4 minute read
Giving Back: Net Gain
AUG. 4
Now’s your chance to visit Fort Pulaski. Admission is free today!
AUG. 7 – 21
The 10th annual Savannah VOICE Festival celebrates opera and musical theater with more than 25 performances.
AUG. 11
How enchanting! Wormsloe Historic Site is offering a guided evening hike with a lunar twist, taking place under a full moon. AUG. 13
As a part of the Lift Every Voice African American History event,
Pin Point Heritage Museum
is fee-free today, so you can acquaint yourself with GullahGeechee culture fi rsthand and celebrate Savannah’s Black-owned businesses.
AUG. 20 – 21
Turtle-hatching day trips on Ossabaw Island take you on an ecology fi eld trip to Ossabaw from Skidaway alongside conservationists. AUG.27
Light up the water at the Savannah Water Lantern Festival at Lake Mayer. Enjoy music and food trucks as you design your own lantern at this family-friendly event.
AUG
GIVING BACK
Net Gain
When shrimping meets a massive clean-up effort, everybody wins
Written by JESSICA LYNN CURTIS with EMILY KENWORTHY
WE KNOW BY NOW the pandemic has impacted so many areas of business. Shrimping is no exception. Recently, the University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant have devised a way to provide fi nancial support to local shrimpers who have suff ered a loss of income — and to clean up our local beaches and barrier islands.
The program, funded by the National Sea Grant College Program, is called Trawl to Trash, and it pays commercial shrimpers to sew bags out of recycled shrimp nets. The shrimpers earn $20 per bag, and then the bags are used to collect marine debris.
“It’s exciting to fi nd a new purpose for these trawl nets, and who better to make the bags than the shrimpers who have spent countless hours mending their nets ahead of shrimping season?” says Dodie Sanders, a marine educator at Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant who has taken the lead on the Trash to Trawl project.
Jonathan Bennett is a fi fth-generation commercial shrimper from Brunswick. He has been shrimping since he was 4 years old and now captains his own boat, the Flying Cloud. He learned how to repair the nets from his grandfather, Johnny Ray Bennett.
“For years, I was the only man on the boat who knew how to sew, so I got pretty good at it,” says the younger Bennett. He and Johnny Ray, who is still a shrimper, joined the project during the off season while their boat was being repaired. Bennett then used the money he earned to pay his employees. “It was extra money,” he says, “and it helped us out.”
In an eff ort to create more outreach, Sanders teamed up with the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium to recruit additional shrimpers. As of January 2022, 15 shrimpers in Georgia and South Carolina had earned a total of $30,700 for 1,535 bags.
Sanders and other educators at the UGA Marine Education Center and Aquarium on Skidaway Island have been working to distribute these bags to the public through education programs and community science eff orts. As a part of this eff ort, the team launched their Marine Debris Community Science Program, which engages volunteers in removing marine debris from barrier islands and salt marshes along the Georgia coast. Volunteers then track what they collect using the marine debris tracker app (the app, called Debris Tracker, is available to download for free in the app store). Since April 2021, community scientists involved in the program have conducted more than 25 marine debris cleanups along the Georgia coast and have collected thousands of items. They are also working with certifi ed ecotour guides who will provide bags to their customers and encourage them to collect debris while exploring Georgia’s beaches and barrier islands. And this summer, educators will deliver hands-on after-school programs to Boys and Girls Clubs in Chatham and Glynn
Two fi shermen work to create a bag from recycled shrimp nets for Trawl to Trash.
– Dodie Sanders, marine educator at
Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant
counties, educating the next generation about marine debris and encouraging them to make a diff erence by using the trawl to trash bags in their own communities.
“We’re educating and engaging ecotour guides, students, recreational boaters, beachgoers and others who can make a diff erence by alleviating the impacts of marine debris,” Sanders says. “It reinforces the importance of building community capacity and encouraging behavior change as a way of supporting the long-term prevention of marine debris.”
