Meet January's Fish of the Month, the Potter's Angelfish (Centropyge potteri)!
Survey Regions: Endemic to Hawaii - found only in REEF's HAW (Hawaiian Islands) region!
Size: Up to 5 inches.
Identifying Features: Rusty orange head and back, darkening to bluish black on the lower sides. The entire body is covered with irregular gray-blue lines.
Fun Fact: The Potter's Angelfish is named for Frederick A. Potter, director of the Waikiki Aquarium from its founding in 1903 until 1940.
There are just a few spaces remaining the REEF Field Survey Trip to St. Croix on April 18-25, 2020. St. Croix is part of the U.S. Virgin Islands and is known for amazing wall diving. Running along the northern side of the island, the wall begins in 25-40 feet of water and plunges to 13,000 feet below the surface. This weeklong trip includes 10 total boat dives, on the wall and surrounding reef sites. St. Croix is also home to the the Fredericksted Pier, located across the island. This shore diving site is known for unusual finds like frogfish, batfish and more.
This year, divers in Florida will once again sharpen their spears, hone their lionfish hunting skills, and map out their fishing grounds to compete in REEF’s 2020 Lionfish Derby Series. Their mission: remove as many lionfish as possible to compete for cash and prizes, plus the satisfaction of protecting native fish species. Since 2010, more than 40,000 lionfish have been removed through REEF supported derbies. Lionfish removals are reducing population densities locally; let’s keep the pressure on and protect our fragile reefs.
A new year is here, and we have already started planning for our annual REEF events:
REEF Fest: Oct 1-4, 2020 in Key Largo, Florida: Don't miss this four-day celebration of marine conservation! Events include diving, snorkeling, ocean-themed seminars, and parties. We are still working on the details for this year's event, and anticipate that registration will be available in a couple months. For now, please save the date - more information will be available soon!
We’re excited to introduce our Spring 2020 Marine Conservation Interns. These individuals will support the REEF team in mission-oriented tasks and daily office operations at REEF Headquarters, as well as play an integral role in many education and outreach opportunities, including the first Lionfish Derby of the year. This semester’s interns bring a unique set of skills and interests to REEF. They include:
This month, REEF is proud to highlight one of our outstanding Conservation Partners: Villa on Dunbar Rock and Cabanas on Clark's Cay, sister resorts located in Guanaja, part of the Bay Islands of Honduras. REEF Conservation Partners are active organizations and dive shops dedicated to protecting marine environments. As valued REEF ambassadors, they teach fish ID classes, host survey dives, organize volunteer events and more. With more than 80 partners across the country and beyond, there are plenty of opportunities to engage.
As 2020 gets underway, here are a few 2019 highlights from the Volunteer Fish Survey Project, REEF's citizen science marine life monitoring program, as of Jan 5, 2020.*
698 volunteer surveyors conducted and submitted 11,065 surveys in 2019. This number will definitely rise as members catch up on their backlog of data entry.
An additional 1,329 surveys were submitted in 2019 that were conducted in previous years.
It's a New Year and along with it come new Fishinars in our popular and free Fishinar program series. These online webinars are open to anyone, taught by experts and are mostly focused around fish ID with occasional other topics of interest for the waterlogged-at-heart. You can log in live from your laptop, desktop or even mobile device with the GoToWebinar app. All are recorded and free viewing after-the-fact is available to all REEF members as a benefit of REEF membership.
What they're saying about Fishinars:
This custom 10-night itinerary aboard the Rock Islands Aggressor is planned to coincide with a new moon, allowing us to dive a Bumphead Parrotfish spawning site. We conducted our first Field Survey in Palau in October 2016 and were astounded by the fish diversity, which included Reef Mantas visiting cleaning stations, huge schools of Unicornfish, and mating Mandarinfish.
Let's put our pectoral fins together for the following REEF members who have recently moved up an Experience Level in our Volunteer Fish Survey Project!
Volunteers have the opportunity to advance through 5 levels (Novice through Expert) within each of our survey project regions. Experience Levels are obtained by a combination of fish/invertebrate ID tests and numbers of submitted surveys. As they advance, their data is categorized in our online sightings database accordingly.
