Skimmer Says... Oceans Month!

We’re excited to be back this episode to celebrate National Oceans Month! This month we are collaborating with our Ocean and Bay Planner, Kristi Lieske. This episode we’re learning more about our ocean, including the mysteries within it and how Delaware is working to protect it. Learn how you too can love and help the ocean.

For more information on the Ocean and Bay Plan, visit https://dnrec.delaware.gov/coastal-programs/ocean-and-bay-plan/contact or contact Kristi Lieske at Kristi.Lieske@delaware.gov.

Additional Resources

NOAA Ocean Exploration: https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/

Mid Atlantic Ocean Data Portal: https://portal.midatlanticocean.org/

Voices of the Tide: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/d180656a23.html#page/1

To contact the education team about an education program or volunteer event, email us at dnerrprograms@delaware.gov.

You can follow us on Facebook at @DNERR or Instagram at @delawarenerr.

Transcript

0:04

Welcome to Skimmer Says, an estuarine podcast, hosted by the Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve. We are your hosts! My name's Laurel. I'm Sadie. And today we have our next guest co-host, Kristi. Kristi, would you like to introduce yourself? Sure. I'm Kristi Lieske, and I'm the ocean planner for Delaware DNREC Coastal programs and I do the state ocean planning and also participate in regional ocean planning as well. That's super cool. Well, today we're talking about Oceans Month because June is Oceans Month. So before we get into all the details and all the interesting stuff, we're going to do a little game time. Are you ready? I guess so. So we're going to do a would you rather. So we have three different would you rathers. And the first one is would you rather be on a boat in the ocean or sit on the beach? Oh, boat in the ocean for sure. What about you Laurel? Boat in the ocean. I don't like sand. I’d rather sit on the beach. Would you rather see dolphins or sharks? Sharks. That's what I thought you were going to say. That's what I thought. Yeah. I thought you would be a beach person. You know, a boat in the ocean. Oh, my gosh, I love being in the rocking waves. I know there's nothing better than just being rocked gently by the waves and seeing all the ocean life. It, you know, sometimes looks like a desert out there. But knowing that there's so much underneath you and the birds. And often you do get to see dolphins. So definitely a boat girl. Awesome. Me too. I also like sharks. Yeah, I also like sharks. I like to see both. But yeah, I like dolphins too. Like, they're pretty rad. Yeah, I also like sharks. And then this is the last one. This one's most interesting, I think. Be able to breathe underwater or swim really fast? Oh, that is so interesting. I would say breathe underwater. I do scuba dive. So I get that opportunity sometimes. And it is the most incredible feeling to be able to be underwater and breathing and be able to see what's around you in a landscape that you normally don't get to see. I mean it just like it's the best feeling. Truly incredible. I agree, I think I'd rather be able to breathe underwater. I feel like if you swim really fast, unless something is chasing you, then you're not really getting to take the time to appreciate. Yeah, like being out there. Unless you're like a distance open water swimmer. Then I feel like you'd have a different answer. Or like, if you need to go somewhere. Like what if you want to hop over to Europe? I didn't realize we were swimming that fast. the limits. There are no limits, you know. There's no limits. Okay, so oceans month. Can you tell us a little bit about, like, what is an ocean? What are some of the things that we might see in the ocean and maybe give our listeners and our viewers a little, geographical key as to like, what ocean Delaware is connected to? Yeah, absolutely. So the ocean has a story, and it begins with this perfect alignment of the Earth in relation to the sun. And I think we sometimes forget how miraculous our planet is and how we are perfectly situated in a place where it's not too hot and it's not too cold. And that allows us water, and it allows us an atmosphere which brings us life and way before, humans existed, way before dinosaurs roamed the Earth, the ocean had little tiny life forms shimmering in its depths. And, the ocean has, you know, fed them and nurtured them, sheltered them, and provided all the things for them to grow and sustain themselves. And it does that for us, too. It provides us food. It shapes our coastlines. It gives us half the air we breathe. It regulates our climate, and, you know, the ocean is growing weary, though, where we're filling it with plastics. You guys talked about how trash, how the trash birds, the birds are using all the trash for their nests. And that happens in the ocean, too. There. There's a lot of plastic. The ocean is warming. It's heating up. Precious habitats are getting lost. And although we live on land, we depend on a healthy ocean more than we know. I could go into the value of the ocean In our economy, We depend on tourism a lot in this state, especially, and a lot of the things that come with the ocean economy. And I could also talk about the tremendous amount of creatures that are living in our oceans and how that that gives us all so much food and life and medicine. But I think what what I'm learning and what I've heard from people in Delaware is that the ocean provides and gets us this like sense of peace and well-being and tranquility. And I think that's something that we can all rally around to protect. Because no matter, no matter what we we see as being important with the ocean, I think we all can connect to how it brings us a sense of contentment. Even though