Kind: captions
Language: en
crab cakes gumbo shrimp and grits a lot
of seafood depends on something easy to
overlook
salt marsh the salt marsh estuary is one
of the most important ecological
habitats in the world not just in our
part of the world but in the world
the bottom of the food chain starts here
fish
baby crabs
oysters oliver starts right in the marsh
the adults live offshore but the babies
are carried by the currents into the
marsh habitat
[Music]
this is a nursery ground for many of the
species that are so commercially
important to consumers like me who like
seafood juvenile shrimp juvenile crabs
juvenile fish are able to take refuge in
these areas they are more protected from
predators and have great access to small
invertebrates that they can consume as
they develop
the seafood economy and the health of
the marshes are especially important in
the southeastern u.s
that's where our
shrimp reproduce craig reeves has worked
as a commercial fisherman for the last
35 years harvesting plants crabs oysters
and above all shrimp in a good week he
and his crew pack 20 to 30 thousand
pounds of seafood
fishing is is in in my blood and in my
family's
blood and it's just we we're
we're called to the water we're watermen
the marsh also plays a crucial role in
shielding people living along the coast
says fisheries biologist dion
hoskins-brown one of the very important
structural functions of the salt marsh
is physical protection being a physical
buffer from storm surge
but there are signs that marsh habitat
across the southeast is changing
including this one
john carr grew up in charleston south
carolina a coastal community built atop
and alongside salt marsh this is my
backyard i'm born and raised right here
when i was a little boy
that was nothing but large the marsh
would be at least
five six feet high
south carolina boasts the largest
expanse of salt marsh of any state along
the atlantic but the ecosystem has
experienced dieback within the last
couple decades including here in carr's
backyard about 10-15 years ago
it just started dying out when you see
the brown that's not healthy
it was quite alarming for all this moss
to die out and it just kept
receding and received and receding this
is my son john called the force yeah it
was awful on this year i couldn't go
back there the marshal was gone by time
he all he knows is mud
no root system no mod root system as
soon as you step in it you're going down
you may go down to your waist very
dangerous so now i i didn't let him
play in it
along the central georgia coast one
study found that the mass of marsh
plants above ground fell between 30 and
40 percent over a 28-year period
irvin simmons has noticed changes in the
last several decades too he's a crabber
out of daufuskie island south carolina
just north of the georgia border like
his father and grandfather yeah the
grass the marsh had seemed much greener
when
we were younger
compared to
now
a lot of it has washed out pushed back i
saw that from where it was
over the years he says fishing practices
have changed and simmons has witnessed
the results firsthand
when i was a young boy
crab often would be
that size
we had
much more crab
much larger crab
and um
i think that's that's due in part to
crabbing or seasonal the different time
with year-round crabbing i think in my
judgment
it's kind of overcraft
and you know with some people running so
many pots
it's throwing everything off it's it's
real
scarce right
now as for the marsh die-off there are a
couple possible explanations first
drought which threw off the balance of
the ecosystem
there were changes in marsh snail
populations that made the marsh grass
more susceptible to
fungal infections and those snails
normally would have been controlled by
blue crabs that were in smaller numbers
because we were in the middle of a
drought and so consequently there were
large patches of marsh grass that died
back along the coast once the rains
returned the marsh largely recovered the
marsh ecosystem is pretty resilient and
can bounce back typically from different
types of natural interruptions but
others worry the problem of marsh
dieback is linked to rising sea levels
in part a result of climate change here
in the charleston harbor we have
documented over a foot of silver rise
over the last 85 years
if this rate stays consistent we can
potentially see the next footer sealer
rise
over the next 20 to 30 years there's
potential marsh drowning that's already
occurring
al george says that if the seas continue
to rise faster than marsh grass can
colonize slightly higher elevations
large-scale die-off may result
and it's a problem compounded by
subsidence the sinking of land which
leads to sea level rise bringing saltier
water farther inland
al george says protecting the marsh is
crucial the hopes that we can keep the
mars safe viable and flourishing even
under these different changing
conditions and this brings us back to
john carr and his home along the marsh
something is happening because you could
see it's starting to grow back
in partnership with the south carolina
department of natural resources a team
of researchers including al george is
examining which kinds of grasses fare
best in these changing conditions we
planted different strands in the area to
determine
is there another strand that would be
better suited to be more capable of
handling this different environment that
currently exists they came in and they
planted different strands
of marsh to see which one would survive
that's the area over there they planted
and this right here
is new growth
the team has found a kind of marsh grass
that's more tolerant of the new
conditions one that's better suited to
the evolving flow patterns of the area
and that is the strand that we're using
to replant over half acre of salt marsh
in that community to provide them with
some hope that
we can regenerate that area sort of more
quickly and is on track to
continue to grow and hopefully see
things turn around in that particular
area for the best we have to figure out
how we take care of the salt marshes
because ultimately the health of the
entire food web system
for the entire atlantic ocean and even
our health is dependent on the ecosystem
staying intact and staying viable and
staying healthy even under these
different changing conditions associated
with climate change
the marsh is still far from being in the
clear but a solution would mean greater
stability for the coastline
i feel
happy about i feel like i can have like
an experience
you know how he had experience in my
mind if i instilled in him
the pride of what he has
then he can pass that on to his children
and maybe we get another
150 200 years
more of being on this property my father
swim down here
he taught me how to swim in that greek
so i like to get that back
before i get too old
and to teach him so he could bring his
children out here