July 14, 2016
A day sampling
We’re taking samples today in the Norfolk sandbanks and surrounding areas. We’re in area between two zones that are protected zones but lack an efficient management plan, and a passageway that is used by trawlers. It goes without saying that the area has dozens of offshore oil-rigs.
The tides are strong. And in these sea beds, poutings and flat fish live and move around freely and small sand eels bury themselves in the sand.
The samples we have taken have also allowed us catch a glimpse of the presence of old reefs with Polychaeta worms and what was once an important area for oysters. Unfortunately, the “native” oyster as we know today in Europe is becoming more and more native and less common – it is being displaced by non-European oysters; Japanese or Pacific oysters.