Sea urchins, cucumbers, starfish and other invertebrates released at Armours Beach

On other days they are flimsy plastic beach buckets, but on Monday they were vital transportation vessels occupied by aquatic invertebrates ready to be ferried back to the wilds of Howe Sound. 

The Nicholas Sonntag Marine Education Centre held its second Animal Release Day at Armours Beach on April 1, inviting the public – in this case mostly children and families – to release creatures that had spent months at the aquarium located at Gibsons Public Market.

Last release day, the wharf at Armours Beach had been installed, but not this time, so the centre used its divers and enlisted the help of outriggers from the Gibsons Paddle Club to transport the specimens to the appropriate depths.

The intertidal invertebrates released included green, red and purple sea urchins, leather, blood and mottled sea stars, whelks, marine snails and sea cucumbers that had spent months in the aquarium’s touch pool habitats.

“This is a really good time to release animals,” said Maddison Proudfoot, animal health manager and one of the release day organizers. The growing season for algae and seaweed has begun. “There’s going to be lots of food available and lots of habitat for them to be sheltered in.”

The centre is one of four in Canada that follow a “collect and release” approach, where animals are taken from their natural habitat temporarily and then released back into the wild.

Release days are intended to involve the community, said Emily Cook, the centre’s education coordinator. “We do not want to keep animals in captivity for their entire lifespan,” she said.

“If a child doesn’t get a chance to interact with animals right at the shoreline or in the ocean … they often can make the assumption that those animals are from and live in the aquarium and that’s where they belong,” explained Cook. By taking part in Animal Release Day, “they get to hands-on complete the process of returning these animals back to the ocean where they belong,” she said.

“This is a way in which we can foster more education around these animals for people who don’t get a chance to interact with them in their natural habitat.”

That was the case for Taho, a Grade 4 student with a purplish-red sea cucumber in her bucket. She’s been up close to them at the aquarium before, but this was her first release day. “[I’m] happy, because it gets to go to its home again,” she said.