Volunteer Programs
James Island Creek Profile, Year I
Cooperative Research has enlisted the aid of private landowners on James Island to place data loggers on private docks to continuously monitor the water temperature of a typical estuary. The use of private docks provides a degree of security that would otherwiseprohibit the long-term deployment of monitoring equipment in readily accessible locations. 
The dock owners have agreed to provide DNR personnel unrestricted access to their property to monitor water quality at specificsites on a continuingbasis. The data collectedwill be analyzed by DNR scientists inorder to better monitorenvironmental data to compare theeffects of normal and extreme climateconditions on the salt marsh ecology.
Recreational Crabbers, Year I
Recreational crabbers typically fish from private docks located on narrow tidal creeks, many of which are located in salt marshes directly behind coastal barrier-islands with high population densities of Diamondback terrapins. The incidence of terrapin by-catch in recreational crabpots is unknown. The overall impact of recreational crabbers on the Blue crab fishery is also unknown. As the number of private docks increases with coastal development, the popularity of recreational crabbing using pots is increasing. 
Volunteers in this program are furnished commercial crabpots with, and without a turtle excluder device. In return, they agree to maintain a logbook and record data on the number, size, sex, and by-catch of their crabbing efforts on an annual basis. This data will be incorporated into other projects to evaluate the health of the Blue crab fishery and help us to evaluate the effective of turtle excluder devices (TED) on reducing the incidence of Diamondback terrapin by-catch.