New educational DVD/Book sets added to the REEF store! - These beautiful materials can help start grooming future generations of REEF surveyors and create good stewards of the environment. Perfect gifts and ideal for use in the classroom. The Dive Into Your Imagination by Annie Crawley entertains and educates children about the amazing natural world in the oceans. The DVDs are all bilingual and you can choose English or Spanish narration or a special track featuring just the music.
Greetings REEF Friends,
Summer is now in full swing! Thank you to everyone who donated during our Summer Fundraising Campaign last month. While we didn't quite make our goal of raising $30k in 30 days, we came close. The offer by our Board of Trustees to match incoming donations is still open so it's not too late to double your impact to help support REEF’s critical marine conservation work. Donate Today through our secure online donation form.
The Volunteer Survey Project is at the center of REEF's citizen science programs. It provides thousands of divers and snorkelers the opportunity to contribute information on the status and biodiversity of ocean populations. The Survey Project also serves as a training opportunity in many formal and informal education programs. In this issue of REEF-in-Brief, we feature high school students on both sides of the US who are learning first hand how to conduct fish surveys and analyze their results.
Make a dive trip that counts - in Bermuda, October 3- 10, on the Fish Behavior Tour! World-renowned marine naturalists, Ned and Anna DeLoach, authors of Reef Fish Identification and Reef Fish Behavior, will join local expert REEF instructor, Judie Clee, and Chris Flook, Collector of Specimens for the Bermuda Aquarium, as your trip leaders. Ned and Anna will schedule slide and video fish presentations about the wonderful world of marine life behavior and fish identification. This is an excellent destination for your non-diving friends and family as well.
The 18th Great Annual Fish Count (GAFC) is now in full swing. There are GAFC events being held around the country. One of the largest and longest running is held in the Northeast US. Over 100 divers are expected to converge at Stage Fort Park in Gloucester, MA, on July 25, for the 8th annual Northeast GAFC event. The celebration, hosted by The New England Aquarium Dive Club and REEF, will include survey dives, a picnic, free raffles and door prizes.
In 1997, REEF surveyors discovered a colony of garden eels during survey dives in the Gulf of Mexico that didn't' look quite right to be the usual brown garden eel. After sending images and ultimately a specimen to Dr. John Randall, the mystery species was identified as a new species of conger eel, the yellow garden eel (Heteroconger luteolus). The description of the new species was published in 1999.
This publication describes a new (to science) species of coral reef wrasse found by REEF surveyors at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS). This species was nicknamed the "Mardi Gras wrasse" by sanctuary staff due to the bright purple, yellow and green coloration of the terminal male phase. The fish was originally discovered at the East Flower Garden Bank by members of a REEF survey team in 1997, and has been periodically observed (primarily at Stetson Bank) since that time.
On Saturday morning, June 20, SCUBA divers will converge on Coral Street Cove, a popular dive site in Pacific Grove, to collect marine life population information on the nearshore rocky reefs. The surveys are part of two citizen science programs that train volunteer recreational SCUBA divers and snorkelers to conduct field surveys - REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation, www.reef.org) and Reef Check (www.reefcheck.org).
We hope you enjoy this special edition of REEF-in-Brief, in honor of World Oceans Day, which was celebrated worldwide yesterday. First proposed in 1992—and unofficially celebrated since—World Oceans Day was declared by the United Nations to be recognized on June 8th every year starting with 2009. REEF's commitment to understanding and conserving the world oceans is reflected in our goal to protecting marine life through education, service, and research using volunteer citizen scientists. In this issue, we announce the launch of the newest Online Data Entry interface.
We are excited to announce the launch of Online Data Entry 2.0. The new version includes several upgrades and now encompasses all of REEF's project regions. At long last, our REEF surveyors in the Tropical Eastern Pacific region (Baja Mexico - Galapagos Islands) and the Northeast US & Canada (Virginia - Newfoundland) are able to submit their survey data online. In addition, based on feedback from our members, the interface to add unlisted species has been greatly improved.