Our next community spotlight goes out to a PEI powerhouse, Bedeque Bay Environmental Management Association (BBEMA)! Executive director Tracy Brown shares that BBEMA has been hard at work developing educational programs and management plans, conducting water monitoring, and enhancing habitat in their watershed. Throughout the field season, BBEMA monitors 28 sites and deploys 30 temperature loggers – that’s a LOT of data!

BBEMA works closely with their community to enhance monarch butterfly populations through pollinator crops and a tag and release program. They’ve also restored salmon habitat through gravel beds, boulder introduction, and conducting aerial drone photography to target areas where silt is settling and erosion is happening. Over the past eight years, 85 km of stream within the Wilmot, Dunk and Bradshaw rivers have been restored, and 50,000 native trees and shrubs have been planted within the Bedeque Bay watershed!

In the community, BBEMA has taught youth to use YSI probes and have conducted virtual field trips including a livestream with UPEI to showcase monitoring equipment. They were also able to bring water samples to a local grade 6 class for them to analyze the water themselves!

On top of their current programming, BBEMA has big plans for:

– using thermal drones to map fish habitats and study how underground springs are influencing water temperature

– studying microplastics in the sand of Summerside Harbour

– developing stormwater management plans for the region

To keep up to date on what BBEMA is working on, check out their Instagram @bbema_pei, Twitter, Facebook, or website!

 

Photos courtesy of BBEMA