A sea of support
Locals have united to save thousands of marine animals in Marlborough before a marina expansion project gets under way.
Sea horses, octopus, and sea stars were just some of the animals relocated from Waikawa Bay to Curious Cove on Sunday, to make sure they weren’t harmed when the $20 million Waikawa Marina development starts.
The project is set to add 252 berths to Waikawa, an idea first floated about a decade ago.
Cawthron Institute marine ecologist Robyn Dunmore said a dozen people, including eight divers, came over from Nelson to support the marine life relocation, initiated by Waikawa Dive Centre in partnership with Port Marlborough and Te A¯ tiawa.
‘‘The ones [marine animals] we are removing are fairly hardy, they are something like sea stars and sea snails which can be uplifted like that and removed fairly easily,’’ Dunmore said.
‘‘A couple of things like sea horses, we took care of those and made sure they were separate from everything and they had a good amount of sea water, and we handled those with a lot more care.’’
A remote operated vehicle, controlled from shore, filmed the divers.
‘‘The public had come down and we had two big TV screens and they could see the divers operating and what they were doing under water and see what the environment was like,’’ Dunmore said.
Waikawa Dive Centre owner Stuart Scaife said they had about 70 people helping; 14 boats, 21 divers, four snorkellers and families on the beach.
Marine animals were collected in containers from the sea floor and transferred on larger boats, some with more than 14 fish bins.
Thirteen different species were relocated, including ‘‘two sea horses, one octopus, more than 3500 cushion stars, more than 40 hermit crabs and more than 250 green mussel and smaller species like scallops’’, Scaife said.
He proposed the idea seven months ago.
‘‘We couldn’t have done it without the support of Port Marlborough and Te A¯ tiawa,’’ Scaife said.