Category Archives: Admin

Admin Report spring 2002

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The New Landlord
Responsibility for Great Race Island has recently reverted back to the Province of British Columbia represented by BC Parks. The Coast Guard has officially turned all surplus buildings and facilities at Race Rocks over to BC Parks for use in support of education, research and the protection of the Marine Protected Area. Before transferring the assets, the Coast Guard completed extensive upgrades of the fuel systems, generators, buildings and other equipment including the large equipment hoist. The Coast Guard retains a small area of land around the historic light tower and responsibility for maintenance of the tower, operation of the light, fog signal and automated weather reporting system.

BC Parks has in turn entered into a 30 year agreement with Pearson College to designate responsibility to the College for the operation of the facilities, delivering education programs, supporting research and providing supervision for the Ecological Reserve and Marine Protected Area. We look forward to working closely with BC Parks to serve as custodians of this precious ecosystem on behalf of the people of British Columbia and Canada.

Community Support
We are fortunate to have strong support and co-operation from the many visitors to the MPA. We continue to work with the eco-tourism and scuba diving operators to ensure their operating guidelines are carefully followed while their many appreciative visitors have the opportunity to experience the remarkable diversity of Race Rocks. This kind of public education is an essential element of promoting public awareness of the value of the MPA initiative. We hope to work with the eco-tourism operators this year to encourage their customers to voluntarily contribute financial support for Race Rocks. We continue to have an excellent working relationship with the operators.

Sports fishers continue to honour their commitment to avoid fishing within the MPA boundary and we have had great cooperation from Sean and the staff at Pedder Bay Marina. DFO staff members have recently strengthened relationships with the local kayaking community as well.

We are also engaged in an effort with the Department of National Defence and DFO in an attempt to mitigate the impacts on the MPA as a consequence of DND activities at the nearby Rocky Point Base.

The Financial Picture
We continue to rely on our many supporters to sustain the operation of Race Rocks MPA and the racerocks.com website. We greatly appreciate the support of many of you who have made donations both large and small. Every donation helps and through the web we have made new donor friends all over the world. We particularly welcome as new supporters, the Ivey Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, Georgia Strait Alliance and a new technology sponsor, Channel Storm from Israel. Apple Canada, Apple Learning Interchange and Akamai continue to be generous and helpful supporters and advisors

Regrettably we are likely to end our fiscal year on June 30, 2002 with an operating shortfall of $27,000 on our budget. Pearson College has undertaken this debt on an interim basis. We are working closely with government agencies to stabilise the financial plan for long term sustainability of the MPA.

racerocks.com
Garry and our students continue to develop extraordinary features for the MPA’s award winning website. The use of the site by students, teachers, science centres and cyber visitors from around the world has expanded considerably. Technology has proven to be an effective way to widely share Race Rocks and Canada’s Marine Protected Area strategy without negative impacts. Three of the most popular new resources on the website are the Archives, Daily Log and Race Rocks Taxonomy file features.

Video Archives
A great supplement to our live cameras (because you can be sure to find what you are looking for) is an extensive menu of special topic video clips that are being developed for the site. These are great classroom resources for teachers and on-line learning. Check them out

Daily Log
Our resident eco-guardians, Mike and Carol Slater have done a great job of telling the Race Rocks story on the web in the logs. Everything from an elephant seal invasion, to the surprise hatching of our first Canada Geese chicks a few weeks ago have been faithfully recorded. Information in the Daily Log is also backed up by a data base that will allow us to recover data on various marine mammal and bird sightings as well as visitor and vessel traffic. Over the years this data is bound to be useful to researchers and resource managers.

Race Rocks Taxonomy File
This will be a long term project. Garry is determined that we create a truly innovative and accessible taxonomy file featuring all the species at Race Rocks and utilizing the very best of what the web has to offer; video clips, photos, text and Internet links. With the guidance of Garry and our other Biology/Environmental Systems faculty members Catrin Brown and Laura Verhegge, the project is launched with 70 species files established this year. This work in progress is available on this website:

and Next…..….
We look forward to an interesting summer season. Throughout June we will have a team of students as guests at Race Rocks providing regular webcasts. Check the calendar for the schedule. We hope to raise the funds required to deal with our debt and a few important upgrades on the project. we urgently need to upgrade the sewage facilities on the island by installing composting toilets to eliminate discharge into the MPA there is a remarkable enhanced remote control camera with 360 degree rotation and a much more powerful zoom capability which we hope to acquire we hope to get data from the underwater sensors (which have run well for over a year) available to you on the website

Most of all, we look forward to your continued involvement and support for Race Rocks Marine Protected Area. Thank you for your support.

