Last weekend, Bahamas National Trust (BNT) made headway in their Rapid Ecological Assessment of Cross Harbour, Abaco. This REA will gather important ecological data to help establish a baseline for long-term monitoring activities and the creation of the proposed Cross Harbour Protected Area. A group of volunteers headed out on Friday, August 20th, to tag and recapture previously tagged bonefish. Tiffany Gray, lead outdoor educator for Cape Eleuthera Institute, helped in the tagging of 199 bonefish on Friday. The rest of the tagging crew continued through Sunday with at total number of 578 bonefish tagged!
Students from the US and Puerto Rico came to the CEI campus for a week of working with researchers in the Shark, Flats, and Turtle Programs. Here is an update from each group.
Campers tagging and measuring a fish.
Flats Team: Campers working the with flats team got a crash course in learning about flats ecology, mangrove ecosystems, and the economic and ecological importance of one target flats species, the bonefish. They gained experience seining, where they caught bonefish and lemon sharks and were able to practice tagging and releasing. Campers also got to try their hand at fly fishing on the flats, and each group caught a few bonefish. Continue reading →
Last week Justin Lewis, from Grand Bahama, Zack Jud, from Florida International University and Tiffany Gray, from Cape Eleuthera Institute, worked with Cassandra Abraham at Friends of the Environment in Marsh Harbour, Abaco on a flats program with local students from Abaco. This flats program was like a shorter version (just 3 days) of our 7 day sleepover Flats Week summer program at Cape Eleuthera Institute. It gives students a chance to not only learn the basics of flyfishing, but also immerse themselves into the ecology and conservation of the flats ecosystem. We had 5 students, all Bahamians, participating in the course.The program started out on Tuesday, August 13th, with an informational presentation on bonefish and flats ecology. Zack and Justin also spent a bit of time that first day teaching students the basics on flyfishing where they had the chance to practice casting, some of them for the first time! That afternoon we headed over to Great Cistern to do an introduction on methodology and how to use the seine net. We saw lots of turtles, a shark, and caught some shad (mojarra), crabs, shrimp, and other fun stuff in the seine net.
Measuring a bonefish.
The second day we tagged 20 bonefish around Crossing Rocks, about 12 miles south of the Marls. Clint Kemp from Black Fly Lodge in Schooner Bay took us out with two of their flats boats for a beautiful day on the water. After tagging and doing a little fishing, he took us over to the Black Fly Lodge to check out their facilities. It was very quaint and personal lodge, right on the newly developed Schooner Bay. Clint provided a wealth of information on not only what it’s like to be a top notch fly fishing guide, but also some of the background on the development of the unique “Live, work, and play” community of Schooner Bay.
Check out their website:
Black Fly Lodge - http://www.blackflylodge.com/
For the last day, we headed out flyfishing to get more practice using the fly rods and to catch a few bonefish. We went out in Cherokee Sound with local guide Buddy Pinderand found LOTS of bonefish. Those spooky Cherokee bones are known to be tough to catch, but we did have two students get the chance to catch two bonefish that morning! Once the tide got a little high for fishing, we had lunch at the Pinder’s house in Casuarina. Students then learned to make their own flys to take home and use next time they are out fishing!
This blog was written by the 18 incredible students visiting us from Maine.
Campus Life
Students at Lighthouse Beach
The Island School/CEI is located in Cape Eleuthera. The campus faces the water with exotic beaches and fish-filled boat launches as a part of its grounds. Everything about the campus is energy efficient, from its compost at meals to their homemade biodiesel for the vans. The food waste is fed to the pigs on campus and the rest is composted and used for their gardens. The gardens are then used for meals creating the basis of permaculture. We’ve already become aware of the energy we waste every day and can’t wait to put our new energy efficient methods to use at home.
Research
Students socializing at the sand bar.
A big part of our experience here on Eleuthera has been conducting research through the Cape Eleuthera Institute (CEI). Our Camden Hills students have been split into three different research groups, led by CEI researchers: conch, bonefish (field), and another bonefish team (lab). The Oceanside-Medomak students are studying patch reefs, and the effects of their complexity on the abundance of fish. All four groups will be presenting their findings to an audience of peers, interns, researchers, graduate students, and staff next week. Continue reading →
CEI just completed the second Eleuthera Explorer’s Camp this summer! Camp culminated with presentations for parents at Island School. This gave campers a chance to share what experiences got them most excited throughout the week and to show their parents a tidbit of what they have learned.
