Equipment for Facilitating Movement on an Intertidal Mud-flat

Abstract

IT is probable that the lack of literature relating to intertidal mud ecology as compared with other intertidal habitats is due, in part, to the restrictions placed on movement by the softness of the substratum. Yonge¹ reported that at Stolford, Bridgewater Bay, the shrimp fishermen, whose nets were secured on soft banks of mud, used a type of sledge or ‘mud-horse’, which they pushed in front of them. The sledge served the double purpose of preventing them from sinking deeply into the mud and of carrying back the catch. Barnett (personal communication) used mud shoes of his own design to aid movement.