Beginning in the summer of 2022, Partners will coordinate volunteer boat captains to collect data on the health of local eelgrass populations through their iSeaGrass (iSG) application. The Organization’s responsibility in this partnership is to purchase the recommended eelgrass monitoring kits and to recruit volunteers before the beginning of the season. To be successful, two volunteers are required per boat. One volunteer will dive to gather a sample of the eelgrass while the other operates the camera and logs the data.

Funding from Foundation will be used for a one-time purchase of three eelgrass monitoring kits. Two kits will be actively used each week, and the third kit will act as a backup, as is advised by the State Organization. We are requesting $x to fund the initial equipment cost of three monitoring kits, at approximately $x each, which will continue to be used throughout the following seasons. Other funding will reimburse volunteer boating captains for the fuel used to monitor eelgrass sites. 

The Project is an educational opportunity to spread community awareness of the declining eelgrass habitats. Ultimately, the main beneficiary of the project is marine life, especially since eelgrass helps to stabilize ecosystems through its interaction with aquatic life forms and their environment. Eelgrass population data from the Project will be used by Partners to identify areas where eelgrass should be transplanted. Having cleaner and healthier aquatic populations benefits all who use coastal waters as a source of food, recreation, and income. 

The project’s site monitoring and data feedback will support the Partners in their role to transplant eelgrass using the Horizontal Rhizome method, in which they take eelgrass shoots from a harvest site that has not recently been used and plant it in a site with a decline in the eelgrass population. Then, a bent wooden skewer will be used to anchor new eelgrass to the sediment. The Project’s assistance in preserving these important aquatic habitats will help to grow our partnerships with other like-minded nonprofit organizations while educating our team members and bringing awareness to the public on the importance of eelgrass. 

The success of the Project will be measured through the Projects application, which collects data on eelgrass population, density, and health, and tracks changes in these criteria. The Projects will monitor by observing the status of eelgrass in the area, compare the current status with previous data to determine the area’s current health, identify areas that could benefit from transplants, identify healthy samples that could be used as transplants for other areas, and monitor the health of transplanted samples in their new homes. Success will be monitored by the resulting database of eelgrass habitat health. Data is publicly available through the Project website for use by citizens and professional scientists.