saltwater for a 
>short period of time will kill the freshwater organisms as vice versa. 
>Anyone heard of this practice to prolong your haulout?

I asked that question of the bay scientist who gave the invasive species 
talk at our seminars a couple of months ago. His answer was essentially, 
"Not much effect" since the critters in our Chesapeake Bay waters are used 
to salinity variations. The dividing line is the Bay Bridge: fresh(ish) 
above and salty(ish) below. A trip from Annapolis to Fairlee Creek will not 
polish your bottom.

On the other hand, my grad school marine biology professor (an old 
associate of the real "Doc" in "Cannery Row") would always take the 
intertidal critters we collected on our Monterey Bay field trips and drop 
them in fresh water for a minute or so to humanely kill them before putting 
therm in the formaldehyde (presumably painful) specimen jars.

So take your choice; probably the big change from real fresh to real salty 
would kill any organism, but may not help your vegetative slime & seaweed.

Bob Kirk
Isobar #181

ps... On field trips, we would always legally harvest a few abalone for 
research purposes.


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