As we celebrate this holiday season, I am happy to report that REEF is also celebrating another successful year of protections for ocean habitats and the critters that live in them!
Please take a moment to make sure REEF continues this critical work. You can contribute securely online at www.REEF.org/contribute or call REEF Headquarters at 305-852-0030.
With your support, we will build on twenty years of success. In 2014, REEF plans to:
We have lined up a great Fishinar schedule for 2014, including marine fish icons Milton Love and Ray Troll! We also will see an east versus west fish face off between Andy Lamb and Andy Martinez, a "Coralinar" and a "Crabinar", and more. Not sure what Fishinar is? These popular online REEF webinar training sessions provide fishie fun in the comfort of your own home. Fishinars are free, and open to all REEF members. You need to register for each session you want to attend. No special software is required, just a web browser. Upcoming sessions include:
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Thanks to the support of the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation (GHOF), REEF has announced that Adam Nardelli will be the 2014 Spring REEF Guy Harvey Intern. REEF chooses 12 individuals, out of hundreds of applicants, to intern at REEF each year. The goal of the intern program is to give future marine scientists and leaders an in-depth look at marine conservation programs, and gain critical career skills.
On December 3rd and 5th, REEF and the Cayman Islands Department of the Environment (DOE) held free educator workshops on Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac in the Cayman Islands. The professional development workshops presented the Grouper Education Program, a marine sciences curriculum for intermediate/elementary and high school students that was developed as part of the Grouper Moon Project. Nineteen teachers from 12 schools participated, including 2 schools from the Bahamas.
REEF Staff Dr. Christy Pattengill-Semmens (Director of Science) and Lad Akins (Director of Special Projects), joined over 300 scientists, resource managers, and fishers at the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute (GCFI) meeting last week in Corpus Christi, Texas. All three of REEF's major programs were represented.
REEF Field Surveys are a great way to take a dive vacation that counts! We offer trips throughout our project regions. The 2014 trip schedule includes many sites in the Caribbean and Pacific Northwest, as well as several Lionfish Research Expeditions.
Have you joined a Fishinar yet? These popular online REEF webinar training sessions provide fishie fun in the comfort of your own home. Fishinars are free, and open to all REEF members. You need to register for each session you want to attend. No special software is required, just a web browser. Upcoming sessions include:
We are excited to share a new scientific paper published last month in the journal PLoS ONE that included REEF data - Global Population Trends and Human Use Patterns of Manta and Mobula Rays, by Christine Ward-Paige, Brendal Davis, and Boris Worm. Despite being the world’s largest rays and providing significant revenue through dive tourism, little is known about the population status, exploitation, and trade volume of mobulids (Manta and Mobula species).
Thanks to support from the SeaDoc Society (http://www.seadocsociety.org), REEF has initiated a multi-year monitoring project around the San Juan Islands in Washington State. The goal of the 10-year project is to identify changes in sub-tidal fish and invertebrate communities. The project will use recreational SCUBA divers from REEF's Pacific Advanced Assessment Team (Level 4 and 5 Expert surveyors), conducting about 100 REEF surveys each Fall.
