Soft plastic bags are shifty little expletives! Apart from impersonating jellyfish and gumming up the gut of unsuspecting turtles and dolphins, they also gum up equipment used to recycle hard plastics. So there was a buzz in the air when Bayside … [Read more...]
Beach Patrol keeps kicking goals
Hats off to Guy Boston for giving birth to 3206 Beach Patrol in 2009. By all accounts it wasn't a difficult birth, partly because he's the original 'nice Guy'; but also because the Beach Patrol concept is so simple. Plenty of local families from the … [Read more...]
Schools turn the tide on plastic trash
Beach surveys of micro-plastics around Port Phillip Bay are providing compelling evidence of the need to rethink our use and disposal of plastic consumer goods. They also raise questions about how effective our waste management systems are at … [Read more...]
Bluebottles at Point Leo
Although Bluebottles (Physalia utriculus) are well known for their fearsome sting few Victorians swimmers will have met one. They have been recorded on southern Tasmanian and Victorian coasts (even a couple in Port Phillip Bay) but mostly occur in … [Read more...]
River study measures Melbourne’s micro-plastics
Dropped on a suburban street and run over by a car, this plastic bottle top broke into more than 30 pieces. If street cleaners don't get there first the next rain will wash most of them to a waterway that flows to Port Phillip Bay. They don't just … [Read more...]
Nurdles: noxious and near invisible
On first sight the Yarra bank at Fishermans Bend looked like it had already been visited by a Clean Up Australia crew. But on closer inspection 1,151 nurdles were collected in just a couple of metres south of the punt landing. Nurdles are so … [Read more...]
The place for a village
They say the freshwater in the Yarra was a key factor in founding the city of Melbourne in 1835. But it didn't take long for St Kilda's natural charms to attract refugees from "Smellbourne". St Kilda hill was sub-divided by the European colonists in … [Read more...]
Summer by the Sea – say g’day to the Bay!
The 2014 'Summer by the Sea' program kicks off in early January providing a wide range of exciting and educational activities for Victorian beachgoers. Most activities are FREE! Port Phillip Baykeeper will be conducting Shoreline Seashell Safaris at … [Read more...]
3182 Beach Patrol gets the tonne!
Big round of applause for the 3182 Beach Patrol crew who after just 11 beach litter collections (one hour a month through 2013) have removed over 1.000 kilos of trash from St Kilda's beaches. In November they collected 101 kg of beach litter (two … [Read more...]
Baykeepers film sets sail
It was my lucky day when Michael Lutman attended a screening of his film ‘Plasticized’ at Port Phillip EcoCentre earlier this year. As there is increasing evidence of wildlife being entangled in, or swallowing plastic, I was thrilled when he agreed … [Read more...]
Marine spider discovered at Elwood
Talk about something old and something new. In the same week we heard about the Diprotodon skeleton being unearthed at Sorrento, young naturalist Gio Fitzpatrick found and photographed a marine spider (above) in the Elwood inter-tidal zone. This is … [Read more...]
Anyone order nurdle soup?
If you think about it, Port Phillip Bay is kinda like a giant bowl of soup! All those plankton, fish eggs and veg floating about makes healthy tucker for things that swim. But something's changed in the plastic age. The unwelcome presence of … [Read more...]
Pest seastar removal guide
When you're 2 metres underwater bagging pests from a grassy seabed the native Granular Seastar - Uniophora granifera (pictured on the right) can be easily mistaken for the pest Northern Pacific Seastar - Asterias amurensis (on the left). Mistaken … [Read more...]
