MCA Project
2023 Field Season
The first leg of our trip is July 8th to July 27th in Hawke Channel, and the second leg is July 27th to August 6th in Funk Island Deep!
We're also a part of the DFO led trip to Laurentian Channel Sept 4-21st.
Follow along through the At-Sea Blog in the buttons below or the drop down menu above!
Monitoring marine conservation areas off Newfoundland and Labrador’s coast.
Marine Conservation Areas (MCAs) help protect important species, their habitats and ecosystems, including unique and significant aggregations of corals and sponges, as well as species of cultural and economical importance. Under this project, collaborators from the Marine Institute and Fisheries and Oceans Canada will combine research, training and technological capacities to advance methods of monitoring these marine conservation areas in NL waters to provide a strong scientific basis with which to evaluate their efficacy.
Cold Water Corals
Cold water corals and sponges are fragile, slow to recover, structure-providing species. The high concentrations of these structure-forming species provide habitat for many other species.
Non-Invasive Techniques
Using sites within the MCAs, our team uses largely non-invasive techniques while monitoring the stations. Research activities to be conducted at sea include water column characterization using acoustics (EK80 and WBAT), habitat mapping using multibeam (Kongsberg 710), benthic habitat characterization and fish/invertebrate identification using drop-drift and baited cameras, pelagic microzooplankton characterization using bongo nets, oceanographic sampling using our new SBE 19plus CTD/rosette and eDNA water sampling, and opportunistic seabird and mammal identifications.
MCA Story Map
Click the button below to see a story map of what the MCA Project entails! This includes some amazing videos captured from last year's mission, as well as the 2023 sample sites and daily track. One of the highlight videos from 2022 include footage captured through our baited camera, which was deployed in the Northeast Newfoundland Slope refuge at 1400m depth and captured video of a large Greenland shark!
