Video: The Search Is On!

Tampa Bay Watch, an environmental non-profit organization is coordinating the Great Bay Scallop Search on Saturday, August 27th.

The event is a resource monitoring program where community volunteers snorkel to search for scallops in select areas within Boca Ciega and Lower Tampa Bays.

The event has been conducted annually since 1993 with the goal to monitor and document the health and status of the bay scallop population. Tampa Bay Watch will coordinate 45 volunteer boaters with more than 180 participants to search selected sites for the elusive bay scallops.

The Great Bay Scallop Search is Tampa Bay Watch's most popular volunteer event each year. Not only does it offer the opportunity to bring attention to the bay's valuable resources, but it also promotes hands-on volunteerism and education to families and residents of the estuary. Many first time as well as "seasoned" scallop searchers comment on the bay wildlife they see under the water during the event. Even if a search team does not find their elusive scallop prey, fun is always had by all.

Some years, volunteers find many scallops and other years they don't. Factors that may affect the scallop population include red tide, high rainfall and storms. An all time event high of 674 scallops were found in 2009. Bay scallops, disappeared from Tampa Bay in the early 1960s when the bay water was highly polluted from dredging operations and industrial and municipal wastes. Tampa Bay's water quality and seagrass beds have since improved to levels that will once again support the bay scallop population. Tampa Bay Watch is optimistic to find even more scallops in 2011 due to a recent research study data by Southwest Florida Water Management District's Surface Water Improvement and Management Program which states Tampa Bay supports 32,897 acres of seagrasses - more than at any time measured since the 1950s.

Registered scallop searchers will meet at 9:00 am at the eastern side of the Fort De Soto Boat Ramp in Tierra Verde, Florida on Saturday, August 27th to receive survey equipment and instructions for the monitoring event. At each site, a weighted transect line 50 meters in length is laid along seagrass beds. Snorkelers count scallops along each side of the transect line, within one meter of each side, creating a 100 square meter survey area.

Bay scallops or Argopecten irradians are secretive bivalves in the same family as clams and oysters. They may reach a shell size of three inches and spend their short twelve to eighteen month life span hiding in seagrasses of waters like Tampa Bay. Scallops are filter feeders, therefore they are highly sensitive to changes in water quality and can be used to measure an ecosystem's health and signal changes in water quality. Adult bay scallops can pump as much as 15.5 quarts of water per hour improving water quality resulting in long term growth of seagrass beds. Although bay scallops are edible, it is illegal to harvest scallops in Tampa Bay in order for restoration efforts to be successful.

Tampa Bay Watch is a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) stewardship program dedicated exclusively to the charitable and scientific purpose of protecting and restoring the marine and wetland environments of the Tampa Bay estuary encompassing over 400 square miles of open water and 2,300 square miles of highly- developed watershed. Tampa Bay Watch involves more than 10,000 youth and adult volunteers each year in hands on habitat restoration projects. For more information on upcoming events, becoming a volunteer or member, visit www.tampabaywatch.org, or call 727-867-8166.
###