Angus Matthews
Director of Administration
and Special Projects
Pearson College/Race Rocks

Hummingbirds and Black Brants

Posted on by
Saturday, May 11, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 12.0 C  Min. 7.3 C Reset 10.1 C
MARINE LIFE: 2 mature Bald Eagles today, still the 3 geese.There is a lot of bird activity and it is never quiet.Today we saw the usual gulls,oyster catchers,eagles,pigeon guillemots, geese, starlings, crows and savannah sparrows. An added bonus were the 2 humming birds that buzzed around for 20 minutes or so, always amazed to see them so far from the mainland but do see a few every year especially if the winds are light. A couple of black brant geese landed in the small bay on the east side of Gr. Race but did not stay long.
HUMAN INTERACTION: 5 pleasure craft and 13 ecotour boats, the last two enjoyed a beautiful sunset as they left the reserve.The D.N.D. did some blasting on the beach on Bentinck Island between 17:30 and 22:00 but only two blasts about 20:20 and 20:25 were big enough to have any noticeable impact here.The birds took flight en masse each time and took 10-15 minutes to settle down,it was getting too dark to see much beyond Gr. Race.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:09 PM
Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Part Cloudy Vis 15 Miles  Wind West 19 Knots  Sea 2 – 3 Foot Chop
posted by Carol or Mike S at 5:49 AM

one nest of Black Oyster Catcher eggs.

Posted on by
Thursday, April 25, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 11.9 ºC »» Min. 4.7 ºC »» Reset 9.0 ºC
MARINE LIFE: 3 Bald Eagles -1 juvenile.The eagles left the reserve just after 17:00. We are back to 3 geese again,I’m surprised they haven’t all left for ‘greener pastures’ now that the puddles they enjoyed so much have dried up but for a few slimy inches.Still only the one nest of Black Oyster Catcher eggs.
HUMAN INTERACTION: 5 Ecotour boats, 4 Pleasure craft. 2 of the pleasure craft were fishing in the reserve just after 13:00 but moved on with apologies after being advised of the MPA status. Picked up a drifting commercial crab trap off the east shore of Gr. Race and brought it in for disposal. This afternoon 2 College boats were in with Garry,Laura and students for a dive also Angus with Guests.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:22 PM
Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Clear »» Vis. 15 Miles »» Wind North 3 Knots »» Sea Rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:26 AM

(eagle) eating the catch of the day (salmon).

Posted on by
Saturday, April 20, 2002
Good evening from Chris and Jane.
We arrived this morning at 11:45 am and took over for Mike and Carol today. As we approached Race Rocks, we both commented on the flag being at half mast. Even on this small island, as on parliament hill and across the country, the symbol of loss was displayed for the four soldiers and their families. Our thoughts were with them.WEATHER: Winds were at 10-15 knots, seas were rippled. Visibility was 10 miles. Clear skies.

MARINE LIFE: 3 bald eagles, two jeuveniles were seen on the south tip of Great Race. One adult on the cliff by the helipad. An adult was seen later in the day at the southern tip of great race, eating the catch of the day (salmon). Three Canada Geese were seen… two were a pair and located on the north eastern area of the island. The other was near the lighthouse. Some of the seagulls are starting to practice and display nesting behaviours. It looks like pairs are starting to form and courtship rituals are taking place. Two pairs of oyster catchers were seen. One on the north eastern side of the island and the other on the docks.

HUMAN INTERACTION: Six boats were fishing off of Rosedale Reef this morning. These were later seen further to the west of Rosedale Reef in the afternoon. They were checked on by a vessel from Fisheries and Oceans early in the afternoon. In the midafternoon, we observed one disabled vessel being towed back to Pedder Bay. One ecotour boat visited the area today and a few fishing vessels stopped on their way in and out to have a visit with the sea lions.

