WoRMS Philanthropy grants 2022
During 2022, the VLIZ Philanthropy program was able to issue three grants to support WoRMS editors in making WoRMS more complete. This resulted in about 18.000 edits and additions to WoRMS and its sub-registers.
LifeWatch collaborates with all-women expedition studying orcas and whales above the Arctic circle
This winter, LifeWatch provided a key contribution to a citizen science initiative studying marine ecosystem change, orca and whale behaviour in northern Norway, 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, during the winter herring run.
LifeWatch citizen scientists got in-depth training on plastic
SeaWatchers closed the year-end of 2022 in an educational way. They took part in the 'plastic' training which zoomed in on the importance of collecting 'marine litter' data, the optimisation of the current protocol and through which methodology they can also provide data at European level.
ZEEKERWETEN, the first citizen science festival at the coast
How to involve citizens in biodiversity research? And how can we show citizens the beauty and the importance of the diverse fauna and flora in the Belgian part of the North Sea and the coastal area? ZEEKERWETEN, the first science festival at the Belgian coast, lifts the participation of citizens in science to a higher level.
The Big Seashell Survey shows remarkable differences between Belgium and the Netherlands
Saturday 19 March 2022, about 750 citizens collected more than 38.000 shells on Belgian beaches, with a top-5 in line with the results of the 2021 edition. For the first time, the Netherlands joined this citizen science initiative and collected another 22.000 shells, showing remarkable differences between both countries.
Join the 5th edition of the Big Seashell Survey at the Belgian beaches!
Who is not fascinated by shells on the beach? Picking up shells, admiring them and trying to find out the story behind the find. And if at all possible, to give science a helping hand at the same time. That is what the Big Seashell Survey is all about!
LifeWatch citizen scientists trained in ‘identification of fish from beach waters’
In November, the enthusiastic citizen scientists of the SeaWatch-B beach observation network were offered another opportunity for in-depth training. This time, the focus was on identifying small fish in the beach waters. Recently Seawatch-B is included as a citizen science project within LifeWatch VLIZ.