it's full of mystery, it's full of secrets. It's full of like stories of the past. But it brings us this like sense of peace. And, I think that's something that we can all rally behind, to protect the ocean for life, for us, for the life that is going to come after us. And, that's what's really important about Delaware. Our lives are shaped by the sea because our whole coastline is either the Delaware Bay or the Atlantic Ocean. And we are so connected to the water here that it provides us this sense of place and this it shapes all of us, whether we really know it or not. And so I think that, you know, people can they go out to the beach and, and they're having fun with their families and, and they're eating fish and crab cakes and all these things that come from the ocean and that are important to keep healthy so that we can continue to utilize those resources, in a balanced way. Yeah, I definitely think the ocean is one of those things that we take for granted a lot of the time, like and living in Delaware is just like, oh, the beach is 30 minutes away at all times, but you don't really think about all the other things that it provides for us. So that's really interesting to hear. Oh yeah. Yeah, we talk a lot in the office about like going to the beach when we were a kid. I know that Akshay and I joke about the fact that we aren't the biggest, like, fans of having sand between our toes. It's like that icky, like, my gosh, sensation. And, it's a very polarizing argument within the office. I'm sure. But we can all appreciate, like, being where we are. We are kind of like the we would love to be out on the boat in the water, like we all love the ocean. Just we have in different ways, different ways of appreciating it. Yeah. You know, the Atlantic especially the Mid-Atlantic, is such a special place because we have such a diversity of creatures that live and use these waters and because the, the, the Mid-Atlantic, we have so much, so many estuaries. And as you are very familiar with and we have a lot of coastal habitats that support those younger fish nurseries and, and, and therefore supports like the ocean life. And so I think the Mid-Atlantic is really special and are the waters off our coast because, you know, even way out there, past, you know, past state waters, past, anything that you would normally see when you're looking out into the ocean, there's a huge. One, there's a huge, whale migratory pathway that North Atlantic right whales use. Humpback whales, minke whales, a lot of different, a lot of different creatures use that pathway to sustain themselves while they're traveling north to south. And we're also seeing, the Atlantic Flyway migratory corridor for birds and a lot of offshore species use that. And, and then way out there even farther is our outer continental shelf and slope, and that holds a whole mystery of deep sea corals and sponges and life that you wouldn't even believe. I encourage you to check out. NOAA does Ocean Explorations, and they videotape these deep sea explorations of the canyons that exist on our outer continental shelf and slope. And they're incredible. The life you can see, the little, the corals. You wouldn't think we had corals off of our coast, right. But we have, we do and it's out there pretty far, but, it hosts a lot of life. And it's important for the fish and the larger trophic species. And, we also have artificial reefs. I'm not sure if you're aware of the artificial reef program that Delaware has, but it's pretty, pretty robust. We have 14 artificial reef sites and that supports a whole host of, fish species, shellfish species. And it also supports recreational fishing. So artificial reefs are really cool because, you can see the firsthand the type of balance that you get from creating a space where conservation is important, where conserving, and creating habitat for fish species is working with also recreational uses and other active human activities in the water. And when you're saying artificial reefs, a lot of times those are like train cars. Yeah. Or boats that are no longer being used that Fish and Wildlife will go out and sink. Sink. Yeah. And you can watch videos of the sinkings and they have pictures of, of the, the life that's formed on these reefs. That's really cool. Yeah. Well, Kristi, you're part of something called the ocean and Bay plan. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what that is? Yes. So we are developing an ocean and bay plan for the state. And what it's going to do is be a resource for stakeholders and decision makers to better be better informed when they're making decisions or making assumptions about our coast and our waters. So what it will do is describe the multitude of activities that are occurring in the ocean and off in the ocean and in the Delaware Bay. It will describe how they interact with each other. So can they, can they exist in the same space? If they can't, then what could make what could help them exist in the same space? So we're trying to, identify those best practices for de-risking, these, these potentially conflicting uses in the same area. So, for example, we talk about an underwater sea or a sand resource. So there might our beaches often have to get nourished for various reasons. And we have to get that sand from somewhere. And there are offshore sites where you can dredge out the sand and put it on the beach. And, if you are looking to identify a new site and you want to know what else is happening in that area, our plan would tell you, okay, these things could be happening here. And this is how you can best minimize the conflicts that could happen between between dredging for sand and, and a pipeline that's, that's in that area or fishing that occurs within that area. And, we are also going to be describing