Putting It to Work: REEF Presents at Rockfish Conference
By Christy Pattengill-Semmens, Ph.D., Director of Science
REEF Director of Science, Christy Pattengill-Semmens, and REEF Outreach Coordinator, Janna Nichols, attended a rockfish conference in Seattle earlier this week. The workshop, Rockfish Recovery in the Salish Sea: Research and Management Priorities, was organized by NOAA, WDFW, and the SeaDoc Society, and served as a venue for scientists, managers, and policy makers from throughout the region to share their work and help chart a course for future work. Christy presented an overview of REEF data collected throughout the Salish Sea, and showed distribution maps for 12 species of rockfish. The REEF Volunteer Survey Program expanded to the Northwest in 1998. To date, REEF volunteers have submitted 12,495 surveys from 781 sites throughout the Salish Sea. These data are a valuable information resource for those working to protect and restore declining rockfish populations. Several other active Pacific Northwest surveyors also attended the conference.
New Fishinars Added To Schedule
By Janna Nichols, REEF Outreach Coordinator
If you haven't had a chance to attend one of our Fishinars yet, you should! New sessions are continually being added, so check out the Webinar Training page (www.REEF.org/resources/webinars) to see the current schedule and to register for one or more sessions. These popular online training sessions (webinars) provide fishie fun in the comfort of your own home. Fishinars are open to divers, snorkelers, and devout landlubbers alike. Participation is free but you need to register for each session you want to attend. No special software is required, just a web browser. You don't need a microphone or a webcam to be able to participate. Great for first-timers or those wanting a review. Upcoming sessions include:
NORTHERN GULF OF MEXICO: DAPPER DOZEN Wednesday, February 1st at 5pm PST / 8pm EST
ROCKFISH ROCK Thursday, February 2nd at 6pm PST / 9pm EST
CARIBBEAN CRYPTICS Wednesday, February 15th at 6pm PST / 9pm EST
PACIFIC NW ADVANCED FISH ID Tuesday, February 21st at 7pm PST - Part 1; Wednesday, February 22nd at 7pm PST - Part 2; Thursday, February 23rd at 7pm PST - Part 3
NOT EXACTLY BUMS: FISH THAT LIVE UNDER FLORIDA'S BLUE HERON BRIDGE Wednesday, February 29th at 5pm PST / 8pm EST
PERPLEXING PARROTFISH Wednesday, March 14th at 5pm PST / 8pm EST
25 CARIBBEAN FISH YOU SHOULD KNOW Wednesday, March 28th at 5pm PST / 8pm EST
One Week Remains To Double Your Donation
By REEF Staff
There is just one week left to Double Your Donation as part of our Summer Fundraising Campaign. We are so close to reaching our goal of raising $60,000 in 60 days! Please help us in this final stretch, every donation counts! You can contribute through our secure website at www.REEF.org/contribute, mail your donation to REEF at PO Box 246 - Key Largo, FL 33037, or call us at 305-852-0030. Double your donation and ensure REEF’s marine conservation programs can continue. Your donation supports programs such as our free Fishinars, Volunteer Fish Survey database management, Lionfish outreach, and Nassau Grouper conservation and education. Thank you to all of our members who have donated so far to our summer matching campaign, and thanks to the generosity of the Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation for matching your contributions!
REEF's Marine Conservation Internship Program
By Martha Klitzkie, REEF General Manager
Many of you know that REEF helps out sea-dwelling creatures, but you may not know that we also help prepare our future land-dwelling leaders to deal with issues facing our marine ecosystems. Meet the faces of our Marine Conservation Internship Program! Every four months, REEF invites hundreds of applicants to compete for four internship positions. The chosen interns implement community outreach and education programs focused on reef fish identification and lionfish handling and collection. Interns also dive and volunteer with partner organizations in the Florida Keys. Examples of some average daily intern activities include computer data entry, helping to write and layout newsletters and flyers, packaging orders, answering phone calls and e-mails, greeting visitors at REEF Headquarters, biological assessment fieldwork and data analysis, community education and outreach, writing, artwork, and GIS mapping.
For more information on this program or if you know someone who would like to apply, please visit the Internship Webpage or email General Manager, Martha Klitzkie, at Martha@reef.org. Applications for the Fall internship are due June 15th.
Stocking Stuffer
By Kim Sovia-Crandon, Office Manager and Intern Coordinator
The holidays will be upon us before you know it and REEF is encouraging you to go on line to the REEF Store and purchase your holiday stocking stuffers like our beautiful note cards, wonderful books and DVD's. We still have plenty of Sensational Seas DVD's available as well. We recently updated the store with a large number of exclusive items that you can only get from REEF, so please check it out and put us on your shopping list as REEF funnels all proceeds to help fund our various programs.
