We have tagged many bonefish around South Eleuthera (around 2500 fish) over the last few years, and several more over the last three months off Abaco and Grand Bahama (a little over 1500 fish). To fill in the gap in effort between those sites, however, we recently took our seines and tags up to the north end of Eleuthera. Working out of the Rainbow Inn, our FAVORITE home base in all of Eleuthera for field work outside of CEI, Dave Philipp and Chris Haak from the Fisheries Conservation Foundation and Mickey Philipp, an IS SP09 alum and current sophomore at University of Vermont, teamed up with Zev Wasserman and Gershom Rolle from the Rainbow Inn to hunt the wily bonefish on the flats around the Current, way up at the northwest tip of Eleuthera.
Because Gershom seemed to know exactly where bonefish were going to be hanging out, we had great luck, tagging over 300 fish in our first net haul (just south of the road) and almost 200 in our second haul (over on Current Island). On the island, Jonathon Rahming, a local resident that was justifiably concerned over strangers netting fish in front of his house, gave us his perspective on fisheries, evolution, and life in general…a fun and enlightening experience. We then moved to Corrie Sound, where our efforts were not nearly as successful (or physically easy!). At the end of two days, however, we had tagged over 500 fish in a great location to test bonefish movements — both down island to the Cape and across the deep water of the Bahamas strait to Abaco or Grand Bahama Island. Continue reading →
CEI staff came together with Island School and Deep Creek Middle School staff to celebrate the Cape Eleuthera Foundation. The day included an afternoon of fun activities and a beach BBQ and bonfire. Here is a clip from the Lionfish team, who went out collecting live lionfish and spearing!
The Historic Project shark team has begun to examine and compare the preliminary results from the November 2012 expedition with the previous two expeditions. The data from both November expeditions seems to show similar patterns of a higher Caribbean reef shark species abundance compared to tiger sharks; the two dominate total species captured for this project. This is the opposite of the historic data, as tiger sharks historically had a higher abundance.
The total catch for November 2011 was 52 sharks over 5 scientific longline sets. The catch per unit effort (CPUE; number of sharks caught per unit of time) from November 2011 was 0.12 Caribbean reef sharks per hour, dominating catch rates at 79% of the total catch. The CPUE for tiger sharks was 0.02 sharks per hour and 17% of the total catch, with the rest of the catch consisting of silky sharks. November 2012 total catch was 36 sharks over 4 research sets. CPUE for Caribbean reef sharks was 0.07 sharks per hour, comprising of 86% of the total catch. The remainder of the catch consisted of tiger sharks, with a CPUE of 0.01 sharks per hour. Due to rough weather the crew was only able to set 4 research lines, resulting in a fewer number of sharks in November 2012 than 2011, although the numbers are still comparable. Interestingly, the March 2012 expedition showed a more equivalent species catch rate. Thirty-two sharks were caught over 6 sets, with Caribbean reef sharks’ CPUE at 0.039 sharks per hour and 47% of the total catch, and tiger sharks’ CPUE at 0.044 sharks per hour and the rest of the total catch. Continue reading →
In association with Microwave Telemetry, Inc. and the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, Edd Brooks and CEI’s Shark Research and Conservation program have discovered new findings while studying the migratory behaviors of ocean whitetip sharks that can help shape conservation strategies. Some sharks spend extended time periods in the protected waters of The Bahamas yet roam long distances when they leave. For the full article, read below or click here.
As the nations of the world prepare to vote on measures to restrict international trade in endangered sharks in early March, a team of researchers has found that one of these species – the oceanic whitetip shark – regularly crosses international boundaries. Efforts by individual nations to protect this declining apex predator within their own maritime borders may therefore need to be nested within broader international conservation measures.
The research team, which included researchers from Microwave Telemetry, Inc., the Cape Eleuthera Institute, and the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, attached pop-up satellite archival tags to one male and 10 female mature oceanic whitetip sharks off Cat Island in The Bahamas in May 2011, and monitored the sharks for varying intervals up to 245 days. The tags recorded depth, temperature, and location for pre-programmed periods of time. At the end of the time period, the tags self-detached from the sharks, and reported the data to orbiting satellites. Their findings, published online today in the journal PLOS ONE, show that some of these sharks roamed nearly 2,000 kilometers from the spot where they were caught, but all individuals returned to The Bahamas within a few months.Continue reading →
Here is a short bio on Lionfish Research and Education Program intern Elizabeth Underwood:
I’m originally from Atlanta, GA and my passion for marine biology research really took off when I was a senior in high school and conducted a year- long research project on the behavior of the whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium. I graduated from Davidson College with a BS in Biology and also played Varsity soccer there. Davidson doesn’t offer a marine science program but they do have a great herpetology lab, so I spent the majority of my senior year conducting research on a variety of reptiles and amphibians. I focused primarily on the feeding ecology of diamondback terrapins living in the salt marshes of southeast United States and hope to have my research published in a journal in the next year.
