- REEF Hats! Just Added to the REEF Store. Check them out and get yours today.
- The 2009 Field Survey Schedule has been updated with several new trips, including a second trip to Cozumel this December and Bermuda with Ned and Anna DeLoach in October 2009.
The 5 P’s, Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance and hindsight give you 20/20 vision, both play into REEF Trips. Keeping these mantras in mind, let’s talk about the 5 P’s first.
On August 13th, Lad Akins, lead on REEF's lionfish efforts, was an invited presenter to the Caribbean Fisheries Management Council and other meeting attendees at its bi-monthly meeting in St Croix, USVI. The council is charged with advising the National Marine Fisheries Service on regulations and issues related to commercially valuable marine life species in Puerto Rico and the USVI of St. Thomas, St. John and St Croix.
While every one of REEF’s 10,000+ volunteers who have conducted a survey as part of the Volunteer Survey Project are Making Dives That Count, there is a small cadre of surveyors who have taken their passion for fish and critter watching to the next level. They are the volunteers, those most active in each of REEF’s project regions, who have actively strived to move through the REEF Experience Level system, often becoming REEF Experts and members of the Advanced Assessment Team (AAT).
As any veteran fish surveyor is well aware, dive travel is the spice of fishwatching. No matter how many dives you’ve made, or how many species you’ve recorded a visit to a new destination will send you scurrying for your ID books. That was certainly the case during back-to-back REEF Field Surveys held in St. Vincent during early August.
$425 pp + $250 REEF Program Fee for 5 nights at Safari Inn and 4 days of 2-tank diving on their big boat, round-trip transfers. Arrive in Cozumel Saturday December 13 and depart Thursday December 18. The group will be diving Sunday through Wednesday. Sheryl Shea will teach her terrific fish ID classes with a dash of fish behavior sprinkled on top to make your stay a great learning experience and heaps of fun!
REEF's critical research on lionfish is currently featured as a video story on the National Geographic Daily News website. This video story follows a series of stories by the Associated Press earlier this month, as well as on the daily cable show Fox Live Desk and NBC Nightly News.
Dear Reef Members:
REEF staff recently returned from the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where nearly 3,000 scientists, conservationists, and government officials met to compare notes, network and identify problems and solutions for the ocean's most delicate ecosystem. This is the keystone scientific meeting on coral reef science. REEF Director of Science, Dr. Christy Pattengill-Semmens, gave a talk on the science and management applications of the REEF database and presented a research poster on the same topic.