The first day started out with a snorkel and sustainable systems scavenger hunt to get everyone acquainted to campus and life at The Island School. Later, they got to do some kayaking, Bahamian dance, and attend a presentation from our plastics research enthusiast, Miss Kristal Ambrose.
Campers in the Deep Creek Explorers Camp explore the mangroves.
On their second day, they had a chance to go on a discover scuba dive! This is for youngsters who are not certified yet but still want to try their hand at breathing underwater. Even Gwyndolyn Domino, who is already open water certified, got a chance to get another full dive under her belt. The day continued with a reef snorkel and presentation on shark ecology.
Space 2 Create, a non profit summer day camp for the youth of Harbour Island, Eleuthera, joined forces with The Cape Eleuthera Institute to initiate Space 2 Explore, a program based around marine ecology and conservation. Founded in 2007 by William Simmons (DCMS Teacher), this comprehensive youth development program aims to enhance the academic, artistic and character development of young people on Harbour Island. Students this summer explored diverse marine habitats under the guidance of Cape Eleuthera Institute researcher Kristal Ambrose and DCMS teacher Carola Walker in partnership with divemaster Shawn Springer.
Students’ eyes were opened as they learned to identify countless organisms in the habitats they explored and also grasped the importance of these threatened ecosystems. These activities were not only academically enriching but helped students to build character as they faced their fears and accomplished things they never thought possible. This learning experience is highly relevant, as Harbour Island is experiencing the pressures of rapid development. It is important that the next generation understands the role of conservation in sustainable development.
The conch team performs snorkel transects in the shallow waters off CEI beach.
Due to overfishing for food and export, The Bahamas are one of the only countries with a large population of queen conch left, and we are very keen to try and protect them as best we can. One major issue is the lack of enforcement, with juveniles being fished illegally throughout South Eleuthera. Removing juveniles means they never have a chance to reproduce, and the population suffers.
Team member Rey measure conch siphonal length.
To try and understand how the local population is doing at the moment, the conch team (consisting of Newcastle undergraduate Rey and conch intern Holly, with the help of others!) has been conducting snorkel surveys of the shallow areas off Cape Eleuthera, which have been shown to be nurseries for juvenile conch. The data will be compared to a study that was done in 2003 (Clark et al. 2005) in order to get a 10 year comparison, and an idea of how the population is responding to the increased fishing pressure of the last decade. Continue reading →
The lionfish are ready for their GoPro camera close-ups!
As the crew from Mark Hixon’s lab at Oregon State University round the halfway point of their summer field season here at CEI, the team has already logged almost 200 dives while conducting their underwater research. Ph.D. student Tye Kindinger has started a brand new project this summer investigating the interactive effect of invasive lionfish predation on competition between two native species of basslets. Fairy and blackcap basslets are popular fish in the aquarium trade due to their bright and beautiful color.
Brightly colored blackcap and fairy basslets may be small and cute, but their aggression towards each other could lead to increased vulnerability to lionfish predation.
Off of Eleuthera, these basslets can be found on coral reefs, where they live under the same ledges and potentially compete for plankton (food) that is passing by. Invasive lionfish could affect these populations of basslets depending on whether lionfish prefer to eat one species of basslet over the other. In addition, aggressive behavior between the basslet species due to competition could cause one basslet species to be more vulnerable to lionfish predation, depending on where lionfish prefer to hunt under ledges. Continue reading →
The 2013 Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists was held July 10 -15 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The American Elasmobranch Society participated by hosting 5 days of shark and ray research presentations, and was attended by CEI Research Manager Annabelle Brooks. Topics covered the latest research on the movements, biology, physiology, reproduction and ecology of a variety of species, in the deep sea to shallow coastal habitats. The impressive list of presenters came from all over the United States and Europe, including many graduate students.
Three presentations focused on studies conducted at the Cape Eleuthera Institute. Dr. Jeff Stein, University of Illinois, presented the results of the shark population surveys conducted at ‘the bridge’ over the last 2 years, which show an increase in the abundance of Caribbean reef sharks in the area over the last 30 years. Dr. John Mandelman, New England Aquarium, presented the ongoing study investigating the impact of longline capture on the physiology of sharks, and Ian Hamilton, Memorial University, presented the data he collected during his Masters project conducted last year at CEI. Finally, two past Shark Research and Conservation Program interns attended to present their Masters research projects – congratulations Alexandra Pickard and Jimmy Kilfoil.
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