Come Home Year for capelin in Ship Cove after spawning beach restored
A decade after their spawning habitat was destroyed, the capelin are rolling again in Ship Cove.
"We had been getting reports from our local observer that capelin were beginning to roll in large numbers on the beach, so we went out early this morning at high tide and we indeed saw capelin rolling on the full extent of the beach," Victoria Neville, senior specialist at World Wildlife Fund-Canada, told CBC News on Saturday.
It's like Come Home Year for the capelin in the Placentia Bay community; their habitat was destroyed about 10 years ago when their spawning beach was destroyed by being used as a quarry.
"The gravel that the capelin tended to use that was favourable for their spawning had been removed from the tidal area where they could actually access it, and so capelin were coming to the area, but they weren't rolling on the entirety of the beach," said Neville.
Last year, with championing by Stan Tobin of the Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Association and $3.7 million from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the WWF moved the spawning gravel back to the area of the beach the capelin had been using years earlier — and then they waited.
"We don't necessarily know why capelin choose that particular gravel," said Neville.
"It seems like, to me, that it's just very hospitable for their eggs to attach to the rocks and sort of stay secure. They certainly use it, they certainly prefer it, and it's doing something good, that's for sure."
Beaching spawning uncommon — except in Newfoundland
Newfoundland is one of the few places in the world where capelin use beaches to spawn, said Neville.
"It's just a great habitat for them, and it's a great nursery for them to incubate their eggs."
The amount of capelin rolling in on the beach Saturday exceeded Neville's expectations.
"This is the first time we had tried to do something like this," said Neville.
"Primarily over the last few months, I'd been returning just to see how that sediment is re-sorting itself on the beach and making sure it's still there, and it is … and we are happening to have a year where we're seeing a lot of capelin activity, so there were capelin around to actually spawn on the beach, which was really great, because capelin numbers haven't been awesome in the last few years."
Neville said she's "cautiously optimistic" about what has been learned from the project, and how lessons can be applied elswhere.
"We're not planning to restore other capelin beach habitats until Year 4 or 5 of the project; we're just in Year 2, so extensive monitoring is really necessary on this beach just to ensure that it's functionally helping capelin before we decide to invest in doing other restoration activity similar to this."
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