We are going to be returning back to Pearson College Campus at 20:00 hr after another great day on the rock!
Until next time,
Chris and Jane
posted by Chris Blondeau at 6:55 PM

Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Cloudy »» Vis. 15 Miles »» Wind 13 South West »» Sea 1 – 2 Foot Chop
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:39 AM

ammunition detonations at the D.N.D. site

Posted on by
Thursday, April 18, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 11.5 ºC »» Min. 5.7 ºC »» Reset 8.5 ºC »» No Rain :o)
MARINE LIFE: 2 mature bald eagles today, which spent the day flying between North and Southeast Rocks. Constantly on the alert because of the eagles, the birds were further upset by the ammunition detonations at the D.N.D. site.There were 4 sets of 3 blasts, with 2 minutes between each blast.Although there are not many sealions hauled out at this time of the year they were disturbed to the extent that 6 went into the water. The birds take flight with each blast. The more energy they expend, the more food they require and they are coming into breeding season now, putting a greater demand on the birds energy requirements.There were 3 geese today,1 pair and a loner that follows the pair around the island, wonder what happened to the 4th goose?
HUMAN INTERACTION: 2nd Nature in twice, station boat 2 return trips to Pedder Bay. 2nd Nature went out to pleasure craft to advise fishers of the ‘no fishing’ guidelines in the reserve.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:33 PM
Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Clear »» Vis. 15 Miles »» Wind West 3 Knots »» Sea Rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:59 AM

Race Rocks Update Spring 2002- Angus Matthews

Posted on by

The New Landlord
Responsibility for Great Race Island has recently reverted back to the Province of British Columbia represented by BC Parks. The Coast Guard has officially turned all surplus buildings and facilities at Race Rocks over to BC Parks for use in support of education, research and the protection of the Marine Protected Area. Before transferring the assets, the Coast Guard completed extensive upgrades of the fuel systems, generators, buildings and other equipment including the large equipment hoist. The Coast Guard retains a small area of land around the historic light tower and responsibility for maintenance of the tower, operation of the light, fog signal and automated weather reporting system.

BC Parks has in turn entered into a 30 year agreement with Pearson College to designate responsibility to the College for the operation of the facilities, delivering education programs, supporting research and providing supervision for the Ecological Reserve and Marine Protected Area. We look forward to working closely with BC Parks to serve as custodians of this precious ecosystem on behalf of the people of British Columbia and Canada.

Community Support
We are fortunate to have strong support and co-operation from the many visitors to the MPA. We continue to work with the eco-tourism and scuba diving operators to ensure their operating guidelines are carefully followed while their many appreciative visitors have the opportunity to experience the remarkable diversity of Race Rocks. This kind of public education is an essential element of promoting public awareness of the value of the MPA initiative. We hope to work with the eco-tourism operators this year to encourage their customers to voluntarily contribute financial support for Race Rocks. We continue to have an excellent working relationship with the operators.

Sports fishers continue to honour their commitment to avoid fishing within the MPA boundary and we have had great cooperation from Sean and the staff at Pedder Bay Marina. DFO staff members have recently strengthened relationships with the local kayaking community as well.

We are also engaged in an effort with the Department of National Defence and DFO in an attempt to mitigate the impacts on the MPA as a consequence of DND activities at the nearby Rocky Point Base.

The Financial Picture
We continue to rely on our many supporters to sustain the operation of Race Rocks MPA and the racerocks.com website. We greatly appreciate the support of many of you who have made donations both large and small. Every donation helps and through the web we have made new donor friends all over the world. We particularly welcome as new supporters, the Ivey Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, Georgia Strait Alliance and a new technology sponsor, Channel Storm from Israel. Apple Canada, Apple Learning Interchange and Akamai continue to be generous and helpful supporters and advisors

Regrettably we are likely to end our fiscal year on June 30, 2002 with an operating shortfall of $27,000 on our budget. Pearson College has undertaken this debt on an interim basis. We are working closely with government agencies to stabilise the financial plan for long term sustainability of the MPA.

racerocks.com
Garry and our students continue to develop extraordinary features for the MPA’s award winning website. The use of the site by students, teachers, science centres and cyber visitors from around the world has expanded considerably. Technology has proven to be an effective way to widely share Race Rocks and Canada’s Marine Protected Area strategy without negative impacts. Three of the most popular new resources on the website are the Archives, Daily Log and Race Rocks Taxonomy file features.

Video Archives
A great supplement to our live cameras (because you can be sure to find what you are looking for) is an extensive menu of special topic video clips that are being developed for the site. These are great classroom resources for teachers and on-line learning. Check them out at https://www.racerocks.ca/archived-video/

Daily Log
Our resident eco-guardians, Mike and Carol Slater have done a great job of telling the Race Rocks story on the web in the Ecoguardians log. Everything from an elephant seal invasion, to the surprise hatching of our first Canada Geese chicks a few weeks ago have been faithfully recorded. Information in the Log is also backed up by a data base that will allow us to recover data on various marine mammal and bird sightings as well as visitor and vessel traffic. Over the years this data is bound to be useful to researchers and resource managers.

