Sixth grade students listen to a presentation on lionfish.
Tiffany Gray, the Lead Outdoor Educator at CEI and Franchesca Bethell, a lionfish intern at CEI and a former BESS Island School alumni, recently had the opportunity to teach the awesome sixth grade class at Wemyss Bight Primary School about lionfish awareness. The students first followed along with the lionfish presentation which gave them insight into the invasive species in the western region of the world. They listened attentively and weren’t afraid to ask LOTS of questions during the presentation! Continue reading →
Bonefish tagging has been taking place on a large scale in the south of Andros this week. Zack Jud from the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust and Stacey Dorman and Carl Treyz from the Cape Eleuthera Institute with the support of Andros South aim to tag, measure and release as many bonefish as possible within a four day period. This tagging study is part of a Bahamian wide project that is investigating the movements and growth rates of bonefish. In addition, clients and guides from Andros South (i.e., Deneki Outdoors) and fishing lodges throughout the country will contribute to this study by re-capturing tagged bonefish in the future..
Before lunch time on the first day, Stacey and Carl had helped tag over 200 bonefish, with the total reaching around 600 by the end of the second day. The largest bonefish caught to date is just over 24 inches or 610 millimeters. Between netting bonefish, dodging storms, sighting turtles and dolphins and kicking back at the fishing lodge, Stacey and Carl are having a great time exploring the ecosystems on Andros. By the end of this research excursion we hope to tag over 1,000 bonefish, stay tuned!
Zack Jud (BTT) showing Deneki guide Sparkles how to tag a bonefish.by
Fall is off to a fantastic start in Educational Programs! CEI jumped back into the academic year with two amazing weeks of programming. Along for the ride were our students from Round Square, a collaborative group of 17 young adults from Canada and Massachusetts, followed by Palm Beach Day Academy of Florida.
The Round Square group dropping the Medusa
Round Square ambassadors spent time on Eleuthera before heading to the annual Round Square conference. Students focused on their “IDEALS of learning: Internationalism, Democracy, Environment, Adventure, Leadership and Service” while at CEI, and investigated the concept of what it means to live and travel well. Round Square students had the once in a lifetime opportunity of launching the Medusa with the Shark Research team, along with dissecting a lionfish, conducting shuttle box experiments, and surveying the local beaches for marine debris.
Round Square group playing with kids at the resource center.
To emphasize the international element of the program, CEI organized and launched a Round Square-DCMS Plastics Seminar! The day began by pairing each Round Square student with a DCMS student, and quickly launched into round table discussions on plastics pollution and its impact on environment and our bodies. All DCMS and the Round Square students were insightful and reflective on plastics in daily life, and each left with recycled plastic jewelry to remind them to keep continue thinking about plastic’s role in our world. Continue reading →
The idea of a Gap Year is to take a step back to view the big picture. To take a step back to look at where you’ve come from, where you’ve gone and see where you’d like to go. To take a step back so you can take the right steps forward.
The program here came to an end last week, culminating in the students Demonstration of Learning and Graduation ceremony. Over the past nine weeks Eryn, Ryan and Jordan have made profound change in their own lives and of those surrounding them.
Whitney Knowles is a sophomore at The College of The Bahamas, majoring in Small Island Sustainability with a focus in Marine Science. Initially, Whitney worked at CEI as an Aquaculture and Aquaponics intern, followed by a stint as an Educational Programs Apprentice from February to August, but now she has taken on the role of Aquaculture and Turtles Research Apprentice.
Her current duties include grading tilapia, organizing feeding rates and schedules, collecting fry, getting involved in outreach with DCMS, setting BRUVS for turtle research, tagging and releasing turtl,es and habitat mapping. Whitney’s future goal is to leave CEI with all the knowledge and experience that she has gained, and apply it to her daily life, and to inspire others to do the same. Next summer she is planning on resuming her education at the College of The Bahamas, then moving on to attend Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada to study Marine Biology and fisheries conservation. Good luck to her in the future, and we are lucky to have her talents a work right now at CEI!
With every researcher at CEI always on the go, managing their own research projects, they hardly have time to get a feel for other projects going on at the institute. Luckily this is changing, as once a month all researchers will come together and take part in a different research project. The goal is for each CEI researcher to have a good understanding of all of the great research being done at CEI.
This past week the team assisted fellow researcher Kristal Ambrose with her beach plastic project. The team managed to survey two beaches for the long term project; Kristal aims to determine how plastic moves over time in between beaches here in South Eleuthera. The CEI team helped contribute to Kristal’s growing dataset, learning new survey methods, and getting firsthand exposure to the plastic pollution that threatens the beauty and health of the island. A good time was had by all. Stay tuned for the research team’s next adventure!
Miss Kristal Ambrose, CEI’s Marine Plastic Pollution Specialist, and Tiffany Gray, CEI’s Lead Outdoor Educator, made a visit to 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students at North Eleuthera Primary to talk about Pollution and Plastics. Students had a blast learning about some of the threats to their marine resources, as well as acting out the North Pacific garbage patch! Kristal and Tiffany also had the opportunity to speak with the 2nd grade class briefly before heading out to Spanish Wells.
Spanish Wells was a successful visit as our team checked in with the 12 grade geography class to assist them with a comparative coral reef study that they will be conducting for the Bahamas General Certificate Secondary Examination, a national exam for local high schools. CEI will be continuing on with outreach efforts in North Eleuthera on Oct 17 where students from both schools will get to visit mangroves and coral reefs.
Dr. Bill Louda (PI) and Aaron Schultz, a co-PI and director of the Cape Eleuthera Institute, visited 3 marine laboratory facilities between August 13-18, 2013. The major part of this trip was a visit (Aug. 13-16) to the Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) on the Island of Little Cayman just south of Cuba. Following their return to Miami Florida, they then visited two labs in the Florida Keys (post to follow).
CCMI (LCRC) is built very close to the shore line on the northern side of Little Cayman. The outer reef (~ 150 – 175 yards offshore) rising out of hundreds of fathoms of water was effective in decreasing hurricane storm surge several times and it is predicted that future storms, without the influence of sea-level rise, will only push saltwater up under these structures and not into the first floor level.
Dorms over work/dive shop with the NSF-FSML funded lab building being built in the background.
The lab area occupies about one-third of the first floor of the yellow building. The rectangular 1/3 of that floor is itself divided into 3 separate labs, each about 10 x 20 feet (this is from memory, not measurements). In this way, wall and bench linear footage (space) is maximized and lab functions are segregated. This concept should roll into the plans for laboratory upgrades / building at CEI.
Thanks to Dr. Carrie Manfrino, CCMI President and Director of Research for coordinating the visit. Continue reading →
This fall the gap year team has undertaken the task of completing Fall 2013 shallow water conch surveys. Once complete this data will be a part of a larger effort to conserve this economically and culturally important species.
The sites we are surveying are in the Bight of Eleuthera; there are 18 sites total, and so far 10 have been completed. They involve snorkeling three transects, each 30 meters in length and 2 meters wide, and counting and measuring the conch we find. So far the juveniles are pulling through, and almost 100% of the conch found have been juveniles, demonstrating the environment still able to support the nursery for this species.
The surveys prove to be quite exciting, and we have spotted a plethora of other species while surveying (such as lemon sharks), and there are a lot of Echinoderms who share their habitat with the queen conch. During the surveys we are often fighting strong currents, dodging an array of jellyfish, and dealing with the hot sun. However, as tough as these times are we know we are doing something awesome for this gastropod.
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