The trick to keeping a shoreline clean is routine and education, both part and the coming Trick or Trash event focusing on Victoria’s waterways.
Peninsula Streams and Shorelines joins forces with Early Career Ocean Professionals Canada, Ocean Wise and Trash Panda Brigade for the Halloween-themed shoreline cleanup on Oct. 26.
The event highlights the ecological significance of Portage Inlet, the Gorge Waterway, and Victoria Harbour, a vital urban waterway network that supports diverse species and productive estuary habitats.
Participants are invited to contribute to important environmental research while donning their best sustainable Halloween costumes. Costumed or not, volunteers will help gather shoreline cleanup data for Ocean Wise, conduct a microplastics survey with ECOP Canada and aid in a forage fish egg survey alongside Peninsula Streams.
The event follows Surf Smelt Day on Oct. 25, a coast-wide initiative to raise awareness about the forage fish crucial to coastal food webs.
Peninsula Streams has identified more than 55 beaches from Sidney to Sooke where surf smelt and other forage fish species spawn, including Victoria Harbour.
This urban waterway is also home to coho salmon and sea-run coastal cutthroat trout, keystone species supporting marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
Shoreline stewardship spooktacular is on Saturday, Oct. 26, from 9:30 a.m. to noon at Regatta Point Park.
