Sunday, May 15, 2011

Terrapin Talk & BRD's With ECS

Eagle Cove School, our science teacher and first grade were the focus of the local television program "Anne Arundel County Week in Review."

The point of this episode & interview:  a terrapin saving device that first graders learned about during our ECS "Bay Week" (concurrent with Earth Day).  BRD's are "Bi-Catch Reduction Devices."  This small metal item (that largely resembles a mail slot) is placed in the opening of crab traps. Why?  So that the air-breathing terrapins our first graders raise then release (to increase the terrapin population in the Bay) aren't captured inadvertently in crab traps. 
First graders, under the tutelage of Bay Week visiting author Jennifer Keats Curtis (http://www.jenniferkeatscurtis.com/), learned that the inexpensively priced BRD's can extremely help the terrapin population.  The reason is because a large number of newly hatched terrapins wind up getting into the crab traps.  Unfortunately, though, once the terrapins get in, they become stuck in the traps and die with their inability to get out as they rapidly grow.  First graders wrote letters to local governmental officials...and hence why they wound up on AA County, Week in Review.

If you are a crab fisherman on the Chesapeake Bay, follow our first grader's advice, and look into purchasing some BRD's for your traps!

To learn more about BRD's, go to http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/regulations/crabpot-trd/crabpottrd.html.

Video from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7A1LfTFWak&feature=related
Uploaded by AACTVWIRon May 8, 2011; Week of May 1, 2011 (First Aired May 6) - News and highlights from Anne Arundel County, MD.

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