Here's what we're up to in the coming months:
October 31- November 3: DEMA Show in Orlando, FL. Come visit us at both 1133 and you could win a signed print by Tom Isgar by partaking in our DEMA raffle to help raise funds for REEF.
November 11-17: Conservation Week with Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas in Nassau with Ned and Anna DeLoach, Bruce Purdy and Andy Dehart
As we continue to showcase our valuable interns, I mentioned in last months newsletter that we would introduce our remaining fall intern.
Thanks to a grant from The Russell Family Foundation, we are in the middle of a year-long initiative to actively engage new REEF surveyors in the region and to provide incentive to our existing surveyors to stay active and move up through the ranks of the REEF Experience Level system. We have teamed up with PNW REEF instructor, Janna Nichols, to coordinate a series of free training workshops throughout Washington and Oregon.
Working with leading scientists, REEF's lionfish field work is paying off in valuable information needed to address this key issue. Information from the five Bahamas projects conducted thus far this year is being used to help determine the range and extent of the lionfish invasion, as well as to address key questions on age/ growth, reproduction, genetics, parasites and habitat preference.
Six volunteer divers from the REEF Advanced Assessment Team (AAT) surveyed two sites off the Aquarius Reef Base in Key Largo, Florida, to assist the National Marine Sanctuaries Program (NMSP) with the science component of the Aquarius 2007 Mission: If Reefs Could Talk. Aquarius, the world's only undersea laboratory, is part of NOAA's National Undersea Research Program (NURP) and sits seven miles off shore at Conch Reef.
REEF just completed our first bona fide New England Field Survey this past week. It was a big success and really ended up being a reconnoitering expedition to determine how REEF can better translate our Fish Survey Project to the Northeast where there are plenty of divers getting out in the water but very few who conduct surveys. There is also a seasonal effect for the northeast in that the fish all hibernate or leave when the water temperature drops to around 50 degrees Fahrenheit, leaving a 7 month fish surveying season in most areas (April-October).
A team of Pacific REEF Advanced Assessment Team (AAT) divers recently conducted a week-long project conducting surveys of fish and invertebrate communities along the rugged outer coast of Washington. The Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary covers over 3,300 square miles of ocean off Washington State's rugged and rocky Olympic Peninsula coastline. Sanctuary waters host abundant marine life. A small but important stretch of coastline along the Strait of Juan de Fuca features some of the best diving in Washington State, but is rarely visited b
Hello and Happy September! We are pleased to unveil the 2008 Field Survey Schedule in this edition of REEF in Brief, as well as fill you in on some of the important field work that we have going on around the REEF survey regions. Learn about the fifth year of monitoring at the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary in Washington, new and growing partnerships with the New England Aquarium and others in the northeast, a collaborative research project at the world's only undersea laboratory in Key Largo, and the results of ongoing exotic species work on lionfish in the Bahamas.
REEF announces the release of the 2008 Field Survey schedule. Click here to see the flyer and read more information on these unique eco-expeditions, including contact information for each trip.
