Ray Watch!!
I was involved in setting up the latest public appeal for my workplace- National Museums Liverpool. & some of you may be interested to help support it :)
Basically- we're tagging Thornback Rays in the Mersey. They are endangered & tagging them will allow us to track them to find out where they move to & where they breed, which in turn will allow us to help work towards conserving them, by ensuring that fishermen dont fish them when they're breeding. Sadly- the Thornbacks, which are actually skates, are the lil guys who provide us with 'skate fin soup', so they're pretty hard sought after round these parts :(
The appeal involves buying either a £10 or a £25 pack. The money from this goes towards buying a tag for a ray. You will be given the ID for your ray tag & information about the ray that it is attached to, a ray that you will get to name.
Whenever the tagged rays are caught again, all their vital statistics are recorded & you would be informed if your ray is caught again. All of the rays are put onto a google map, so you can see where yours has travelled, each time it is caught.
I have seen how they are tagged & its very similar to getting a dermal piercing-its a hook under the skin. I can vouch from personal experience that it doesnt hurt :)
This is a really great cause & it's done in conjunction with the Sharks Trust, to help with their ongoing research.
Please adopt a ray today - help the thornback rays & make me feel good about finding a worthwhile appeal!
as a side note- most the photos on the website were taken by me, too - and i'll be going out on one of the tagging boats to see how it's done, which i'm really excited about,
Heres the info page:
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/about/development/raywatch/
Here's the Google map (my ikkle Ruby is on there!!):
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=108920558456370773373.0004717acf9e31def9880&source=embed&ll=53.427231,-3.019009&spn=0.068939,0.15398&z=13
& here is the museum blog about it, complete with dodgy photo of me:
http://blog.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/MadAboutRays.aspx
The £25 pack comes with an adorably soft Ray toy (a bat ray) which would make a lovely Christmas / Yuletide gift.
Basically- we're tagging Thornback Rays in the Mersey. They are endangered & tagging them will allow us to track them to find out where they move to & where they breed, which in turn will allow us to help work towards conserving them, by ensuring that fishermen dont fish them when they're breeding. Sadly- the Thornbacks, which are actually skates, are the lil guys who provide us with 'skate fin soup', so they're pretty hard sought after round these parts :(
The appeal involves buying either a £10 or a £25 pack. The money from this goes towards buying a tag for a ray. You will be given the ID for your ray tag & information about the ray that it is attached to, a ray that you will get to name.
Whenever the tagged rays are caught again, all their vital statistics are recorded & you would be informed if your ray is caught again. All of the rays are put onto a google map, so you can see where yours has travelled, each time it is caught.
I have seen how they are tagged & its very similar to getting a dermal piercing-its a hook under the skin. I can vouch from personal experience that it doesnt hurt :)
This is a really great cause & it's done in conjunction with the Sharks Trust, to help with their ongoing research.
Please adopt a ray today - help the thornback rays & make me feel good about finding a worthwhile appeal!
as a side note- most the photos on the website were taken by me, too - and i'll be going out on one of the tagging boats to see how it's done, which i'm really excited about,
Heres the info page:
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/about/development/raywatch/
Here's the Google map (my ikkle Ruby is on there!!):
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=108920558456370773373.0004717acf9e31def9880&source=embed&ll=53.427231,-3.019009&spn=0.068939,0.15398&z=13
& here is the museum blog about it, complete with dodgy photo of me:
http://blog.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/MadAboutRays.aspx
The £25 pack comes with an adorably soft Ray toy (a bat ray) which would make a lovely Christmas / Yuletide gift.