To get my marine science research “fix” during college I participated in the School for Field Studies program on South Caicos the spring semester of my junior year, and had the time of my life. This is when my interest in lionfish research began and I haven’t looked back since. I spent a week this summer in Belize on a REEF lionfish collecting research trip, collecting hundreds of lionfish throughout the week and spending late nights on the back of the boat measuring, dissecting, and filleting the fish. Continue reading →
The Island School and CEI’s journey to becoming a zero-waste campus while extending the
concepts of this model to our neighbors on the island of Eleuthera has taken patience, but we are
now excited to announce we are one step farther.
This particular initiative began in 2010 as CEI outreach collaborated with the Deep Creek
Homecoming Association at its annual homecoming festival “Conch Fest” using the tagline “da Creek gone green”. CEI worked diligently with the food vendors to source products that promoted sustainability and were a viable alternative to using Styrofoam. The venture was particularly challenging, as sourcing the right company to provide the products proved difficult. The import duty on Styrofoam-alternative products was 45%, which made using these to replace Styrofoam was an unattractive and expensive option for the average resident. Through generous sponsorship, CEI provided the products to the vendors, which drastically reduced the cost of going green. Continue reading →
An excerpt from the Gap Year Student update from Gapper Will Fox:
Beach Plastic One of our last activities of the week was on beach plastics with Kristal. We started in the presentation room, watching Kristal’s presentation on her experience researching the Pacific Ocean gyres. We then went out to a beach in Wemyss Bight to do some surveying. The results we got were pretty surprising — we found a ton of micro plastic pieces in each of the quadrants we surveyed in. The microplastics came from larger pieces of plastic in the ocean breaking up, a current environmental issue that researchers at CEI are hoping to learn more about in order to affect change both locally and globally. Continue reading →
Last week, 22 middle school students from the Lillian and Betty Ratner School in Pepper Pike, Ohio visited The Islands School and CEI. Over the course of the week, Ratner dove into our various programs on campus. Many of the students experienced snorkeling for the first time, visiting our off-shore wreck, the reefs off fourth hole and the mangroves of Paige Creek. This group also learned firsthand about plastic pollution circulating throughout the worlds’ oceans through a plastics workshop with our own plastic guru Kristal Ambrose.
The final days of this energetic group were filled with lionfish dissections , permaculture explorations, cutting lettuce in the aquaponic grow beds, and getting a real taste for the sustainable lifestyle of our community. Continue reading →
In an effort to reduce the amount of organic waste produced by the various branches at CEI that utilize the wet-lab facility, a Caribbean Spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) ranching project was initiated in mid-December 2012.
Mature wild-caught lobster were housed in one of the vacant holding tanks in the wet-lab and fed off-cuts, old dissection specimens and any other organic material that would have previously been discarded. Due to a lack of published information on ideal stocking densities and holding conditions, another objective of this study is to determine the optimal levels of the above mentioned parameters. A number of capture methods were tested. These include baited cages, pole-snares and by hand. The latter two methods have thus far been the most effective.While the primary focus of this project is waste management, a secondary focus is an attempt to capture Spiny lobster pueruli, pre-settlement. Pueruli refers to a life stage in the lobster between larvae and juvenile. These pueruli are then transported back to the lab, where they are also fed organic waste produced by the lab, chopped into a finer form than that which is given to the mature specimens. Continue reading →
tags up to the north end of Eleuthera. Working out of the Rainbow Inn, our FAVORITE home base in all of Eleuthera for field work outside of CEI, Dave Philipp and Chris Haak from the Fisheries Conservation Foundation and Mickey Philipp, an IS SP09 alum and current sophomore at University of Vermont, teamed up with Zev Wasserman and Gershom Rolle from the Rainbow Inn to hunt the wily bonefish on the flats around the Current, way up at the northwest tip of Eleuthera.
in front of his house, gave us his perspective on fisheries, evolution, and life in general…a fun and enlightening experience. We then moved to Corrie Sound, where our efforts were not nearly as successful (or physically easy!). At the end of two days, however, we had tagged over 500 fish in a great location to test bonefish movements — both down island to the Cape and across the deep water of the Bahamas strait to Abaco or Grand Bahama Island. Continue reading 
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