We would also like to give our warm thanks to Eleanor Cavanaugh who is the artist behind our wonderful collection.
Welcome
By Leda A. CunninghamHappy holiday week! I hope you are looking forward to Thanksgiving and the upcoming holiday season.
REEF is pleased to bring you our monthly update on the many projects that continue to actively engage you, our valuable members, in marine conservation. Before we get there, though, I want to ask for your help in meeting an ambitious but critical goal to keep these projects going: please help REEF raise $100,000 by the end of the year. Please click here to make a secure, tax-deductible donation today.
Your support helped EEF Science Director, Dr. Christy Semmens, participate in the annual Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute meeting held earlier this month, where she presented the results of monitoring two artificial reefs in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Your support helped REEF Field Operations Director, Joe Cavanaugh, participate in multi-stakeholder training to protect coral reefs in Akumal, Mexico. Your support helped develop new online data entry for the Pacific and Hawaii REEF survey regions, allowing REEF to improve data management. Your support helped REEF promote the Volunteer Survey Project as a diver acquisition eco-activity to the dive industry at DEMA Show 2007. Your support helped to develop an innovative home study course to train divers and snorkelers in "fishwatching" and conducting marine life surveys. Your support counts for a lot at REEF! Please click here to make a secure, tax-deductible donation today.
Other items of interest this month include tips for using the new REEF.org website, a design contest for the 2008 Field Survey tshirt, important news about the REEF Store and interesting happenings at REEF HQ.
Enjoy your turkey and we'll see you next month!
Best fishes,
Leda
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Visits REEF HQ
By Leda A. Cunningham
On Tuesday, March 4, REEF was pleased to host Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen at its headquarters in Key Largo, Florida. Ros-Lehtinen represents Florida’s 18th district, including Monroe County and the Florida Keys. REEF Board and staff discussed the importance of training volunteers in marine conservation to preserving the long-term health of coral reefs in the Florida Keys and worldwide.
“I am thrilled to be visiting REEF and getting a look at their wonderful conservation and diving programs as this group is comprised of those who truly enjoy the beauty and serenity of the seas, divers and marine conservationists,” Ros-Lehtinen said.
The group laid out plans to train volunteers to conduct biological monitoring and assessment of key managed areas through the REEF Volunteer Survey Project. Ros-Lehtinen suggested presenting scientific findings in local schools and pledged to learn to do marine life surveys on her next visit to the Florida Keys. The potential threat posed by exotic invasive lionfish to the Florida Keys reef tract and ways to educate residents about the problem were also discussed.
“This is a great opportunity to share some of the important work REEF is doing to preserve the natural, national heritage of the Florida Keys coral reef ecosystem,” said REEF Executive Director, Leda Cunningham. “We are honored to have the Congresswoman at REEF HQ and look forward to working collaboratively on projects such as training volunteers to collect marine life data and keeping exotic invasive lionfish out of Florida Keys waters.”
Akumal Field Survey Report
By Audrey Smith, REEF HQ Volunteer
My husband and I recently joined 10 other REEF volunteers on a Field Survey to Akumal, Mexico. Akumal is located on the Mayan Riviera, quite near the Mayan ruins at Tulum, and about 60+ miles from Cancun, Mexico. Our time was filled with diving and conducting REEF surveys, fish identification seminars, exploring cenotes, and learning about sea turtle nesting research.
We stayed at Gran Bahia Principe Resorts, part of an international resort group, which is really 3 resorts in one and covers an enormous acreage on the ocean. The area was so large that one had to catch one of the resort’s trams to travel from one place to another. Sunny weather is the norm that time of year and we had no rain the entire week.
One of the interesting geographic features in this part of Mexico is the cenote, a type of sinkhole which connects to subterranean bodies of water and sometimes cave systems. The rainwater which fills the cenote is crystal-clear because it has been filtered through rock substrata and contains very little particulate matter. The REEF group had the opportunity to dive and snorkel several of these cenotes when ocean conditions turned too rough for dives on the reef, and it proved to be an amazing and unique experience! Since freshwater and salt water are both found in some cenotes, REEF divers surveyed some unusual fish, and experienced the sensation of diving through a halocline, a region below the surface of a body of water where there is a significant change in density due, in the case of cenotes, to increased salinity. Many of the divers described the experience of ascending from salt water into fresh as akin to a dream state. –“The fresh water was so clear, it was hard to believe I was still underwater!" Strange and unusual formations in the caves accentuated the dreamlike atmosphere. Illuminated only by divers’ lights, stalagmites, stalactites and columns stirred the imagination. Fish, bats and birds find a sanctuary in these caves.