Race Rocks Taxonomy File
This will be a long term project. Garry is determined that we create a truly innovative and accessable taxonomy file featuring all the species at Race Rocks and utilising the very best of what the web has to offer; video clips, photos, text and Internet links. With the guidance of Garry and our other Biology/Environmental Systems faculty members Catrin Brown and Laura Verhegge, the project is launched with 70 species files established this year. This work in progress is available on the web at
https://www.racerocks.ca/race-rocks-animals-plants/taxonomy-image-gallery/

and Next………
We look forward to an interesting summer season. Throughout June we will have a team of students as guests at Race Rocks providing regular webcasts. Check the calendar for the schedule. We hope to raise the funds required to deal with our debt and a few important upgrades on the project. we urgently need to upgrade the sewage facilities on the island by installing composting toilets to eliminate discharge into the MPA there is a remarkable enhanced remote control camera with 360 degree rotation and a much more powerful zoom capability which we hope to acquire we hope to get data from the underwater sensors (which have run well for over a year) available to you on the website

Most of all, we look forward to your continued involvement and support for Race Rocks Marine Protected Area. Thank you for your support.

Angus Matthews
Director of Administration and Special Projects
Pearson College/Race Rocks

Elephant seal tangled

Posted on by
Monday, February 25, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 4c >> >> Min 2c >> >> Reset 4c >> >> Rain none
MARINELIFE: Lots of Elephant Seal action today with one in the west bay and one on the slipway. Took lots of video. One on Centre Rock is still tangled in line. Two mature and one immature Bald Eagles here in the morning. Still three pairs of geese.
HUMAN INTERACTION: One ecotour boat and a short visit from Second Nature to drop off supplies. An airplane flew over the MPA at a fairly low (500 ft?) altitude and circled the MPA three times.
posted by Angus Matthews at 9:25 PM
Good Morning
Weather: Sunny and clear >> >>Vis 17 Miles >> >> Wind NNE 14 Knots >> >> Sea 2 foot chop
posted by Angus Matthews at 9:18 PM

Balloon pollution !

Posted on by
Saturday, February 23, 2002
Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Overcast –Vis 7 Miles — Moderate Rain — Wind NNE 18 Knots –Sea 1 foot chop.
posted by Angus Matthews at 7:24 AMGood Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 5.0c >Min 4.2c >Reset 4.8c > Rain 6.0
MARINE LIFE: A day of some confusion as a total reorganisation of the Centre Rock occurred when a large male Elephant Seal returned to the rock and everyone had to trade places. Some confusion for the geese as well with the arrival of a third pair starting a turf war. Only 1 mature and 1 immature Bald Eagle seen today about 16:45.
HUMAN INTERACTION: One dive charter boat with 4 divers aboard in the MPA during the morning and 2 eco-tour boats through in the afternoon. One rental boat 14K-37805 with two people aboard set up to fish just west of the engine room but left when hailed and waved off. A TRIDENT submarine was observed steaming (or reacting) west out of the strait for places unknown under the oceans. One other unusual environmental impact today; as a consequence of a political protest at the BC legislature some 12 nautical miles from Race Rocks. Three blue balloons with the Hospital Employee’s Union logo floated through the MPA carried on the ebb tide and a NNE breeze. Unfortunate pollution.
I was joined by my wife Sandy and our friends Cathy Denny and David Anderson who are staying overnight as deputy assistant guest Eco-guardians. This resulted in a great dinner of Red Snapper. (NOT taken from the MPA!)
posted by Angus Matthews at 9:32 PM

