{"id":11787,"date":"2020-06-25T18:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T18:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=11787"},"modified":"2020-06-25T18:00:28","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T18:00:28","slug":"training-a-virtual-eye-on-texas-estuary-during-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=11787","title":{"rendered":"Training a virtual eye on Texas\u2019 estuary during COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Jace Tunnell, director of the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, holds rope debris he found as he prepares to record the reserve\u2019s weekly beach-combing video. <\/em><\/strong>Photo: Mission-Aransas NERR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By ROZ BROWN
<\/strong>Texas News Service<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HOUSTON \u2014 When the coronavirus pandemic ended in-person activities at the estuary reserve in Texas, researchers buffed up their technology skills to keep students, educators and the general public engaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jace Tunnell directs activities at the Mission-Aransas Reserve<\/a>, located in the coastal bend of Texas. He says the COVID-19 shutdown put production of educational and how-to videos into high gear, to keep people involved virtually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery day, we will post a different video \u2014 and so, we have beach combing on Mondays, where you can go out and feel like you\u2019re at the beach and learn about what\u2019s washing up, and how to do fish prints from in your own kitchen,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mission-Aransas reserve is the third largest reserve in the country, the only one in Texas, and the only place in North America where rare, migratory whooping cranes winter. It typically attracts 30,000 visitors annually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tunnell says a video featuring incubation of Kemp\u2019s ridley sea turtle eggs is probably the most popular so far. He notes that after hatching, the elusive Kemp\u2019s ridley sea turtles head to the water and are rarely seen again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not like a fresh water turtle,\u201d he points out. \u201cFresh water turtles get out on logs to sun and stuff like that. But sea turtles never come out of the water and so, sea turtles tend to be the ones that reach a whole lot of people (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Estuarine Research Reserve System<\/a> is a network of 29 sensitive coastal areas across 23 states and Puerto Rico, established by Congress in the 1970s to protect and study the country\u2019s estuaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tunnell says if COVID-19 had a silver lining, it would be introducing a broader approach to the estuary learning experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I think that it won\u2019t be just local people can attend in person but people even outside the state will be able to see what we\u2019re learning about and hopefully apply it to their area as well,\u201d he states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mission-Aransas was established in 2006 to bring together scientists, landowners, policy makers and the public, to work on coastal management decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ROZ BROWNTexas News Service HOUSTON \u2014 When the coronavirus pandemic ended in-person activities at the estuary reserve in Texas, researchers buffed up their technology skills to keep students, educators and the general public engaged. Jace Tunnell directs activities at the Mission-Aransas Reserve, located in the coastal bend of Texas. He says the COVID-19 shutdown put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11789,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11787\/revisions\/11789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}