Aquarium Shines with Solar Power

What a bright idea!

The Aquarium is committed to reducing its environmental footprint.

A new solar panel system at the Aquarium puts the power of the sun to work, and provides an educational exhibit on renewable energy.

Marine Debris and Monofilament

The North Carolina Aquariums offer many fun and informative fishing programs. Because we are conveniently located on the coast, our programs cover pier fishing, surf fishing and basic angling. Both new and experienced fishermen learn conservation practices along with fishing techniques. This includes catch and release and monofilament line recycling. The North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores has partnered with the North Carolina Maritime Museum to raise awareness of the danger of monofilament line in the environment.

Monofilament line entangles wildlife, often severely injuring or killing birds, turtles, dolphins and other animals. Fishermen should always take special care not to let their line inadvertently end up in the environment. Cut the line into small pieces before disposing of it properly. If available, use a recycling station like the one pictured here. Staff and volunteers collect line from the bins and send it in for recycling into new fishing equipment. See the Maritime Museum’s website for more information on the program.

Oysters/UNCW Spatfall Study

The eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) has declined by about 90 percent in North Carolina since the turn of the century, due to over-harvesting, declines in water quality and increased susceptibility to disease. The North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores partners with many organizations to promote awareness of oyster conservation and restoration efforts in our state.

Our Special Activities programs feature salt marsh walks, in which participants view oyster reefs and learn first-hand about oyster ecology. At the Aquarium’s dock, visitors can view an under-dock oyster garden and backyard reef that shows what they can do at home on the waterway. To read more about the Pine Knoll Shores project, download our latest oyster report. Citizens interested in under-dock gardening can visit the Shellfish Gardeners of North Carolina web site.

The Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores is also participating with the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW)in a spatfall study. “Spat” is the name for the larval oyster that settles on reefs, pilings or just about any surface before growing out to adult size. The spatfall study uses tile racks to track times, locations and sizes of seasonal spatfalls.

The results of the study will help the North Carolina Department of Marine Fisheries target areas for restoration and time reef-building restoration efforts in order to capture the maximum amount of settling spat. See UNCW’s spat website to track spatfall at the Aquarium  and other locations along the North Carolina coast.

Learn the “Three Fs” about Oysters

• Oysters FILTER anywhere from 15 to 50 gallons of water a day, depending on their size and how long they are submerged. Oysters in an under-dock garden filter more and grow faster because they stay submerged.
• Oysters provide FISH HABITAT for over 300 species of juvenile fish, shrimp, crabs, worms and other marine life that form the base of our coastal ecology.
• Oysters once provided a very important FOOD source for native Americans and early settlers. Today, they are a prized delicacy.

Share the Beach

What do a little brown butterfly, a blue-colored grass and an invasive exotic weed have in common? The beach! When we begin to investigate one small aspect of nature, we find many connections that we never anticipated. That’s what makes field research so interesting and fun.

The crystal skipper butterfly (Atrytonopsis n.sp.1) is endemic to our island of Bogue Banks. Dr. Allison Leidner of the University of Maryland College Park found that the skipper prefers undisturbed beach dune habitat and uses a beautiful beach grass called seaside little bluestem (Schizochyrium littorale) as a host plant to lay its eggs.

Seaside little bluestem was propagated at the Aquarium greenhouse and planted at the Rachel Carson Estuarine Research Reserve in an attempt to restore and expand the butterfly’s habitat. You can read more about the progress of that project in the Aquarium’s most recent monitoring report.

The effort to conserve good butterfly habitat led the Aquarium to identify a real threat to that habitat on Bogue Banks — the presence of beach vitex (Vitex rotundifolia), an invasive exotic plant. Beach vitex, imported as a dune planting, has become an aggressive invader of dune habitat, crowding out native plants and increasing erosion of precious beach sand. Aquarium staff mapped and photographed vitex colonies along all of Bogue Banks (see summary report) and is assisting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in its effort to eradicate the plant.

Happy Trails

The Aquarium is located within the Theodore Roosevelt State Natural Area on Bogue Banks. Two nature trails wind through the barrier island forest, salt marsh and freshwater ponds. Where else can you stand in the close woods and hear the roar of ocean surf?   Who would have thought that a barrier island surrounded by saltwater could have large freshwater ponds where alligators once basked?

The Aquarium’s conservation message is carried on educational signage designed and installed by the Aquarium. The signs highlight features of plants, animals and ecology of the barrier island. The trail signs were funded through North Carolina’s Adopt-A-Trail Grant Program.

Seagrass Sanctuary

Is it real? A close look at the Grass Flats at the Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores reveals that the seagrass in the exhibit is definitely not real, but a plastic imitation. Seagrasses are flowering plants that grow completely submerged in marine and brackish environments. They tend to be much more difficult to maintain in captivity than their freshwater counterparts such as the tapegrass you see in our freshwater exhibits.

Most aquariums don’t even contemplate the possibility of culturing real seagrass.  But the Pine Knoll Shores staff is cultivating seagrass in a closed tank system behind the scenes, with hopes of one day being able to incorporate it into an exhibit. Shoal grass, Halodule wrightii, was transplanted from Bogue Sound into its natural substrate in a 50-gallon tank, where it’s been growing for over a year.

Staff have moved on to the next phase of the project by transplanting some of that grass into clean aquarium aragonite sand. The challenge will be to maintain the plants with the nutrient and light levels they need, while keeping algae growth to a minimum. Adding animals that won’t overgraze the plants will be a further step, as will propagation of new plants in an aquarium setting.

Green Team

Materials break down inside the compost fence and go directly into the adjacent plant bed.

The North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores has an active Green Team.  The team, formed in April 2007, has built upon staff enthusiasm and blossomed into an active, nine-member organization. The team’s mission is to establish a culture of sustainability at the Aquarium and to relay sustainable principles and practices to the public.

Put simply, the team focuses on the “Three Rs” — Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The Aquariums Division adopted its first Sustainability Action Plan in 2008. The Green Team at Pine Knoll Shores followed up with its own Green Plan. The team is proud of the Aquarium’s accomplishments, which include:

- Increasing staff awareness of and participation in reuse and recycling.
- Installation of an 18,000-gallon rainwater cistern system.
- Composting of vegetable waste in a compost fence.
- Organization of annual beach sweep clean-ups at Pine Knoll Shores.
- Implementation of staff green activities such as carpooling.
- Installation of low impact development features such as bog, butterfly and rain gardens.
- Installation of a solar panel.