Take a bite out of lionfish at the 14th annual REEF Florida Keys Lionfish Derby & Festival, coming up on Sept. 7-10. The event features two full days of lionfish hunting, plus a family-friendly lionfish festival.
REEF Fest 2023 is coming up on October 19-22 in Key Largo, Florida. Join us for free, educational ocean seminars, diving, snorkeling, kayaking, nature tours, and socials! You can see all the details and register at www.REEF.org/REEFfest. We're excited to host free ocean seminars at Murray Nelson Government Center on Oct. 20 and 21. Our seminar speakers include:
August is here, and for many, this means back to school season. To kick off the school year, we are hosting a virtual Educator Workshop for REEF Programs, on August 17 at 7pm EDT. All educators are invited to attend this webinar to learn more about REEF education resources including Virtual Field Trips, available for grades 3-8, and Virtual Case Studies, designed for high school students. Visit www.REEF.org/fishinars to register for the webinar. Did you know that REEF also has a special newsletter designed just for educators?
The 2023 REEF Discover the Sea Underwater Photography Contest is coming soon! Starting September 1, all photographers, regardless of skill level or experience, are invited to submit their best ocean-themed photos for this year's contest.
Each year during the full moon, more than 15,000 Camouflage Grouper, Epinephelus polyphekadion, converge in French Polynesia to spawn in the early morning hours. They are joined by hundreds of sharks, including gray reef sharks, whitetip reef sharks, oceanic blacktip sharks and lemon sharks. The sharks take advantage of this massive gathering of large-bodied grouper to feast on distracted individuals.
REEF Field Survey Trips are eco-vacations led by marine life experts. Each trip features daily dives and fish ID classes for both beginners and experienced surveyors. Divers, snorkelers, and families are all welcome. If you're looking for a trip to start the new year, there is still space on our upcoming trip to Grenada this winter, on January 27 – February 3, 2024. With its large variety of dive sites, Grenada is known as the dive capital of the Eastern Caribbean. Colorful reefs and spectacular shipwrecks filled with fish life will thrill all types of divers.
REEF online programs are free and open to everyone! Here's what's coming up this month:
Meet our August Fish of the Month, the Redspotted Hawkfish, Amblycirrhitus pinos!
Survey Regions: The Redspotted Hawkfish is found in the Tropical Western Atlantic region. Click here to view the REEF database sightings report for this species.
Size: They grow to about 4 inches.
We are excited to welcome Dr. Jen Loch to the REEF Team! As a Research Associate, Jen works directly with the REEF Conservation Science program, and oversees the field implementation of the SMILE project, an initiative to incorporate fish size estimates into the REEF Volunteer Fish Survey Project using camera technologies. Jen comes to us with an extensive background in fish ecology. She holds a B.S. in biology from Florida State University and an M.S.