Close call–

Posted on by
Friday, February 22, 2002
Good Evening
TEMERATURE: Max. 9.0c >>> Min. 5.2c >>> Reset 5.2c >>> Rain 29.5mm
MARINELIFE: 3 mature and 1 immature Bald Eagles were around a good deal today. Two pairs of Canada Geese enjoyed wading in the large puddles that have formed on Great Race Island as we have experienced 71.7mm of rain in the past 48 hours. An Elephant Seal chose to lounge beside the jetty for part of the morning.
HUMAN INTERACTION: Pearson College divers were out for a drift dive on the ebb tide. A television crew from The New VI joined us as well. Rick Searle, the host of EnviroMental on the New VI, is preparing a segment about Race Rocks for the program. Watch for it coming soon on Channel 12 in Victoria.
One eco-tour boat through the MPA about 13:00.
At 14:20 a rental boat from a local marina tried to run the tide rips in the narrow gap between the South Islets at full speed. I couldn’t believe my eyes as they stopped just short of the reef. Mother Nature has ways of dealing with fools but she let them off easy today!
We had to settle for arranging a stern warning when they returned to the marina.
posted by Angus Matthews at 8:12 PM
Good Morning again. Mike and Carol have gone ashore for a week, a very rare occurance. I will be your guest host and eco-guardian.
posted by Angus Matthews at 10:19 AM

A UVic study explores renewable energy options at Canada’s newest Marine Protected Area

Posted on by

Going with the flow

A UVic study explores renewable energy options at Canada’s newest Marine Protected Area

by Diane Haughlandracerocks

niet

Taco Niet

The essence of Race Rocks is its tides. Tides that feed biodiversity. Tides that have brought ships to their knees upon its rocky shores. And tides that may bring it to the forefront of renewable energy technology.
For his recently completed master’s thesis, UVic mechanical engineering graduate student Taco Niet has created a model that shows tidal power to be the most realistic source of renewable energy for Race Rocks.
A collection of nine tiny islets with a big reputation, Race Rocks is situated 17 km southwest of Victoria at the eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Its reefs and strong tidal currents — up to seven knots — support an exceptional diversity of marine life, including invertebrates, fish, seabirds and marine mammals. In 2000 it became Canada’s first Marine Protected Area created under the federal Oceans Act.
Race Rocks hosts a lighthouse, occasional researchers and educators, and two full-time guardians employed by Lester B. Pearson College. The college has also installed a local area network that allows Internet video coverage around the clock, accessible at www.racerocks.com.
While the light tower and foghorn are powered by solar panels, a diesel generator supplies the guardians with the energy required to live full-time at Race Rocks, including energy-costly water desalination. Several times a year, diesel fuel is transported to the island by boat and pumped into storage tanks, an enterprise with plenty of potential environmental hazard.
Garry Fletcher, educational director at Pearson College, initiated the renewable energy project through contact with UVic’s institute for integrated energy systems (IESVic). Institute director Dr. Ged McLean, Niet, and two other students soon began preliminary energy modeling.
Niet later took on the project as a master’s thesis. He modelled the hourly energy flows for an entire year, using information collected by electronic monitors that recorded energy use, wind speed, sun exposure and tidal flow. McLean stresses the importance of Niet’s model.
“It’s the only one we know of that tracks energy production and demand on an hourly basis. Most models use a larger time scale, glossing over the amount of time when energy production is zero.” McLean adds, “Taco also made his system entirely self-contained — there are no traditional back-up systems in the model, making it especially relevant to small, isolated communities.”
In the end, gleaming solar panels and spinning wind turbines were not the best choice; it was the eggbeater-like tidal turbines that came out tops. Niet says it’s not surprising that tidal power emerged ahead of solar and wind.
“Tides arrive every six hours, every day, year-round,” he points out. “They’re reliable.” Tidal ebb and flow result in the most favourable balance between energy production and demand, requiring less energy storage than either of the alternatives.
“We see the Race Rocks model as an alternative energy parable,” Niet muses. “It provides a realistic picture of what we can — and can’t — do with renewable energy.” Seasonal variation in many renewable energy sources requires large investments in energy storage. “Blanketing every inch of an area with solar panels is not exactly environmentally friendly,” Niet explains, “not to mention the environmental and economic costs of making the panels.”
While Niet’s model currently exists only on paper, the Race Rocks energy parable could soon become a reality. Niet is searching for an industrial partner to take the next step. “We need to conduct an environmental assessment,” Niet says, “and if the results are favourable, we’ll require funding to implement the turbines”.
Meanwhile, Niet, McLean, and McLean’s new students forge ahead. Their next project? “North America is the next, logical self-contained unit to model,” enthuse Niet and McLean. “Our goal is to understand what a realistic future looks like,” McLean explains, “and how sustainable energy technology fits in that world.”
Funding for Niet’s work was provided by McLean’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council operating grant.

 

Diane Haughland is a participant in the SPARK program (Students Promoting Awareness of Research Knowledge), funded by UVic, NSERC and SSHRC.

From The Ring,  Feb 21, 2002