Introducing our March 2021 Fish of the Month, the comical and adorably plump Spiny Lumpsucker!
Be sure to check out REEF’s online programs to help keep you engaged in marine conservation from home. Here's what is coming up:
Fishinar: Common Fishes of the Western Indian Ocean
Thursday, March 25 at 8PM EDT
Christy Semmens will be teaching about common fish species seen in the Western Indian Ocean and how to identify them.
Register here.
Mark your calendar and plan to join us later this year for our annual in-person events, including:
Calling all lionfish hunters! The 2021 REEF Lionfish Derby Series will kick off with the 8th Annual "Locals" Lionfish Derby on April 23-25 in Key Largo. This Earth Day Lionfish Derby will allow participants to practice social distancing while encouraging the removal of invasive lionfish from Florida Keys waters.
Registration is open for the second annual Fish Out of Water Virtual 5K! From June 7-13, 2021, we're encouraging ocean enthusiasts everywhere to get moving in the name of conservation. You can choose to run, walk, hike, bike, or even swim, completing the 5K (3.1 miles) in one day or throughout the week. No matter how you participate, it’s great way to get active in your community while making your miles count. Last year, nearly 500 people joined in our inaugural 5K, and we're hoping to increase that number this year.
REEF is proud to highlight one of our outstanding Conservation Partners: Scuba St. Lucia at Anse Chastanet Resort. REEF Conservation Partners are active organizations and dive shops committed to protecting marine environments worldwide. As valued REEF ambassadors, they serve as centers for marine conservation actions, outreach, and education. You can view the full listing of Conservation Partners or register your organization as a REEF Conservation Partner here.
New findings from the Grouper Moon Project reveal how technology can advance our understanding of changes in fish spawning aggregations due to conservation actions. The paper, published this year in ICES Journal of Marine Science, presents size data collected over a 17-year period at the Nassau Grouper spawning aggregation on Little Cayman. Fish usually need to be caught to be measured, but scientists from the Grouper Moon Project have used video camera systems to collect an impressive dataset on Nassau Grouper lengths.
We are pleased to announce Rhoda Green as our 2020 REEF Volunteer of the Year. Rhoda lives in the Seattle area, and has been a REEF member since 2000. She is one of REEF's most active surveyors, having completed 1,210 surveys for the Volunteer Fish Survey Project.
Of those surveys, the majority have been done in the Pacific Northwest, mainly in Washington State. She has also done some surveys in Hawaii. Rhoda was also the first to conduct REEF surveys in the Seychelles, part of our Indian Ocean/Red Sea (IORS) region.
Instead of flowers and chocolate on Valentine's Day, why not give your loved one a Whale Shark instead? REEF Conservation Creatures allow gift givers to symbolically adopt an ocean animal in honor of a special person in their life. Conservation Creatures are iconic species that highlight the diversity of ocean ecosystems and encourage understanding and respect for marine life. There are plenty of animals to choose from, including Sea Otters, Flame Angelfish, Manatees, and more.
Since last week, our partners at the Cayman Islands Department of Environment have been busy in the field, conducting multiple dives each day on the Nassau Grouper spawning site on the west end of Little Cayman. Since 2002, this site has been the focus of our collaborative conservation effort, the Grouper Moon Project. The team has been performing visual assessments, collecting size estimates through stereo-video, and capturing images of individual fishes for our "Fish Faces" project, which uses artificial intelligence to measure population size.