Today I headed down to Waitotara, about 90 minutes south of New Plymouth. I was there to help Kate and Erin from Taranaki Regional Council with their estuary monitoring programme. One thing you can rely on at a Taranaki estuary is MUD! We took 12 core samples of mud from a particular area, and we put them through a sieve which got rid of the mud and sand and left us with the animals that lived there. The animals help them to keep track of the health of the estuary. We found lots of mud crabs, snails, and tiny bivalves similar to pipis. Often there are seaworms too. Sometimes you have to look hard to find what lies beneath, and there was far more in the mud than I expected. Next time you go to Mokau or Urenui, think about all that life that lives beneath the surface.
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