The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries’ Seagrass team finished the April monitoring of our SeagrassNet site in Salem Sound. The water was cold, 39° degrees, but our hearty dive team was happy to be out sampling again after a long winter, including heavy storms that prevented us from completing the January monitoring dives.
The West Beach, Salem Sound eelgrass bed continues to look good overall. We had a mean percent cover of 46%, mean canopy height of 35cm and our mean shoot density was 149 shoots/ m2 . The plants are smaller now in early spring but they are growing fast and will be lush and over 1 meter tall by July.
