As Deb Thiessen tries to lift a wriggly California sea cucumber the size of plump French bread, there is no doubt Witty’s Lagoon is home to all creatures great and slimy.

Hundreds of kids and adults streamed to Witty’s beach for a hands-on look at local marine life, from jumpy brittle starfish, to big ornery crabs, to nudibranch blobs and inert gumboot chiton.

Thiessen and other CRD Parks staff manned wading pools teeming with sea life for Marine Day, an annual event that gives kids a chance to see and touch tidal zone life while sneaking in a lesson or two on marine conservation.

“It’s about celebrating marine life and fostering an ethic around beach exploration that doesn’t harm the animals,” said Reed Osler, a CRD Parks interpreter. “It’s about how to have a minimal impact.”

Susanna Solecki, with the Sea Change Marine Conservation society, said beaches like Witty’s are home to urchins, barnacles and creatures hugging virtually every nook and cranny of ground, meaning people need to tread carefully.

If people lift rocks, she said, they need to be put back in the same spot, in the same orientation to keep barnacles from suffocating. Urchins glued to rocks in inter-tidal areas are easily killed or damaged underfoot. Unearthed clams need to be returned to their hole, as they’ve spent their lifetime digging to that spot.

“A lot of people don’t recognize every animal on the beach has its own tidal pool,” Solecki said. “Let it loose in a different tidal pool and chances of survival decrease dramatically.”

Osler and Solecki stressed that kids are encouraged to explore the beach and the creatures that make it home, but the lessons are about doing it in a respectful way.

“We show how to explore in a way that is safe for creatures,” Osler said. “If they pick up a creature they should put it under the same rock they found it. People have to realize these creatures have homes too.”

CRD Park's Marine Day has been a summer staple for more than 10 years, and Thiessen has been on hand for all of them. With nearby bluffs feeding earth to the ocean, Witty’s is a beach that is never the same from one year to the next, she said.

What was once a largely sandy beach has been scoured away into rocky outcrops by tidal action and sand from the bluffs, she said. Underwater fields of eel grass migrate over time, taking with it fish and other life that use it as a sanctuary.

Thiessen said the ecosystem has remained healthy, although new creatures have taken root. Ballast clams carried in Asian cargo ships have made the beach its home, as has a carnivorous snail that can drill holes into clams.

Events can also happen in the blink of an eye. One morning earlier this year the beach was covered in thousands of dead and dying baby squid, Thiessen said.

“A storm had blown them in that night. Thousand so squid covered the beach but the next day there wasn’t one to be seen,” she said. “It’s always changing here. We always find species we don’t recognize. There is such diversity and variety.”

editor@goldstreamgazette.com