Sable Island:  The Beach    

(August 2002)

Sable Island is unique in being located well-away from the mainland and in close proximity to both the Gully and the edge of the continental shelf.  The area is influenced by the northeasterly flow of the Gulf Stream passing south of the island, the southwesterly flow of the Nova Scotia Current passing west of the island, and the Labrador Current, and formed between these currents is a large, persistent and slow anti-clockwise gyre, roughly centered on Sable Island.  The gyre entrains floating material such as plastic litter, oil, seaweed, carcasses of marine animals, and other debris, some of which is eventually washed ashore. 

The island, being roughly 40 km long, has 80 km of uninterrupted sandy beach, and this, combined with its location, restricted access and lack of large scavengers, makes the island a useful platform for various monitoring studies dealing with marine issues.  Monthly surveys for oiled seabirds have been carried out since 1993; beach accumulations of all types of man-made marine litter were studied in the late 1980s and surveys for certain types of litter have continued; and since the mid-1990s, beach surveys for stranded cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises), for extralimital occurrences of harp and hooded seals, and for shark-killed seals have provided information about species distribution and seasonal trends.

In addition to observations collected in the above studies, beach searches also turn up interesting, and sometimes puzzling, natural and man-made `specimens'

Click on thumbnails for more information

Results of beach surveys, references

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