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1932. Since then, eelgrass has slowly recovered and during the 1980's 

 has shown dramatic increases in abundance. 



The recovery of eelgrass in the Westport rivers has not been 

 steady, and like several other shallow embayraents in Buzzards Bay, there 

 have been great fluctuations in eelgrass abundance during the last 50 

 years. Because of insufficient spatial and temporal coverage of aerial 

 photographs, poor image quality, or water transparency, changes in 

 eelgrass abundance could not be quantified for the entire estuary. 

 Nonetheless, a brief description of available photographs demonstrate 

 some features of changing eelgrass abundance in this estuary. 



The earliest photograph (13 December 1938) has poor image quality, 

 high water turbidity, and taken near high tide. There is virtually no 

 eelgrass apparent on this photograph, and it is unclear if the absence 

 of eelgrass is an artifact of poor imagery, or due to the September 26 

 hurricane. A few shoals near the mouth are visible, however, and do not 

 have eelgrass beds that appear on later photographs. 



A June 1942 photograph sequence shows eelgrass widely dispersed in 

 the bay, but the beds are small. In the East Branch, numerous circular 

 patches 5 - 30 m in diameter are aggregated on submerged sand bars, with 

 more continuous beds stretching along channels. Eelgrass was 

 considerably less abundant in the West Branch during this period, and 

 the most prominent beds grew in the north end of the bay, around Great 

 Island, and near the mouth of the estuary, particularly north of Bailey 

 Flat. The upper estuarine limit of eelgrass in the East Branch was 200 

 m north of Upper Spectacle Island, and 100 m north of Great Island in 

 the West Branch. 



