On Saturday, Nov. 6, 107 volunteers showed up to Bread and Cheese Creek in Baltimore County, Maryland, to clean up the historic War of 1812 site. Through this hands-on restoration event, the “Clean Bread and Cheese Creek” group helped to bring the local community together and teach people about the effect humans can have on the environment.
The 3.5 tons of trash that were collected at the creek included 2.5 tons of metal, 21 tires and 14 shopping carts. Other notable items found in the creek include three bicycles, two boogie boards, a washing machine, a pool table, an industrial warehouse fan, a playpen, a seesaw and a bowling ball.
The group's founder, John Long, planned to recycle all of the metal removed from the creek to raise money to fund the next cleanup, scheduled for April 2, 2011. “I hope that helping to instill pride in the stream and its important past will foster an attitude of stewardship rather than indifference,” Long wrote in an e-mail to volunteers and supporters of the cleanup.
The extent of the trash and debris found in the creek shows that polluted stormwater runoff and dumping of large objects are major problems in the Chesapeake Bay's local creeks and streams. Trash can seriously damage the habitat and wildlife in and around waterways.
To learn more about Clean Bread and Cheese Creek and the fall cleanup, check out the links below:
Volunteers working in Bread and Cheese Creek on 11/6/10
Shopping cart image courtesy Clean Bread and Cheese Creek.
Welcome to the latest installment of the BayBlog Question of the Week! Each week, we take a question submitted on the Chesapeake Bay Program website or a frequently asked question and answer it here for all to read.
This week’s question came from Larry, who asked, “How can you tell the difference between male hardshell and peeler crabs?”
Peeler crabs are actually just hardshell blue crabs that are showing signs of molting. Molting occurs when a crab's hard shell is shed and a new soft shell is grown. “Peeler crab” is a term assigned to crabs that are in pre-molt stages.
The physical signs of change to a peeler are evident in the shell itself as well as the shell color. The new soft shell should be visible beneath the hard outer shell, which is easily seen on the outer edges of the swimming fins. The new shell will first appear as a white line around the edge, gradually turning pink and then red. A red line is a pretty reliable sign of a peeler about to shed its shell. Fine white wrinkles may also appear on the blue skin between the wrist and upper arm.
Abdomen color may also be a sign, but that is a much less reliable sign than the emergence of the new shell. A freshly shed male crab’s abdomen is often whiter, but a crab with a yellow abdomen can still be weeks from shedding.
Do you have a question about the Chesapeake Bay? Ask us and we might choose your question for the next Question of the Week! You can also ask us a question via Twitter by sending a reply to @chesbayprogram! Be sure to follow us there for all the latest in Bay news and events.
Image courtesy Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