how climate change has impacted, and will impact, the ocean in the Delaware Bay as time moves forward. And we are identifying gaps in, in information needs as it relates to ocean resources and ocean resource management. And maybe who could fill those gaps and where are there funding opportunities? And another really cool thing that we're going to develop as part of this ocean and bay plan is a visualization tool which will be similar to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean. They have a ocean data portal tool, and it has layers of everything imaginable that you could think of that happens out in the ocean. And that could be, fishing shipping lanes for for bringing commerce into our ports. It could be migratory patterns for whales. And, what we want to do is take all those data layers, put them in in our tool, and then a user will be able to pick an area, say if they want to identify a spot that would be good for, maybe placing a underground structure or underwater structure so they'll be able to draw their polygon on the map. They will, it will then automatically pull up all the other data layers of resources and uses that occur there. And by resources I mean those living things like whales, sea turtles, that type of stuff. It'll pull all that up and it will. Put out a report for you that says, okay, these things are either compatible, incompatible, or conditionally compatible. And those conditionally compatible things can then will have those best practices that I was talking about earlier, that will share with you how to, de-conflict those and those two things together and also, like minimize conflict or mitigate conflict. That's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. Well Delaware has a really big beach community. So is there anywhere that the people of the public or people in those communities can help you or contribute to this plan? Yeah. So we did have three public listening sessions back in, I think it was two summers ago now, which we got a lot of great information about. What we were trying to understand is what is important to people when it comes to the ocean and the bay so that we could make sure that we developed our scope of the ocean and bay plan to fit what is important to people. And we got a lot of great information about their priorities and their what they want to learn more about. What kind of education we might be able to provide. And, so right now where we're at in the process is we are going to be publishing this activity guide, which is the an inventory basically of all of the marine activities that occur off our coast. And we will then be drafting the actual ocean and bay plan itself. And so once the ocean and bay plan is drafted, then we're going to have more public engagement and stakeholder engagement to get feedback. What are we missing? What is good about the plan? Where could it use more information? How can we make it something that you would want to use? And so keep an eye out. I encourage you to check up on our web page. You can email me. There's a place on our web page, too that has my email link, to get on our listserv where I send regular updates just of opportunities to get involved or, like different updates, progress updates on the ocean and bay plan. That's exciting. Yeah. Well, it being Oceans Month and we've learned so much about the ocean, how important it is to us today. How are some ways that people can appreciate the ocean or what kind of events do you guys have that people can appreciate their oceans? Yeah. So the past couple of years we've actually been doing some Ocean Month campaigns, I guess contests in some cases, to try to get people excited about Ocean Month and bring awareness to conserving it and protecting it. And so in the past, we've done contests. We did a poetry contest last year, haiku contest, and the year before that, we did a photo contest, and we got a lot of really beautiful photos. And both those, the haikus and the photos, will both be able to be used in our plan and on, you know, other materials related to ocean, ocean stuff. And this year, I am really excited about what we've done is we asked people to send in their personal ocean connection stories. So what made them fall in love with the ocean? What was their first memory? What, what do you love about the ocean? What connects you to the ocean? And we got the most beautiful stories. I mean, I I'm just blown away by the respondents that we had. And I'll tell you, like, like I said in the beginning, the, the thing that was a theme throughout almost all the stories is this sense of peace that the ocean brings people. And it's truly amazing. Like no matter what these everyone just feels so happy when being around the ocean and it it can bring you back to yourself and create a place of refuge. So we are actually we published these in a story catalog and you can read all of them. And they were, the users. The participants were also allowed to submit a photo. So some of them are some of the photos are really wonderful, like old photos of people enjoying the beach and you should definitely check it out because the stories are really beautiful. Some of them are written just so, so beautifully. It's I'm amazed. We should be able to go ahead and link that in our description for this episode, but our listeners and our viewers can go and see some of those stories. Yes. I got a sneak preview out at the other day. Yeah, it's really nice. Yeah, it's it's very nice. Yeah, yeah. Because I remember going through the photos for the photo contest and those were really good. So I'm excited to see the all of the stories put together. Yeah. Well, I think that that's all of this skimmer has to say about the oceans. So thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next month. Bye bye.