Another unique element of Bahia Principe was a local environmental group, Eco-Bahia, whose members work with the resort to help preserve the stands of coral and other sealife found off the beaches. Eco Bahia’s representative, Diana Garcia Urrutia, explained to REEF members all the goals of their program, including the preservation of sea turtle nests. Many sea turtles, mostly Loggerheads and Hawksbills, return to Bahia Principe’s beaches each summer to dig their nests and deposit their eggs. Members of Eco Bahia along with community volunteers protect the turtles as they nest, then collect the eggs and rebury them in a safe, fenced environment just off the beach. When the baby turtles begin to dig out, Eco Bahia volunteers gather them up and bring in local school children who name each baby and send it safely out to sea with a kiss and a blessing. What an excellent way to assure that younger generations will have an emotional connection to the wildlife of their area!
The Akumal Field Survey was certainly a pleasurable and enlightening experience! To find out more about the REEF Field Survey Program and to book your space on a dive vacation that counts, visit the REEF Trips section of our webpage. To view photo albums from the Akumal Field Survey, click on these links: Akumal album 1, Akumal album 2, Akumal album 3, Akumal album 4. The Akumal Field Survey Data Summary is also available online.
Charter REEF Members Conduct Milestone Dives
By Christy Pattengill-Semmens, REEF Director of Science
Two of REEF's Charter Members, Douglas and Jane Rorex, recently returned from their annual dive vacation to Bonaire. Of course they conducted REEF surveys, documenting the rich fish diversity that is found on Bonaire's reef. But they also each made milestone dives during the trip. Douglas conducted his 3,000th dive and Jane conducted her 700th dive! Both were given medals from the dive resort and Ned and Anna DeLoach, who were in Bonaire for their annual Marine Life Education Program, signed their log books. Douglas and Jane have been with REEF since the beginning -- they are REEF Members 25 and 26. They participated in one of the very first Field Surveys that was held in May 1994. Douglas is a member of the REEF Advanced Assessment Team and has conducted over 350 surveys; Jane has conducted 85 surveys.
Douglas and Jane greatly enjoy their annual trip to Bonaire -- this was their 15th year! Some of their favorite fish finds include the common but always beautiful juvenile yellowtail damselfish as well as the more cryptic frillfin goby and candy basslet. Douglas also conducts surveys on deep reefs in Bonaire (140 feet+), where he finds sargassum triggerfish and striped grunt. Bonaire is also a great place to find frogfish. One of their favorite frogfish stories is about two frogfish that they found on a large coral head at the dive site Windsock. The female had been there for several weeks and was getting larger by the week (obviously ready to mate). One day as Douglas and Jane were hovering nearby, a smaller male frogfish came from underneath the coralhead, waddled over next to her and sort of nuzzled her. She responded by taking her left pectoral fin and giving him a perfect stiff arm. She really smacked him. The rejected male made a hasty somewhat dazzed retreat back to the underside of the coral head. Douglas looked up at Jane to see her practicing the stiff arm manevaure and considering adding it to her repotorie.
Congratulations Douglas and Jane!! Thank you for your enduring support of and involvement with REEF.
Tigers, Canaries and Chinas, oh my! -- Annual Olympic Coast Monitoring
By Janna Nichols and David Jennings (REEF Pacific Advanced Assessment Team Members)
REEF's Pacific Northwest Advanced Assessment Team (AAT) gathered in mid-August to survey fish and invertebrate life in the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS). Twelve divers conducted over 120 REEF surveys in the week-long project on Washington's northwest coastline, gathering data to add to the previous 7 year's worth that the project has generated. Twelve sites were surveyed by the divers. The Sanctuary is home to many colorful fish and invertebrates and is a popular spot for sport diving. It is also a popular spot for fishing and there is concern that biodiversity has been diminishing in the area, especially in some species of long-lived rockfish such as Tiger and China Rockfish. Data collected by the AAT will be helpful in tracking these population trends.
Members of the OCNMS REEF survey team were treated to a great week of diving and lots of exciting sights in this remote and wild part of Washington State. Whales were seen every day. Basket stars and giant pacific octopus were encountered by many. And about half the team conducted an optional night dive to remember off of Tatoosh Island in the open Pacific surrounded by Stellar Sea Lions. Projects like the annual OCNMS monitoring are a great way for active REEF volunteers to apply their skills and expertise. These projects are also just one more reason for REEF surveyors to improve their identification skills and increase their survey experience level.
A big thank you to the participating AAT members: Claude and Janna Nichols, Ron and April Theod, Jeanne Luce, David Jennings, Greg Jensen, Todd Cliff, Nick Brown, Pete Naylor, Lorne Curran and Stan Kurowski. Thanks to Mike Furguson and his great crew at Porthole Dive Charters and to Winter's Summer Inn for supporting the project. Funding for the project was provided by The Sustainable Path Foundation and The Russell Family Foundation.
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