Conservation of an urban jewel:
Assessing the impacts of human activities in Pippy Park, St. John's, NL
What did we do?
We set out to find exactly how much waste lined the trails of Pippy Park, and to see if this waste was affecting the quality of the water in nearby streams.
- We counted dog faeces along several trails to estimate sources of contamination. These trails varied from high to low use based on observed popularity of the trails and from suggestions from park authorities.
- We also recorded observations of how many dogs we saw using each trail, and used these numbers to verify our previous designation of each trail as "high" or "low" use.
- Then we took water samples from sources along each trail and measured concentrations of E. coli and other coliform bacteria to determine the amount of faecal contamination in the water. We did this by growing the bacteria on screening plates called Petrifilms (TM).
The red boxes show the trails that were sampled within Pippy Park. The trails sampled were:
1. Allandale Road
2. Kent's Pond
3. Long Pond
4. Rennie's River
5. Three Pond Barrens
6. Allandale Road hydro pole line
7. Oxen Pond
Photos (left to right):
Top - Plastic waste bag tied in a tree, ducks in Kent's Pond, dog faeces along a trail
Bottom - Collecting water samples, a sample bacteria plate, one of the many trails sampled within the park
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